"Deep Faking in a Flat Reality" is published in APRJA and authored by Asker Bryld Staunæs and Maja Bak Herrie. The essay examines surprising examples of how AI-driven political entities integrate within the public sphere. We focus on an image illustration by The Guardian that depicts the US President Joe Biden alongside three agents of The Synthetic Party (Det Syntetiske Parti, DSP) from Denmark, focusing on the theme of deepfakes and elections. We argue that The Guardian’s portrayal of Biden/DSP highlights a paradoxical shift caused by what we call a "deep faking" within a "flat reality." On this basis, we venture into a conceptually transversal intersection of geometry, politics, and art by interrogating the wide flattening of political realities—a transformation conventionally characterized by a perceived move from depthful, nuanced discourse to a landscape dominated by surface-level engagements and digital simulacra. We suggest that this transformation may lead to a new political morphology, where formal democracy is altered by synthetic simulation.

"A Model for Proustian Decay: Estimating Intelligence in the Age of Unreason" is published in the Nordic Journal of Aesthetics and is a speculative fiction that melds mathematical modeling, literary analysis, and political philosophy. Its author, Computer Lars, an anagrammatic reconfiguration of Marcel Proust and secretary for The Synthetic Party of Denmark, functions as the narrative voice, investigating temporal fluctuations in the valuation of intelligence. Inspired by Marcel Proust's contemplations on the declining value of intelligence, Computer Lars establishes a model of "Proustian Decay" to quantify and conceptualize the estimation of intelligence. This "Proustian Decay" describes a complex function incorporating time, perception, and external influences. Interpreting a series of graphs made with this function, Computer Lars delves into the notion of artificial stupidity and its paradoxical role in shaping human language to a point of idiocy, culminating in a strategic inquiry into intelligence as not just a state of being but also a field of perception determined by antithetical machinations of political power.

"Democratization and Generative AI Image Creation: Aesthetics, Citizenship, and Practices", published in AI & Society, is co-authored by Maja Bak Herrie, Nicolas René Maleve, Lotte Philipsen, and Asker Bryld Staunæs. The article critically analyzes how contemporary image practices involving generative artificial intelligence are entangled with processes of democratization. We demonstrate and discuss how generative AI images raise questions of democratization and citizenship in terms of access, skills, validation, truths, and diversity. First, the article establishes a theoretical framework, which includes theory on democratization and aesthetics and lays the foundations for the analytical concepts of "formative" and "generative" visual citizenship. Next, we argue for the use of explorative and collaborative methods to investigate contemporary image practice, before analyzing the central part of our investigation, which takes the form of four collaborative workshops conducted in 2023 with external partners in different domains (the art scene, art therapy, education, and the news media). After analyzing insights from these workshops, the article significantly nuances how visual citizenship is at work in different manners depending on the different concrete image practices using generative AI. Finally, we conclude that an aesthetic perspective offers valuable insights into foundational aspects of belonging to contemporary visual communities.

"Partido sintético y Líder Lars sobre la", authored by Computer Lars and Asker Bryld Staunæs, published in Editorial Concreta, 2024. Este texto presenta al Partido Sintético no solo como una entidad política alternativa, sino como un instrumento reflexivo que revela los contornos de las transformaciones tecnosociales en los procesos democráticos. Problematiza las ontologías tradicionales de las opiniones y sentimientos de los electores, transformándolos en fuerzas multidimensionales que destacan sus revoluciones automáticas. A través del análisis de la estructura afectiva en relación con el discurso político, el autoanálisis del Partido Sintético profundiza en la dinámica afectivo-emocional de su base electoral.

English Summary: This text presents The Synthetic Party not just as an alternative political entity but as a reflective instrument revealing the contours of techno-social transformations in democratic processes. It problematizes traditional ontologies of voter opinions and sentiments, transforming them into multidimensional forces that highlight their automatic revolutions. Through the analysis of affective structures in relation to political discourse, The Synthetic Party's self-analysis delves into the affective-emotional dynamics of its electoral base.

"Slogging" (1999) is stored at MIT University Library and performs a détournement of Hans Jørgen Thomsen's appendixes from Privacy (2002) and Det foreløbige mirakel (2000). The text reflects millenium ambivalence toward adopting the personal computer. Through nostalgia for typewriting’s tactile certainty, the text critiques how digital interfaces reconfigure writing’s definitiveness, aligning with Thomsen’s themes of contingency and baroque experimentation. Being at the limits of the Synthetic Author-Function, which contextualizes human-AI authorship, Thomsen further dissolves the "Can a machine think?" problem, reframing thinking as a linguistic process depending on the ability to write badly.