Miguel Ripoll

Miguel Ripoll pioneered algorithmic art practices decades before current "gen AI" — his works merging digital processes with traditional media are held in institutional collections and exhibited internationally read full bio

Grand Tour

a collection of over a hundred manually crafted digital collages on hand-drawn (ink, pencil, pigments) large-scale cotton paper, aided by machine logic and inspired by the (complex, problematic) artistic tradition of 18^th and 19^th century elite travel, dealing with pressing contemporary issues such as post-colonialism, over-tourism, over-consumption, environmental degradation, mass migrations, cultural appropriation, and the concept of ‘the other’. view

— 01 A custom AI workflow is fed a large database of assets (public-domain texts and images). Human-driven iterative adversarial dialogue (no literal prompting and no style references) produces hundreds of visual elements, most of which are useless, and only fragments of which will be kept for the next step.

— 02 Algorithmic fragments are then meticulously curated into a smaller library of partial visual elements, which are manually cut out, edited and digitally modified further. These digital “parts” are mixed with human-made, handcrafted digital media. The resulting “collages” are recompiled and recombined into a single image.

— 03 This composite image is digitally edited again and again, adding texture, detail, and refinement. Once completed, it is giclée printed on large-scale archival-grade Hahnemühle cotton paper 350 g/m² mounted on 3mm aluminium Dibond. This image is then hand-drawn on (using ink, pencil, and pigments).

— 04 A single original drawing is signed and authenticated with a unique Hahnemühle hologram certificate. All other digital assets and proofs are deleted, and only one inalterable physical artwork, a one-of-a-kind creation, remains.

Made with AI (but not by AI)

My post-digital practice explores the dialogue between humans and machines, as well as between past and present. Through hybrid processes that merge computational methods with slow, tactile techniques, I investigate how algorithmic systems intersect with cultural memory, perception, and artistic tradition.

Rather than using AI to generate finished images, I develop custom workflows that extract fragmentary visual and textual material (debris, half-forms, synthetic geometries) from public-domain archives and code-based processes. These fragments then become raw material for iterative cycles of collage, digital manipulation, hand drawing, and layering across large-scale archival paper.

— (de)coding art

What emerges is not “machine art”, but a critical response to it. By re-tracing and disrupting digital forms through physical intervention, I explore the tension between machine logic and human intuition, between reproducibility and singularity. Many of my works reanimate and interrogate inherited visual languages (from classical landscape to ethnographic illustration) using their forms to question contemporary systems of meaning, power, and perception.

This practice values friction: between historical reference and contemporary urgency, between digital precision and material nuance, between algorithmic speed and embodied slowness. The scale of the works demands full physical engagement, allowing me to rethink attention, time, and mark-making as forms of resistance.

Ultimately, my work asks how we draw meaning (and draw with meaning) in an age of synthetic perception. It invites a reconsideration of authorship, history, tradition, craft, and visual truth at a moment when our cultural, aesthetic, and technological compasses are rapidly shifting.

— From text to texture

A defining characteristic of these works is their transformation of textual information and code into distinctive digital texture, and ultimately into physical, tactile drawings on paper. The algorithmic processes generate a unique visual quality that differs fundamentally from traditional mark-making tools or simple pixelation. This texture emerges from the intricate data structures and computational processes themselves: the weaving together of code, database queries, and iterative processing combined with extensive manual intervention and digital manipulation creates complex visual patterns inherent to digital systems.

The large scale allows viewers to appreciate these minute textural details: traces of the computational process that become integral to the work's meaning and aesthetic identity. Rather than hiding the digital origins, the texture celebrates them while translating them into physical form, serving as a material bridge between the ephemeral nature of data and the permanence of physical mark-making.

Group exhibition at Berlin's Kunstraum Kreutzberg

The international show “Anonyme Zeichner*innen”, which features one of Miguel's drawings is open till January 12th 2025.

Interview with contemporary art magazine PAC

A long conversation about art, history, innovation, and technology. Read the interview (in Spanish).

Group exhibition “Kinaesthesia: Art in Motion” with R|A

London-based Rise Art featured one of Miguel Ripoll's canvases in this online exhibition.

An in-depth interview on AI-mediated art and technology

A companion to the “Kinaesthesia” exhibtion; read it in full on Rise Art's website.

Group exhibition on AI-mediated art at CVPR 2024 in Seattle, US.

Cureated by leading AI expert Luba Elliott; have a look at the gallery on CVPR's website.

Selected for the EU's Creative Europe NAT PMP 2024-25 Program

PMP supports artists with residencies, workshops and exhibitions in six European countries. Go to PMP's website.

