Linda Dounia Rebeiz

Linda Dounia Rebeiz (born 1994) is a Senegalese-Lebanese writer, artist and designer. Quotes I was a designer before I became an artist so I can appreciate a good brand that’s got a strong design core and is hyperfocused on its intended audience It felt like I needed to be home to make work that meant something All of my work is grounded in what I see or don’t see everyday as I navigate the quiet chaos of my city I don’t like my brain when I am on social media in a serious way. It’s fuzzy. I have trouble focusing, and I become inward facing – questioning my life, career, body The dopamine hits aren’t worth the trouble for me Everytime I feel far from myself, disconnected, or without grounding, I follow my dad’s voice telling me to come home. It always works. I always heal Integrity and authenticity is hard to maintain, especially in the digital age when it’s so easy to exist through personas and avatars I remember to shut off the noise and focus on making what I like and care about, even if it’s not trendy I love how Japanese design opens up to the world while retaining so much of its core traditions. It’s something I hope to do with my own practice I have an aggressive ad-blocker on my devices so it’s safe to say that I don’t like being bombarded with ads online, which seems to be a prerequisite for being online The profit model for most of the internet is still ads, so while I get it, I still don’t like it Artist Interview Series: Linda Dounia Rebeiz 5 March 2025 I wished that memories would flood back to me as I walked through the streets I used to run along, but the new roar of the place was deafening To justify the scale and damage of our imprint on the world, we have to believe that progress is good I have become dubious about the true value of progress, or more pertinently, its cost what are we willing to lose to reach the edges of our desires? Though we’ve never been closer to seeing it succeed, AI is falling short. At best, it reflects a blurry picture of humanity. At worst, that picture is riddled with prejudice and hallucinations I was curious about why facial recognition software was misidentifying Black people as criminals As an artist, I wondered whether anyone was training AI with art and found a host of experiments using famous painters’ work to train Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to emulate their style. My hands alone definitely couldn’t get anywhere close to what a single model could achieve, even at the scale of my lifetime. While some of the plant species I worked with survive in their digital embodiment on the internet, the ones that weren't recorded or digitised are now entirely lost to both human and digital consciousness What we don’t include in training today contributes to a much hazier and incomplete understanding of our world Most generative AI tools do not disclose training data We know that the majority of content on the internet is produced by a minority of its users, with a significant portion coming from Western, English-speaking users. That’s our first layer of bias Contributions by individuals from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders, and non-European cultures have often been marginalised or ignored. That’s our second layer of bias People from the Global South, especially people of colour, using AI today can confidently attest that it doesn’t know them and that its conceptualisation of their reality is fragmentary. the issue is not that there isn’t enough data about us, our cultures, and our environments to train AI I don’t believe technology exists in an apolitical, post-racial, and post-colonial vacuum Humans are also vulnerable to the legacies of history Bias and prejudice, whether conscious or unconscious, are an impact of history The costs can lower when people organise in groups to collect data and train together I am dubious that at this stage of AI’s evolution and profitability, it is possible to hold generative AI companies accountable for being transparent about what it trains its models with and how We should have agency on data – knowledge and power over what is collected about us and how While I buy into some of the promises of AI, I understand that it tends to be an echo chamber of our world order The idea that generative AI companies source data from us, but don’t give us the means to interrogate this data, dangerously mirrors the kind of power relations we’ve been rejecting everywhere – the ones that relegate injustice as a mere byproduct of progress I continue to incorporate AI in my practice because I am afraid that if I don’t, everything about me and where I come from will be erased from the digital memory of the world. Responding to the biases of AI in representing people and cultures from the Global South feels urgent to me When I encourage artists from the Global South to experiment with AI and brute-force it to tell their stories, I do it because I believe it’s a necessary form of resistance at this stage of AI’s evolution AI tools paint a blurry picture of our current reality – so what do these biases mean for our future? 1 November 2023 I think the technology industry understands the power of art in exploring the meaning of machines Another wave of non-artists now have access to tools that produce images, some of which can even be called art. The scale is unprecedented, however. Unlike other forms of computer art, which require some mastery of programming languages, AI uses natural language, which means people don’t have to be technically versed in either art-making or coding to create Imagining and building a future for human labor that includes more and more intelligent technology is the concern of everyone I am more interested in how artists can help others remember their agency over technology by exposing its fallibility and its malleability, reformatting it to mediate meaning, brute-forcing it to tell stories it is not intended to tell. Artists aren’t constrained by discipline or dogma – they can travel between domains and connect ideas that wouldn’t ordinarily cross paths I think it’s important for me to hold space for all the ways I think technology has failed us, as well as all the ways it has enchanted and been helpful to us Technology, like humanity, is a space of possibility.We can, but we wouldn’t be wise to, explore this space without criticality Why Technology Needs Artists 11 August 2025 I love using tools not intended for art making to get marks I wouldn't get otherwise web3 can be brutal, from market fluctuations to sometimes feeling unseen Find your tribe! You'll hear the word community floated around the space a lot and it's not just fluff Education has always been lacking in the space. Someone considering joining web3 is immediately overwhelmed by the amount of complex information and jargon Another thing I think we could all do better is to be mindful of how Twitter can create echo chambers Having experimented with AI in more ways than I could possibly fathom, I feel a deeper sense of progression and connection with my craft. the question of whether AI art is art bores me deeply I often wonder how will artists affect humanity’s perception of AI? What will our role be in normalizing AI, from a cultural standpoint? What will be our contribution to its mainstream adoption? I think we, artists, are going to play an important role in shaping the reputation of AI in the mainstream, but more excitingly, I think web3, by being an accepting space for digital experimentation, is actually a potent ground for discovering new intersections of AI and art The art world is notoriously exclusionary Any artist using digital tools or making purely digital art would be remiss to not at least watch what's happening with web3 and NFTs No matter what's going on, how you're feeling about what you are making, whether you feel like you're making any progress, just show up and make art Mastery doesn't happen without repetition Mastery is also not a destination Here is literally no limit to how much you can grow as an artist if your focus is to deepen your craft The value of your art, your artistic practice specifically, is not determined by how much it's purchased for or whether it's even purchased Sales are not an indication of the quality of your work and practice Creating art and creating a demand for it are two wildly different things Interview with NFT artist Linda Dounia n.d Category:1994 births Category:Senegal