Steph Maj Swanson - Artist, filmmaker, and critical AI commentator

About

Photo by Kristina Chap

Steph Maj Swanson is a multimedia artist, writer, filmmaker, and public speaker based out of Sweden. Widely known online as Supercomposite, she founded Supercomposite Images as the home for her creative work.

Follow Steph's social media channels for updates on current works and ongoing activities:

For general enquiries, speaking engagements, or commission requests, please email contact@supercompo.site.

Visual Art

LOAB™

Steph Maj Swanson gained international recognition as creator of the Loab cryptid. Steph's story about the character sparked global conversations about AI ethics and creative expression. Featured across major media outlets including Rolling Stone, Der Spiegel, Artnet News, BBC Radio, ABC, Forbes, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian Magazine.

Loab is a form of expression that has never existed before....

The Atlantic

The thread, with its genuinely interesting and unsettling elements combined with the mythos of an actual demon lurking within AI algorithms, is something that will probably have the movie rights auctioned off to Netflix by the end of the day.

Forbes

Loab might seem like standard creepypasta, but her origins are a whole lot more mysterious.

Rolling Stone

To learn more about Loab, visit loab.ai, read the original viral Twitter thread, or explore the archive of publications and media below:

Media Archive

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Origins & Artist's Websites

X (Twitter) – Sep 2022 – Original Loab thread
Artist Website – https://supercompo.site/
Loab Website – https://loab.ai/

