Amphibian
Video, 2025
About the artwork
The user’s body has become the body of an error — frozen before a massive aquarium: a screen, a window, a boundary. Slowly, another being emerges from the water — an amphibian composed of cursors. It is not just a figure; it is the result of adaptation. A symbol of digital evolution. This creature no longer fears water or screen — it lives in both worlds. Cursors form the cells of its body, assembled from clicks, transitions, and interface navigation.
It taps on the glass — like a user knocking on an inaccessible zone, like us, searching for an exit from the interface that once promised freedom.
A strike. A crack. And the flood begins. The glass between the digital and the physical finally shatters.
Sound design by don't Buy
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underscores much of his art, which often highlights the serendipity of algorithmic mistakes and the nostalgia of outdated interfaces.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.