This project investigates the 'insatiable hunger' for data of AI, trained by labelling the data that make up datasets. These activities are often carried out unwittingly by web users, who are offered tests, sweetened by graphics and elements, such as kittens, that convey the feeling that they are doing something harmless. Through photos, frames, AI images and graphic interventions, I explored how systems designed for the security of users and web services (e.g. reCAPTCHAs) actually also contribute to enhancing AI based systems, for instance those of autonomous driving systems, but also in the military sphere (for obstacle recognition or target detection by wardrones). This generates a short circuit between what is supposed to be for protection and security purposes and what instead exploits human skills to train this new technology; between what is used to recognise a human being from a bot and what instead helps bots to imitate humans, in an increasingly accurate and alarming way.

Georgia is experiencing a highly tense political phase. Despite its historic ties with Russia, it has for several years expressed a clear aspiration toward the West, culminating in its official recognition as a candidate country for the EU in 2023. In recent months, the ruling party, Georgian Dream, seems to have reversed course: after bringing Georgia closer to the EU, it seems to have adopted a pro-Russian line, made evident with the passage in 2024 of the controversial law on “foreign agents”. The October 26, 2024 parliamentary elections, won again by the ruling party Georgian Dream, were disputed by the opposition and declared fraudulent by President Salome Zourabichvili. After the announcement of Georgian Dream to suspend the procedure for admission to the EU for 4 years, the protests resumed with greater intensity, but were often brutally repressed by the police. Many young Georgians and others are fighting for new, fair elections and a future in Europe.

The Antrona Valley (from the Latin antrum i.e. a deep, dark cave) is a territory which, for centuries, has been explored and excavated in search of gold and today boasts countless abandoned and forgotten mines. Here lies Viganella, a town of about two hundred inhabitants which, between 11 November and 2 February, for 83 days, is not illuminated by the sun, hidden behind the natural barrier formed by the valley, thus finding itself immersed in a constant shadow that changes colours and moods. The prolonged absence of the sun, as a reference but also a symbol of life and hope, provoked a visionary and poetic reaction: the installation of a large rotating mirror, on top of the mountain to the north, enabling the sun’s rays to be reflected onto the town. This year, however, after 15 years of operation, the mirror did not work, due to problems which have yet to be cleared up, leaving the town in darkness.

Broken Mirror is an artistic work that uses documentary language, in which I merged my vision of North Korea with that of an artificial intelligence, to which I explained in detail the result I wanted to obtain, repeating the operation hundreds of times for each image until I got an image similar to the one I had imagined. Starting from scenes from the daily life of North Koreans, I inserted a foreign element, in the form of insects that grow ever larger and more intrusive, to the point that they seem to have control over people. At the end, people turn into insects, thus completing the domain they have undergone. Broken Mirror is therefore the result of a compromise between me and AI, where the exceptionality of North Korean society, strongly influenced by one of the toughest totalitarian regimes in the world, which effectively isolates the country and its inhabitants, is represented through the insertion of an alien element, in a sort of Kafkaesque metamorphosis.

North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship based on the cult of the Kim dynasty. It's one of the most secluded countries in the world. Pyongyang, the capital, is the centre of all the resources and the country's ambition to boast a strong and modern façade. The incessant propaganda against the USA portraits the South Korean population as a victim of the American invasion; young generations live in a constant alert state as if the USA could attack any day. At the same time the propaganda aims at instilling a great sense of pride for the country's technical progression, fueled by the Supreme Leader and culminating in the atomic bomb and the subsequent tests. Pyongyang youngsters have been educated to be learned and knowledgeable people, especially in the scientific field, to foster the development of armaments and technology, chasing the dream of reuniting Korea in a whole and free state.