Articles

Forbes – Paul Tassi, Sep 7, 2022 – AI Art: The Internet’s Latest Obsession With a Terrifying ‘Cryptid’
PC Gamer – Katie Wickens, Sep 7, 2022 – AI image generator births the horrific "first cryptid of the latent space"
IGN – Anthony Wood, Sep 7, 2022 – Meet Loab: The Terrifying Face The Internet Has Dubbed the First AI Art Cryptid
VICE – Janis Rose, Sep 7, 2022 – Why Does This Horrifying Woman Keep Appearing in AI-Generated Images?
Ebaum's World – Zach Nadding, Sep 7, 2022 – AI-Generated Horror Cryptid Is Both Intriguing and Terrifying
Open Data Science – Staff, Sep 7, 2022 – Everyone Meet Loab, the Internet's First Terrifying AI Cryptid
Distractify – Jennifer Tisdale, Sep 7, 2022 – "She Looks Like a Nice Computer-Generated Lady…" (EXCLUSIVE)
Wikipedia – Community-edited, Sep 7, 2022 – Loab
Creative Bloq – Ian Dean, Sep 8, 2022 – This AI art-generated woman is freaking out the internet
CNET – Jackson Ryan, Sep 8, 2022 – Loab, the Creepy AI Art-Generated Woman, Explained
Rolling Stone – Miles Klee, Sep 8, 2022 – Who Is Loab, the AI-Generated Apparition Haunting Our Timelines? - (archive)
The Daily Dot – Audra Schroeder, Sep 8, 2022 – Loab is 'an emergent island in the latent space.' It's also a meme
The Focus – Eve Edwards, Sep 8, 2022 – Loab dubbed 'the Blair Witch for multimodal AI' as fake demon goes viral
Metro – Jeff Parsons, Sep 9, 2022 – Terrifying AI-generated woman keeps appearing in images — and people are freaking out
Daily Mail – Fiona Jackson, Sep 9, 2022 – Ghost in the machine? Creepy corpse-like woman dubbed 'Loab' is haunting the internet after bizarre AI art goes viral
Artnet News – Dorian Batycka, Sep 12, 2022 – Meet 'Loab,' the Latest Example of A.I.-Generated Art Creeping Out the Internet
IFLScience – Staff, Sep 12, 2022 – "Loab": Why Does AI Keep Generating Images Of This (Slightly Terrifying) Woman
Analytics Drift – Sahil Pawar, Sep 12, 2022 – Strange woman dubbed 'Loab' keeps appearing in images created by AI tools
The Marker – Eli Kornetsky, Sep 13, 2022 – Meet Loab - (archive)
Smithsonian Magazine – Nina Raemont, Sep 13, 2022 – Who Is the Woman Haunting A.I.-Generated Art?
TechCrunch – Devin Coldewey, Sep 13, 2022 – A terrifying AI-generated woman is lurking in the abyss of latent space
The Mary Sue – Staff, Sep 13, 2022 – A New AI Demon Has Dropped, and Her Name is Loab
New Scientist – Matthew Sparkes, Sep 13, 2022 – Why do AIs keep creating nightmarish images of strange characters? - (archive)
The Sun – Tyler Baum, Sep 14, 2022 – Who is Loab? Terrifying AI-generated woman that lives in the abyss of internet explained
Hyperallergic – Sarah Rose Sharp, Sep 14, 2022 – Loab, the Internet's Latest Urban Legend, Is Worse Than Anything
Mysterious Package Company – Curator’s File, Sep 14, 2022 – Wednesday Weirdness: A Terrifying New Cryptid in AI Space
Dazed – Thom Waite, Sep 15, 2022 – Loab: the horrifying cryptid haunting AI's latent space
de Volkskrant (NL) – Laurens Verhagen, Sep 23, 2022 – De geest in de machine
Der Spiegel (DE) – Jörg Breithut, Sep 25, 2022 – Woher kommen die KI-Monster? - (archive)
The Atlantic – Stephen Marche, Sep 27, 2022 – We're Witnessing the Birth of a New Artistic Medium - (archive)
The Horror Report – Staff Writer, Oct 18, 2022 – Meet Loab: The AI image of your nightmare
The Mary Sue – Interview, Oct 20, 2022 – INTERVIEW: Meet Supercomposite, Creator of The AI Demon Loab
ABC Background Briefing — Ange Lavoipierre, Nov 25, 2022 — "A journey inside our unimaginable future"
Digital Journal – Paul Wallis, Nov 26, 2022 – Op-Ed: 'Loab' – AI-scripted ugliness and threats of 'reality collapse'
Boing Boing – Staff, Nov 30, 2022 – Who is "Loab" and what lesson about AI is she trying to teach us?
Region Media (AU) – James Coleman, Dec 30, 2022 – Macabre ‘Loab’ images prove how little we know about AI, new ANU research school says
Medium – Cerena Ceaser, Dec 19, 2022 – AI caught a case of the zeitgeists, what Loab’s arrival really means
ScienceAlert – Carly Cassella, Dec 25, 2022 – A Nightmare Face Is Haunting AI Art, And There's A Reason We Shouldn't Look Away
Galleries West – Sarah Swan, Dec 27, 2022 – You Want It Darker?
The Washington Post – Tatum Hunter, Jan 18, 2023 – When you should (and shouldn't) rely on AI tools - (archive)
WIRED – Joel Warner, Feb 21, 2023 – The ChatGPT Reincarnation of the Marquis de Sade Is Coming
Rue Morgue – Forest Williams, Sep 2023 – "Ghosts in the Machine: Meet Loab, A Recurring Nightmare That Crawled From The Mind of AI, and the World's First Cyber-Cryptid" pp. 18-19 - (coverage)
DailyAI – Sam Jeans, Sep 29, 2023 – Human Reflections in Digital Mirrors: What Does AI Tell Us About Ourselves?
Machine Mirabilia – Nicolas Nova, Professor of Digital Anthropology, Geneva University of Arts and Design, Dec 6, 2023 – Loab: haunted AI or creepypasta? or cryptid?
Der Spiegel (DE) – Interview, Dec 28, 2023 – »Jemand sagte mir, ich hätte einen Dämon erschaffen« - (archive)
Aya Data – Staff, Sep 24, 2024 – Digital Cryptids: How AI is Making Monsters
DN (SV) – Viktor Andersson, Oct 25, 2024 – "AI-demon" upptäckt av svensk – kan bli Hollywoodfilm
Yahoo News – ScienceAlert, Oct 31, 2024 – The Creepy True Story of The Nightmare Face Haunting The Internet
UNT (SV) – Maria Larsdotter, Nov 2, 2024 – Uppsalakonstnären om sin AI-demon "Loab": "Jag fick en chock"
Medium – Laika, Apr 24, 2025 – A Demonology of AI: Analog Horror, Animism, and the Living Death of God
Sciencing – Pauli Poisuo, Nov 8, 2025 – The Creepiest Things AI Bots Have Done
E‑Radio Greece – E‑Daily.gr Staff, Nov 28, 2024 – Το τρομακτικό πρόσωπο που στοιχειώνει το διαδίκτυο είναι μια γυναίκα που ονομάζεται «Loab»
UNILAD Tech – Tom Chapman, Nov 28, 2024 – The terrifying face haunting the internet is a woman called 'Loab'
Spike Art Magazine, Issue 84 (Summer 2025) – Dean Kissick, The Vulgar Image
Boing Boing – Ellsworth Toohey, Dec 13, 2025 – The AI-generated creature that won't go away
Pensierosecondario – Stefano Solventi, Dec 14, 2025 – Elogio dell'impertinenza tecnologica: Antimacchine di Valentina Tanni
Mindplex — RU Sirius, Dec 16, 2025 — "The Unseen Internet: Shira Chess Explores How Magic(k) Made the Internet Weird"

