Image Syncers

In Image Syncers, Nina Davies speculates on a near-future where synthetic images not only structure visual culture but begin to dictate how bodies move, behave, and express themselves. Drawing on contemporary online phenomena – particularly TikTok trends where users mimic uncanny, AI-generated dance videos – Davies imagines a world in which people internalise machine logic, choreographing themselves to match computational aesthetics and the properties of generative AI imagery.

At the centre of the installation is a video narrated by two fictional podcast hosts, recounting the story of the “Plot Corps” – a shadowy collective attempting to physically transform their appearance to resemble AI-generated imagery. As the characters spiral into discussions of “image syncing,” “perception collapse,” and ontological uncertainty, the artist unpacks the recursive relationship between the self and synthetic imaging technologies. Identity becomes not just represented by images, but actively shaped and trained in relation to them.

By dramatising the breakdown of boundaries between human and machine, Image Syncers reframes the politics of visual representation. In this world, images are not just seen – they are identities to conform to and realities to adhere to. They open spaces for communication with algorithmic forces that reside in opaque black boxes, where glitches are no longer errors but can be interpreted as languages and forms of expression. Davies’ work captures the unsettling moment in which subjects no longer stand in front of images, but live within them – and communicate with them – negotiating certainty, agency, and legibility in an image world that operates autonomously from its physical index.