The article examines how contemporary artists are navigating a hybrid art economy where analogue and digital media converge, particularly in the age of AI. It profiles Simon Denny, recently appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, whose machine-assisted paintings at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin address the illegibility of AI-generated images and the militarized rhetoric of Italian Futurism. Other artists featured include Sara Ludy, whose postdigital paintings at Smart Objects, Los Angeles, reflect screen-based perception, and Chris Dorland, whose exhibition at Nicoletti Contemporary, London, exposes the limits of technical systems through glitch aesthetics. Hito Steyerl's new book *Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat* (2025) is also discussed, questioning the role of images in an era of operational, nonhuman vision.
This matters because it highlights a critical shift in the art world as AI and digital tools fundamentally alter image production, perception, and cultural oversight. The artists featured are actively resisting the homogenization of visual culture into undifferentiated digital "slop" by embracing hybridity—combining painting, computational art, and transmedia strategies. Their work raises urgent questions about human agency, militarized vision, and the financialization of images, making this article relevant to debates about art's role in shaping social and technological realities.