Radio

ABC News (Australia) – Nov 26, 2022 – "Loab is showing us the unimaginable future of artificial intelligence"

Podcasts

Cool Stuff Ride Home – Sep 7, 2022 – "Wed. 09/07 - The Haunting of Loab: AI's First Cryptid"
Implausipod – Sep 12, 2022 – "Icebreaker 0001: Loab"
Last Podcast On The Left – Sep 14, 2022 – "Side Stories: Loab"
Where Did the Road Go? – Seriah Azkath with Taylor Bell, Wren Collier, and Nathan Isaac, Oct 1, 2022 – "Magick, AI, and LOAB"
An Acquired Taste Podcast – Oct 12, 2022 – "This Creepy Woman Keeps Appearing in A.I. Art & Weird Science Headlines"
Squaring the Strange – Pascual Romero and Celestia Ward, Dec 5, 2022 – Episode 189 - "AI Cryptid" Loab and Lesser-known Lake Monsters
Creepypodden – Staff, Dec 12, 2022 – Avsnitt 199: Okuvad
HowlRound Theatre Commons – Tjaša Ferme & Ellen Pearlman, Mar 4, 2025 – Theatre Tech Talks: Creating Cinematic Opera with Artificial Intelligence

Videos

Professor Casey Fiesler (TikTok) – Sep 2022 – AI Ethics & Loab Analysis (Video ID: 7140789282028981547)
Nexpo (YouTube) – Oct 2022 – "The Disturbing Art of A.I." – Documentary exploring the discovery of Loab (Video ID: i9InAbpM7mU)
Vanishing Threads (YouTube) – Jul 2025 – "The Loab Case Study: Pattern Stability in AI Image Generation | Digital Anomalies." (Video ID: pM8j4DITv5M)

