An artist intervention by Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert at the exhibition DIGITOPIA @ the Museum of Work, Norrköping, Sweden

“23% Complete” (2026) is an installation of cross-stitched embroideries that reflects on artificial intelligence (AI), image generation, and their environmental implications. The work highlights unexpected parallels between commercial embroidery kits from the 1960s–1980s and contemporary images produced by commercial AI generative models. Like cross-stitch patterns, text-to-image AI models “cross-stitch” synthetic, and often kitsch, images using “second-hand” material.

The first part of the exhibition brings together six embroidered landscapes, produced between the 1960s and 1980s and sourced from Swedish second-hand shops. On the glass of each framed work, bright green text identifies selected elements within the scene. These labels are generated using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Vision for Object Detection, with each percentage indicating the model’s confidence in assigning an object to a particular class.

The second part comprises two newly produced embroideries by the artist. The images originate from the following prompt given to the generative AI model Midjourney: “Imagine a landscape 100 years from now, shaped by the long-term environmental impact of artificial intelligence.” Rather than depicting the imagined future described in the prompt, the final works are based on screenshots captured at 23% completion of Midjourney’s image generation process. These embroideries foreground the transient, in‑between state of production, capturing the image as it emerges. In doing so, they attempt to render visible AI’s latent space and translate an otherwise intangible computational process into material form.

Note: this work was conceived and produced during Stylianou-Lambert’s Moa Martinson Visiting Professorship at the University of Linköping (2025-2026).

Exhibition opening: 15:30, June 3rd 2026 Where: Arbetets Museum (Museum of Work) Floor 5, NODEN space, within DIGITOPIA Exhibition Laxholmen, 602 21 Norrköping, Sweden Opening hours:Monday – Sunday, 10-17 Duration: June 3rd – July 31st 2026

https://www.arbetetsmuseum.se/utstallning/digitopia/