About

Steph Maj Swanson portrait
Photo by Kristina Chap

Steph Maj Swanson is a filmmaker, multimedia artist, and writer based out of Sweden. After attracting attention for her work under the pseudonym Supercomposite, Steph 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 artwork
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, and check out "Loab: A Spirit Guide into the Digital Underworld"—an in-depth interview with Steph. You can also explore the archive of publications and media below.

Press & Media Coverage

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Origins & Artist's Websites

Featured Coverage

Commentary, Analysis & Reference

Scholarly Citations

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Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Books & Edited Collections

Conference Proceedings & Presentations

Theses & Research Reports

Essays, Book Chapters & Working Papers

AI generated artwork
Still & Moving Images

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

Exhibitions:
Shadow Creatures – From Spirit Photography to the Ghosts of the Algorithm, group exhibition, curated by Marco De Mutiis – Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (Jun 27 – Oct 11, 2026) – Kutxa Fundazioa, San Sebastián, Spain (dates TBA)

Cover Artwork:
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."

Press & Media Coverage

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General

Shadow Creatures Exhibition

Film

Film work
Director & Writer

Suicide III - 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. 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)
Uppsala Film Festival
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

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 IMAGES: working with them, working against them" - Visiting Artist Lecture, MFA Photography Program, Parsons School of Design, New York (Jul 2026)
• Artist Talk & Book Launch - Shadow Creatures – From Spirit Photography to the Ghosts of the Algorithm, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (Jun 2026)
• "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" (PDF) - "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" - Kolla!-dagen, Svenska Tecknare (Swedish Illustrators and Designers), Stockholm (Oct 2023)
• "Creative Misuse of AI Systems" talk and 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

Published writing

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

Solo Publications:
• “Katabatički zaokret veštačke inteligencije – Podaci pripadaju podzemnom svetu” ["AI's Katabatic Turn – Data Belongs to the Underworld," printed in Serbian]. [O]GLED: Oko tehnologije, anonymous said: (2024)
• "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. 3(1), Duke University Press (2025). Co‑authored with Eryk Salvaggio and Caroline Sinders.

Editorial Work:
• Models for Making Distance, Vol. 1. ARRG! Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (2025). A collection of manifestos, writing, and instructions for art that confounds, confuses, and misuses algorithmic systems. 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<sup>®</sup> - Framed Canvas Print
LOAB® - Framed Canvas Print
LOAB<sup>®</sup>- Lightweight Scarf
LOAB®- Lightweight Scarf
LOAB<sup>®</sup>- Unisex T-shirt
LOAB®- Unisex T-shirt
LOAB<sup>®</sup>- Embroidered Knit Beanie
LOAB®- Embroidered Knit Beanie
LOAB<sup>®</sup>- Stretchy Leggings
LOAB®- Stretchy Leggings
LOAB<sup>®</sup> Unisex Crewneck Sweatshirt
LOAB® Unisex Crewneck Sweatshirt
View Full Collection →