File Path
Video, 2024
About the artwork
In a digital world where reality is warped by a flickering blue screen of death, a subway car hurtles through pixels, filled with glitches and blinking cursors. One passenger on this virtual train is a man, constructed entirely of cursors. He slides along the seats, surrounded by the remnants of the digital world that has shut down. The train screeches to a halt as if reality itself is collapsing. In the ensuing silence, the cursor-man steps out into an empty world where only a pixelated reality endlessly repeats.
AI generated music
Audio explanation
Listen to don't Buy discuss this work.
Don’t Buy is a visual artist who creates digital paintings, videos, and GIFs using artificial intelligence and mixed media. Embracing a moniker that itself subverts consumerist language, he approaches art-making with a hacker’s spirit – repurposing AI technology to explore the beauty of errors and the aesthetics of early digital culture. In his work, glitchy abstractions and retro graphics converge to address themes of identity and imperfection in the online era. “When a cold, mechanical machine makes a mistake, it becomes a little more human,” Don’t Buy notes, reflecting his view that technological faults can reveal human qualities. This philosophy underscores much of his art, which often highlights the serendipity of algorithmic mistakes and the nostalgia of outdated interfaces.
A participant in Fellowship’s AI art program, Don’t Buy has presented projects that encapsulate his ethos. Notably, his series 404: SELF NOT FOUND (2024) is an assemblage of AI-generated imagery probing our entanglement with digital identities and the nature of error. Through a mix of dark humor and experimental technique, he transforms mundane clicks and computer glitches into artistic meditation.