miguel ripoll pioneered algorithmic practices decades before "ai art" — his works merging machine logic, digital collage, and hand drawing on paper are held in institutional collections and exhibited internationally. read more

Grand Tour

A series of a hundred manually crafted post-figurative digital collages mixing machine logic and hand-drawing with ink and mineral pigments on paper.

View the drawings

Technical specs
CUSTOM CODE-BASED DIALOGUE

A custom AI workflow is fed a large database of previously curated public-domain texts and images. This code-based iterative process (with no literal prompting or style references) generates hundreds of files, most of which are useless: only small fragments are kept for the next step.

DIGITAL CURATION AND COLLAGE

Algorithmic fragments are curated again into a smaller library of visual assets manually cut out, edited and digitally modified further. These digital “parts» are mixed with other human-made, handcrafted digital media and recompiled into a single image.

MANUAL EDITION AND PRINTING

This composite image is digitally worked on, adding texture, detail, and refinement manually with standard editing tools. The result is giclée printed on archival-grade cotton paper which is then hand-drawn on (using ink, pencil, and mineral pigments).

HAND-DRAWING ON PAPER

A single original drawing is signed and authenticated with both a digital and a paper certificate. All other partial digital assets and printers' proofs are destroyed, and only one unique 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 and artistic tradition.

Rather than using AI to generate full 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.

News
Group exhibition at the Art′Otel Hoxton Gallery in London

Curated by Dr. Isil Ezgi Celik for CapitArtX (February 23 - March 7, 2026), the show features three of Miguel's algorithmic drawings on paper.

Miguel Ripoll named finalist of the Kane International Contemporary Art Prize

Established by London-based K:art Studio to celebrate experimental artists from around the world, the awards will be presented in a group exhibition in March.

Solo exhibition at the Cervantes Institute in Fez, Morocco

"Un extraño en tu propia casa" (February 12 - March 26, 2026) reflects on migration, memory, cultural otherness, and belonging.

Group exhibition at the new Digital Forum in Colchester, Essex (UK)

Artworks from the "Artificial Lines of Flight" CapitArtX pavilion (part of the 2025 edition of The Wrong Biennale). Opens January 30, 2006.

ArtEvol calagogue
Featured in the ArtEvol 2025 exhibition catalogue by the London Art Collective

Curated by Nelson Qin for LAC, "Voices from the Undefined" run at the Saatchi Gallery in London, 12th September – 19th September 2025.

Debut presentation at Aqua Art Fair during Miami Art Week December 2 - 7, 2025

The fair's 19th edition took place at the landmark South Beach Hotel in Miami. Represented by SHIM Art Network in a group show curated by Amy Jackson.

Dar Niaba Museum Tangier
First solo museum show at the Dar Niaba Museum in Tangier, Morocco

The exhibition (November 4, 2025 - February 5, 2026) will go on an extended institutional tour).

RAK Biennale
Presentation at the RAK Contemporary Art Biennale in Ras Al-Khaimah (UAE)

Curated by Sharon Toval at the historic Al Jazeera Al Hamra Village, the event run January 16 - February 8, 2026.

CICA
International group exhibition at the CICA Museum in South Korea

"Drawing Now" (December 3 – 28, 2025), featured one of Miguel's new algorithmic sketches on paper.

PhygitArt at Villa Graziani Archaeological Museum in Perugia (Italy)

Miguel's drawings were shown at an international group exhibition hosted in this stunning 17th century palazzo.

Prompt Magazine
One drawing from the Grand Tour series is featured in Prompt Magazine.

The leading "AI art" magazine showcased Miguel's work in their August 2025 Book #15 print issue.

Cantieri Culturalli alla Zisa
DDD 2025 at the Cantieri Culturalli alla Zisa in Palermo (Italy)

One drawing from the Grand Tour series was part of a group exhibition on AI-mediated art during DDD '25 in June.

The Wrong Biennale
Featured at The Wrong Biennale #7 in November '25

The Grand Tour series will be part of the Kamîm Tuhut pavilion curated by Tassia Mila (São Paulo, Brazil).

Group AI exhibition at CVPR 2025
Group exhibition CVPR 2025 in Nashville, US

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

Interview with Curatory magazine
Interview in Curatory Magazine #3

A long conversation about art, history, innovation, and technology. Read the interview.

Group exhibition at Berlin's Kunstraum Kreutzberg
Group exhibition at Berlin's Kunstraum Kreutzberg

The international show “Anonyme Zeichner*innen” also toured to Hamburg and Erfurt in 2025.

Interview with Rise Art
An in-depth interview on art and technology with R|A

A companion to the “Kinaesthesia” exhibtion; read the conversation in full on the R|A website.

Group AI exhibition at CVPR 2024
Group exhibition at CVPR 2024 in Seattle, US.

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