dmstfctn
dmstfctn (Oliver Smith, Francesco Tacchini) explores complex systems through the lenses of simulation, fiction and experience. Their immersive performances, video installations and video games demystify systems by replicating and exploring them together with audiences, and remystify them by building new stories and worlds atop them.
dmstfctn often utilise game engines in the making of artworks as tools for shared learning, exploration and critique. Their work on AI folklore builds on notions of roleplay, shadow self and ‘society of mind’ to frame anomalies and pecularities in AI systems not as errors to be fixed, but as creative phenomena worth tuning into to develop a nuanced understanding of AI.
Since 2018, dmstfctn have performed and exhibited internationally including at Serpentine, Berghain, HKW, Rhizome, Unsound, CTM and transmediale. Their audiovisual work has been released by Mille Plateaux and Krisis Publishing, and included in Hyperdub's Ø book (Flatlines). Their essay Large Lore Models, written with Eva Jäger and Alasdair Milne, has been published in UK, the Netherlands and China. Their interactive work on the topic of AI folklore and anomalies has led them to collaborate with world-leading artistic and scientific institutions. These include The Models (2025), created with the Leonardo Supercomputer as part of the European Digital Deal Residency won by the duo, and GOD MODE (ep. 1) and Waluigi’s Purgatory (2024), supported by Serpentine Arts Technologies and The Alan Turing Institute. dmstfctn have won a STAR+T+S Prize nomination in 2024 for their video game Godmode Epochs, and the Edigma Semibreve awards in 2023, for their work GOD MODE (ep. 1).