Academic Archive

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Journal Articles and Essays

Carter, R. A. 2023. "Machine visions: Mapping depictions of machine vision through critical image synthesis." Open Library of Humanities, 9(2), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.10077
Lucas, H. Jun 2023. "Negative capabilities: Investigating apophasis in AI text-to-image models." Religions, 14(6), 812. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060812
O'Meara, J., & Murphy, C. 2023. "Aberrant AI creations: Co-creating surrealist body horror using the DALL-E Mini text-to-image generator." Convergence, 29(4), 1070–1096. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231185865
Bailey, M. M. 2023. "Could AI be the Great Filter? What Astrobiology can Teach the Intelligence Community about Anthropogenic Risks." arXiv preprint, arXiv:2305.05653.
Ganesh, M. I. 2024. "Body machine." Gropius Bau Journal.
Hong, S. 2024. "Strategic misrecognition and speculative rituals in generative AI." Journal of Digital Social Research, 6(4), 92–106. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v6i440474
Martin, E. May 2024. "AI as Conduit: Digital Séance and the Revelation of Inhuman Intelligence in Latent Space." Plutonics: A Journal of Non-Standard Theory, XVII.
Martinod, J.-J. May 2024. "The Monstrous Archive." Plutonics: A Journal of Non-Standard Theory, XVII.
Priegnitz II, J. E. Jun 11, 2024. "The ghost in the machine: Loab, the uncanny, and AI-generated art." Culture & Tradition, 35.
Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, J. 2024. "What is creepiness, and what makes ChatGPT creepy?" Leviathan, 10. https://doi.org/10.7146/lev102024144284
Hau, M. F., & Krause-Jensen, J. 2025. "Virtually shamans: An anthropological perspective on AI chatbots." Anthropology of Consciousness. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.70011
Aguilar Alcalá, S. J. 2025. "Del fantasma en la máquina al fantasma de Freud: la inteligencia de lo artificial y sus fantasías." Tramas: subjetividad y procesos sociales.
Monin, M., & Sadokierski, Z. 2025. "Prompting as thinking-with: Using generative AI to visualise an extinct dwarf emu." ArteActa, 13. https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.2983332
Linssen, D. 2025. "The Machine in the Ghost: AI as a Lifeboat with Limited Spaces in a Vast Sea of Possibilities." Reflections on panel discussion "Animation and AI" at Uppsala Short Film Festival. Film Festivals And Their New Realities.
Stilinovic, M., Bailo, F., & Hutchinson, J. 2025. "Creative underspheres and democratic challenges: Exploring the implications of generative AI misuse." New Media & Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444825133851
Weaver, A. Mar 12, 2025. "Sisters, not twins: exploring artistic control and anthropomorphism through composing with a bespoke generative AI." AI & Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02291-0
Armstrong-Fumero, F. Nov 2025. "Manifesting Loab." Limn. https://doi.org/10.70312/QDGG
Epstein, V. Dec 2025. "Desire and Data: Metabolism of AI." Baltic Screen Media Review 13(1): 22–49.

Books, Chapters & Proceedings

Bailey, M. M. Mar 1, 2023. "Understanding and Mitigating the Long-Term Risks of AI Operationalization." Research Short, National Intelligence University, Ann Caracristi Institute for Intelligence Research.
Pfefferkorn, J., & Sunde, E. K. 2023. "Haunted AI." In Proceedings of xCoAx 2023 – 11th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X, pp. 222–236.
Persson, C. Nov 10, 2023. "AI learn, AI do: An art-historical study about the material-based abilities, agencies, and involvement in artistic processes of AI models." [Master’s thesis, Uppsala University, Department of Art History]. See chapter 4.9, Steph Maj Swanson (Supercomposite) – Loab (2022).
Publig, S. Sep 2023. "The Sympoietic Life of Internet Memes." [Doctoral dissertation, University of Applied Arts Vienna].
Broad, T. 2024. "Using generative AI as an artistic material: A hacker's guide." In Proceedings of Explainable AI for the Arts Workshop 2024 (XAIxArts 2024). ACM.
Walshe, J. 2024. 13 Ways of Looking at AI, Art & Music . Unsound.
de Seta, G. 2024. "An algorithmic folklore: Vernacular creativity in times of everyday automation." In Critical meme reader III: Breaking the meme (pp. 233–253). Institute of Network Cultures.
Moruzzi, C., & Campagner, O. L. 2024. "AI and art: Non-human, still human, or all too human?" In Artificial intelligence, co-creation and creativity (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003453901-10
Publig, S. 2024. "Bestiarium Memeticum." In Proceedings of xCoAx 2024.
Polack, P. J. 2024. "Paramediation: Algorithmic governance as the parametric design of perceptible phenomena." [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles].
Morgan, W. R. 2025. "The Dragon, the Witch and the Juggernaut: Towards a Philosophy of Generative AI." [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley].
Wu, Z. Aug 2025. "Alter Nature: Exploring Life in Computational Art." [Doctoral dissertation, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies].
Bruhn, M., & Weinstock, K. (Eds.) 2025. Generativität (Begriffe des digitalen Bildes, 6). Open Publishing LMU. https://doi.org/10.5282/ubm/epub.126472
Foka, A. 2025. "She Works, He Works: Critical Explorations of Gender in AI-Generated Representations." In Proceedings of ISEA 2025 – International Symposium on Electronic Art.
Graupner, R. 2025. "Loab revisited – Cultural reflections and technoid projections (English translation)." https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.32694.61762/1
Munster, A. 2025. DeepAesthetics: Computational experience in a time of machine learning. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478060529
Pearlman, E. 2025. "The Dybbuk, the Loab, latent space and multi-modal artificial intelligence." In Proceedings of xCoAx 2025. https://doi.org/10.34626/2025_XCOAX
Tanni, V. 2025. Antimacchine: Mancare di rispetto alla tecnologia. Einaudi. (book review)
Wu, Z., Ma, X., & Zhang, K. Dec 18, 2025. "Ghost of Life." In VINCI ’25: Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction, Article 37, pp. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3769534.3769593
Chess, S. 2026. The unseen internet: Conjuring the occult in digital discourse. The MIT Press. (author interview)

