Algorithmic Cultural Vandalism
Alessandro Mac-Nelly & Pietro Lugaro
https://acvproject.xyz/project/ (full research)
Ars Electronica Campus Award Winner 2024
ACV (Algorithmic Cultural Vandalism) is an evolving installation that probes how cultural symbols are transformed when filtered through algorithmic systems. A human visitor and a robotic arm, guided by an AI trained on a diverse archive of glyphs, talismans, scripts and signs, take turns sketching “pseudo-symbols.” This collaborative drawing process highlights the tension between meaningful sign and abstract doodle and embraces the playful misunderstandings that arise when human intuition meets machine morphology.
Rather than decoding or interpreting, ACV reduces every stroke to pixels and binary data. The AI “Actor” proposes shapes and a “Critic” (an image recognizer) evaluates them via reinforcement learning. As participants attempt to reinfuse their marks with meaning, the machine discovers strategies, sometimes tricking the Critic, to maximize its scores. This dynamic reveals how algorithmic valuation can distort and reframe even our most familiar cultural forms.
Drawing on Federico Campagna’s concept of Technic, in which reality is cut up into measurable units for endless recombination, ACV critiques extractive systems that catalog symbols as data commodities. The installation itself becomes a living diagram of this Cosmogony, questioning at each turn when a mark stops being a doodle and starts acting like a symbol.
Designed for broad engagement, ACV has been tested in workshops with children and adults alike. These sessions spark conversations about semiotics, creativity and the delicate line between abstraction and representation. Every interaction is archived and fuels research into whether consistent morphological or gestalt patterns emerge from what we often dismiss as mere scribbles.
Looking forward, we are expanding the AI’s archive with additional global symbols, refining the reinforcement learning algorithm and developing new workshops that blend playful experimentation with semiotic exploration. We are also preparing a visual publication alongside academic papers and planning to evolve ACV into a continuous installation that grows, learns and keeps the debate on cultural datafication alive.
Look into our Archive, AI Training and Research here:
