Inhabiting a composited world made with 3D assets, duckrabbit is no ordinary duckrabbit. The star of a forthcoming animated TV series that tells their queer coming-of-age story. Desiring nothing more than ambiguity, duckrabbit’s journey of self-discovery and struggles with computational optics sees them navigate between the many layers of reality generated by computer vision technologies. Indifferent, perpetually in flux, duckrabbit is never what it seems. Don’t assume.

Exploring the political implications of the ongoing shifts in vision technology, Simone C Niquille questions how computational photography, datasets and renders often act as substitutes for what’s real. Inspired by the Huawei ‘Moon Mode’ controversy – an AI-based function that was designed to detect if the user was taking a picture of the moon, and automatically used pre-existing images to make up the final picture – duckrabbit.tv questions the difference – or not – between capturing and compositing ourselves, and our surroundings. The show's main character is modelled after an illustration by Joseph Jastrow from 1892, brought to fame by its use in philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations in the 1950’s. Revived for the modern age of computational vision, the curious and confused queer character navigates the trials and tribulations of self-discovery and CGI production.