Academic Conferences

Western States Folklore Society Annual Meeting, Las Vegas – Apr 2023 – “The Ghost in the Machine: Loab, the Uncanny, and AI Generated Art” – John E. Priegnitz II, Utah State University
American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Chicago – Mar 2023 – "Cryptids in Latent Space: Loab and the 'Weirding' of Online Experience" – Anannya Mukherjee, University of California Irvine
International Deleuze and Guattari Studies Conference, Belgrade – Jul 2023 – "AI-Generated Face–LOAB as the Ghost in Cyberspace – Macabre D&G Faciality Resistance." Mirjana Stošić, Singidunum University
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Conference (SLSA), Tempe – Oct 26, 2023 – "Content rot as alien interruption: Wastepickers in Fiction and the Loab Phenomenon in AI-Generated Images" – Sayan Bhattacharyya, Yale University
International Federation for Theatre Research Conference, Manila – Jul 2024 – "Copious Gore and haunted machinery: Loab, Crungus, and the Spectacle of AI Cryptids" – Yaron Shyldkrot, University of Leeds

Syllabi

UCLA – 2023–present – "ENGL 116B Algo-Lit" – Prof. Daniel Scott Snelson
UCLA – 2025 – "ENGL M138.2 Web Writing Workshop" – Prof. Daniel Scott Snelson

Still & Moving Images

Steph's body of video and still image work was described by Galleries West as "the merging of repulsive with beautiful."

Recent work includes a series of cover artwork for STEMcell, an artist collective and record label featuring established electronic artists from labels including Houndstooth, Samurai Music, Monkeytown, and Aus. For the STEMcell releases, Steph developed a unique artistic process: "To create the artwork, an AI model was pummelled by analog waveforms from optical sound-on-film, causing sound information to heavily distort the fabric of the image."

Film

Director & Writer

Suicide III - Original short film written and directed by Steph Maj Swanson for The Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (ARRG!) video art installation at DEFCON 31 Las Vegas (Aug 2023). The work employs deepfakes and synthetic imagery to construct a satirical counter-narrative to AI hype culture.

Suicide III Festival Screenings:
• ALC VideoArt Festival, Alicante, Spain (Sep 2025)
• Badnām Film Festival, Bangalore, India (Apr 2025)
• Uppsala Short Film Festival, Sweden (Oct 2024)
• Videomedeja Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia (Oct 2024)
• Philip K Dick Film Festival, The Museum of the Moving Image, New York (Apr 2024)
• Almaty Underground Screening Series, Kazakhstan (Mar 2024)
• SXSW Sydney event, Sydney, Australia (Oct 2023)

Film Curator

2024 Uppsala Short Film Festival - Steph served as a film curator for the Uppsala Short Film Festival, one of Europe's leading short film events. Steph curated and hosted the special program Algorithmic Grotesque: Unravelling A.I., showcasing filmmakers who examine algorithmic society through the lens of artificial intelligence. The selection explored themes including distorted gender norms, surveillance, and eugenics, and featured works by Eryk Salvaggio, Marion Balac, Ada Ada Ada, Ines Sieulle, Conner O'Malley & Dan Streit, and Ryan Worsley & Negativland.