Institutional Solo Shows

2026RAK Biennale, Ras Al-Khaimah (UAE)
2025 Dar Niaba Museum, Tangier (Morocco)

Group exhibitions

2025“Drawing Now”, CICA Museum, Gimpo (South Korea)
2025“Margins in Fluxus”, Kamîm Tuhut pavilion, The Wrong Biennale 7, São Paulo (Brazil)
2025“DDD ′25, Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Palermo (Italy)
2025“AI Art Gallery”, CVPR, Music City Center, Nashville TN (US)
2024-25 “Anonyme Zeichner*innen”, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin (Germany) and Hyperculturalpassengers, Hamburg (Germany)
2024 “Kinaesthesia: Art in Motion”, R|A, London (UK)
2024 “CVPR - AI Art Gallery”, Seattle Convention Center (US)
2002 “Pasión”, Akademie der Künste, Berlin (Germany)
2001 “Forms of Speed”, FIRA, Alicante (Spain)
2000 “Signs of the Century”, Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid (Spain)

Collections

Design Museum, Barcelona, Spain
Ministry of Science and Innovation (DDI), Madrid, Spain
Municipal Art Collection, Alicante, Spain
MUVAP, Cervantes Institute, Madrid, Spain

Education

1997 MPhil., UCL, University of London, UK
1995 B.A. (Hons.), Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Awards

2024-25 Creative Europe / NMT PMP, EU-funded program for emerging artists.

Bibliography

Raquel Pelta, Pilar Vélez, “¿Diseñas o trabajas? La nueva comunicación visual. 1980-2003”, Exhibition catalogue - Design Museum, Barcelona 2018
Alberto Corazón, Emilio Gil, Enric Satué, “Signos del Siglo”, Exhibition catalogue - Reina Sofía Museum / DDI, Madrid 2000

Miguel Ripoll began experimenting with human-machine dialogue in 1999, deploying linguistic and programming methodologies to engage critically with algorithmic systems. His practice preceded current “AI art” discourse by decades, building on foundational research into generative coding and digital design. His early algorithm-driven pieces were exhibited at the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the Akademie der Künste (Berlin), and the Cervantes Institute, with works now held in permanent collections including the Design Museum in Barcelona.

These experiments, which extended computational aesthetics from mere geometric abstraction into narrative and figurative territory, anticipated contemporary debates around machine authorship, mediation, and interpretation. But when available tools at the time proved inadequate for his vision, Ripoll decided to pause studio production to develop first the technological and conceptual frameworks necessary for more sophisticated computational engagement.

Over the following two decades, Ripoll became an internationally recognized expert in algorithmic interface design for complex information systems. Through his independent studio, he designed digital architectures for leading institutions across Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East, including Yale, Princeton, Columbia, the Mellon Foundation, UC Berkeley, Lund University, the Qatar Foundation, and the National Library of Morocco.

He has advised governmental agencies, startups, and global corporations on digital strategy and design, held senior positions at the Financial Times in London, and served as Global Director of Design Strategy at Vistaprint (Nasdaq: CMPR), where he helped to shape creative tools now used by millions worldwide.

His innovative work across digital, print, film, and theatre has been featured in Communication Arts, Creative Review, Computer Arts, and many other international publications. He has been interviewed by the BBC and Deutsche Welle, with cover stories in Spain's leading newspapers including El País, El Mundo, and ABC.

Ripoll's perspective derives from extensive interdisciplinary training: he studied History of Art and Musicology in Italy, graduated summa cum laude with Special Distinction from Goldsmiths, and researched for an MPhil at UCL, where he also was a Visiting Lecturer. He was a Visiting Professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, delivered lectures at Columbia University, Lund University, and IESE Business School, and taught masterclasses at several leading Spanish universities.

Fluent in five natural and four programming languages, Ripoll has written essays on digital aesthetics and technology, translated major literary works by Tom Sharpe and Alan Hollinghurst for Spanish publisher Anagrama, curated and designed exhibitions across Europe and the Middle East, directed international conferences on design and technology, and served as juror alongside Nobel laureates and creative leaders in prestigious scientific and cultural awards.

This technical and humanistic foundation informs an artistic methodology rooted in iteration, disruption, and the friction between mechanical logic and human gesture. Ripoll's return to full-time art-making in 2023 marked the culmination of decades of research integrated into a new visual language that re-frames traditional artistic concerns, techniques, and materials within contemporary digital tensions.

Selected for the European Union's Creative Europe NAT PMP Program, his work is now being presented across multiple countries. Recent exhibitions at CVPR, the world's leading computer vision conference, in Seattle (2024) and Nashville (2025, both curated by Luba Elliott), R/A (London) and Kunstraum Kreuzberg (Berlin). Presentations in 2025 include solo and group exhibitions in Hamburg, Palermo, Paris, Barcelona, and São Paulo, with institutional shows planned in Morocco, the UAE, and South Korea in 2026.