From the maker of The Wizard of AI, Dr Alan Warburton, comes a new artwork exploring what it means to live in a world driven by the obsession to see everything, all at once.
Image Empire is an animated fairytale about the fusion of the real and the virtual within contemporary AI models. Based on doctoral research undertaken at Birkbeck’s Vasari Centre for Art & Technology and designed for release on LinkedIn, it was commissioned by National Videogame Museum, in collaboration with the Open Data Institute and Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. The project has been made possible by The Space, supported by Arts Council England.
This project is accompanied by an accessible white paper that unpacks the fairytale and is tailored for use in educational and organisational contexts. It will be released on March 27th 2026.
Credits
Researched, written, animated, soundtracked and voiced by Alan Warburton.
Producer/Curator:
Hannah Redler-Hawes
Additional Animation:
Frank Mansfield
Christina S. Nerland
Alex Widdowson
Translation:
Omar Gabriel Torres Valencia (Spanish)
Jenn Leung (Chinese)
Raja Bagga (Hindi)
Voiceovers:
Jenn Leung (Chinese)
Anushka Nair (Hindi)
Emilio Sosa Estrada (Spanish)
Special thanks to John O’Shea, Keighley Cowood, Harmeet Chagger, David Dinnage and Maya Indira Ganesh.