Public Speaking

Steph Maj Swanson speaks at major conferences and institutions, and appears on podcasts and radio shows, offering critical insights on AI and creative labor—especially the ethical implications of how AI tools are designed, built, and deployed.

Speaking Engagements:
• "AI:ns undre värld" - Tekniska museet (National Museum of Science and Technology), Stockholm (Jan 2026)
• "Where Are We Going From Here? Film Festivals and Their New Realities: Animation and AI" panel with Katja de Vries, Ulu Braun, and Hannah Ohlén - Uppsala Short Film Festival (Oct 2025)
• "AI's Katabatic Turn - Data belongs to the Underworld" - "Coding the Gaze" conference, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (Nov 2024)
• "Loab™ and Other Queer Data-Horrors of Generative AI" - Queers in the Machine Symposium, IDA (Danish Society of Engineers), Copenhagen (Aug 2024)
• "What I Learned from LOAB™: AI as a creative adversary" - Chaos Communication Congress, Hamburg (Dec 2023)
• "Kreativitet och artificiell intelligens" panel with Catherine Anyango Grünewald, Chris Hoffman, Andreas Refsgaard, and Johanna Koljonen – Kolla!-dagen, Svenska Tecknare (Swedish Illustrators/Designers), Stockholm (Oct 2023)
• "Creative Misuse of AI Systems" panel with Caroline Sinders and Eryk Salvaggio - DEFCON 31, Las Vegas (Aug 2023)

Media Appearances:
• Extra Extra Magazine - "Nightwalker: Valborg in Uppsala" curated by Maia Kenney (Oct 2025)
• The Data Fix - "Adversarial, with Steph Maj Swanson" with Dr. Mél Hogan (Mar 2024)
• BBC Woman's Hour - "The Offbeat Sari exhibition, Iran latest, coldwater swimming and is AI pushing the boundaries of art?" with Krupa Padhy (Jan 2023)
• RTÉ lyric fm - Culture File - "Steph Swanson" with Lorcan Murray (Dec 2022)
• RTÉ Podcast - Culture File - "Summoning Loab" on Lorcan Murray's Classic Drive (Dec 2022)
• ABC Radio National - Background Briefing - "Has the age of AI already begun?" with Ange Lavoipierre (Nov 2022)

Steph håller föredrag med en unik, kritisk blick på AI - även på svenska!

Publications

Steph Maj Swanson's research and critical writing on AI appears in major media and academic publications.

Solo Publications:
• "AI's Katabatic Turn - Data belongs to the Underworld" - Eye to I (2024, anonymous said:)
• "I Coaxed ChatGPT Into a Deeply Unsettling BDSM Relationship" - Vice (2023)
• "ChatGPT Generated Child Sex Abuse When Asked to Write BDSM Scenarios" - Vice (2023)

Co-authored Work:
• "Cultural Red Teaming: ARRG! and Creative Misuse of AI Systems" - Critical AI, Vol. 2(1), 2024, Duke University Press (co-authored with Eryk Salvaggio and Caroline Sinders)

Editorial Work:
• Models for Making Distance, Vol. 1, 2025, ARRG! (Algorithmic Resistance Research Group). A collection of manifestos, writing and instructions for art that confounds, confuses and misuses algorithmic systems. Steph contributed to this edition which she co-edited with Eryk Salvaggio, Caroline Sinders, Laura Forlano, and Şerife Wong. Supported by the Critical Futures Lab at Northeastern University's College of Arts, Media, and Design. (Analog publication only)

Shop

Art prints and other merchandise available through our online store. The LOAB™ collection includes leggings, scarves, shirts, sleepwear, socks, sweatshirts, footwear, and headwear.

LOAB™ - Framed Canvas Print

LOAB™- Lightweight Scarf

LOAB™- Unisex T-shirt

LOAB™- Embroidered Knit Beanie

LOAB™- Stretchy Leggings

LOAB™ Unisex Crewneck Sweatshirt

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