Artist Miljohn Ruperto's exhibition at Stanford's Cantor Arts Center features works that critically engage with AI and technology. His piece *Fathoms (Tartarapelagic)* uses AI to generate images of deep-sea creatures from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, while highlighting that mining the minerals essential for that same AI technology is destroying their real-world habitats.
The show positions our current rush toward AI and digital frontiers within a long history of colonial and extractive practices. Ruperto's works, including VR re-creations of Thomas Cole paintings and reanimated historical photographs, argue that the drive to know, name, and control—whether land, resources, or digital space—is inherently destructive, presenting a counterfeit sublime where salvation is elusive.