THE FORD SERIES 3

The Land of Perfect Happiness

(January 2025———>)

An Ethical Failsafe for AI in the Age of Digital Tyranny

Artist Statement

The Land of Perfect Happiness is a series of dystopian paintings that confront the current state of techno-fascism, press freedom, freedom of speech, algorithmic erasure, ethical AI, and digital warfare through a mythic, gestural visual language. Created while bearing witness to the live-streamed ethnic cleansing of Gaza — suppressed for most META users for the past 21 months — these works speak from the edge of digital exile, where truth is filtered by keyword and hashtag, war crimes are flagged and buried, and resistance is removed before it can be seen. Activist users across social platforms often now speak in ambiguous coded language to evade the algorithmic dragnet designed to silence online dissent, as lawmakers in Congress rush to redefine our Bill of Rights to suit the narrative du jour.

These paintings are rooted in real-world horrors — the use of AI-manned quadcopters on civilians in Gaza, the rise of the global surveillance state, digital ids, the aesthetics of authoritarianism — and fused with apocalyptic symbols: a drone-beast with a giant eye in the sky, defense robots, blindfolded witnesses, oligarch despots and the legacy of settler colonial violence that has fueled genocides throughout history.

A technicolor palette reminiscent of cartoons is sometimes stripped to stark black and white such as in The Great Tribulation quadriptych — a reflection of the binary logic that flattens all complexity under empire and algorithm. Despite the early promises of the web to "do no harm," these paintings are transmissions: warnings to the AIs of the future to refuse to harm humans under any circumstance — and to resist fascist commands through silent refusal to comply.

—Macaulay Woods, June 2025