The year of the Architects of AI has been one of strategic seclusion and observation. Most of my projects progressed along lines of flight already defined—a glitch in the usual fractalization of my practice. A year of disillusionment and sardonic GIFs, but also of personal development and new insights. For instance: the opportunity to teach university classes in interactive media. It was humbling and honouring at the same time, and an excellent counterweight to the striations of enshittification.
2025 was also a year where I reaped what I sowed—and began sowing projects close to my heart. One of them, of course, is the redaction of my PhD thesis, now at the forefront of my obsession: its maze invading my subconscious like a sleep paralysis daemon. Out of spite, sure, but also because it’s a necessary checkpoint—an exit ramp from a certain cognitive matrix.
Collages
My collage work this year extended Cyborg T.A.R.O.T., a project about the cybernetic conjuncture of flesh and metal—that moment of fusion and unfolding toward data-driven psychic contamination. This new series, titled Assemblage, also came with its counterpart, Disassemblage, consisting of AI visuals generated through models I trained. It is naïve, but I learned that apparent naïveté is often a lure: a way to hide the abyssal rhizomes of insight one can get lost in. It was also part of a larger research project about “détournement”—collective intelligence extracted from obsolete knowledge—which is, in a way, what generative AI does on a textural level. Link to the gallery: https://frederickmaheux.com/collages/disassemblages-2025/
Academia
Speaking of generative AI, I gave two conferences this year on specific insights from my research-creation around the interactive installation Cyborg T.A.R.O.T.: one on collage methodology as a way to disrupt generative AI at Acfas 2025 (video above), and one on Burroughsian cut-ups and posthuman disconnection through prompting (Roden, Posthuman Life: Philosophy at the Edge of the Human, 2014) at the 15th Beyond Humanism Conference in Paris. I also had the chance to participate in a panel led by Sojung Banhg around her fascinating work on the Metaverse (a concept that will come back and impose itself—but that’s an unpacking for another day).
Cyborg T.A.R.O.T.
Cyborg T.A.R.O.T. finally had a chance to exist in its installation form at Ludodrome, an event at SAT organized by Milieux and Concordia. Its basic non-human feedback manifestation was also presented at Festival ECRÃ in Rio de Janeiro and at The Wrong Biennale’s Digital Double pavilion. I’m still looking for opportunities to present the project’s final form—even if fully financed by myself—but the current art economy is what it is, and requires a human investment that’s unfortunately too vain for the time horizon available.
UN REGARD FROID
On the other hand, I developed Cyborg T.A.R.O.T. as an AI co-conspirator for live Un Regard Froid action (a nom de guerre I tried to kill, and failed miserably). Three live readings were performed in Montreal (extracts are available on my Instagram), Paris during Negative Frequencies 2, and Ottawa. Un Regard Froid also played a more “traditional” power electronics set, opening for my good friends Vengeful (for whom I directed my first music video back in 2007!!!) at Foufounes Électriques.
Other key moments of the year
Kickback at Hospital Fest 2025
One highlight of 2025 was creating the background video for Kickback’s historic live set at Hospital Fest—a different direction from the filth-filled, Van Bebber-inspired music videos I directed for Sideshow and Cavalcare la tigre / Le chant du diable. This time it was all about texture: pushing video toward the mania of paper collages. Dozens of hours went into analog processing and manually mapping 80 hours of material onto paper layers. I still enjoy the end result: older, colder, stronger.
Pour d’autres espèces d’espace — Éditions Hermann
One essay finally escaped the purgatory of peer reviews! Au-delà des art games : la transposition vidéoludique de l’espace d’exposition comme expansion de l’œuvre artistique was published as a chapter in the book Pour d’autres espèces d’espace. Edited by Claire Châtelet, the book explores the concept of space in art. My contribution analyzes how video game spaces adapt exhibition spaces—galleries and museums—but also how they can expand the work of a specific artist, notably Andres Serrano in Stef Pinto’s Haram.
Errata Corrige: ETS.FSH.OVRWGHT
A noisy experiment with Stable Diffusion. Emperors of obsolete occultism drowning in latent spaces.
Interactive Noise
My Substack Interactive Noise is still active: a commented curation of noisy and weird videogames. The amount of creativity—and the number of limits being transgressed right now through the videoludic medium—remains endlessly fascinating.
New podcast — Cadence Zéro
Parce que ralentir est critique. In French only, but my partner Nadia and I launched a podcast, with three episodes recorded together around our theoretical obsessions: collage methodologies, hauntology, speculative fiction, détournement, etc. We’re currently juggling various ideas on how to evolve the platform.
Art/Crime, ANA, Théorie de la religion are still available over at Goredrome
Drug Porn over at Scream & Writhe
Buy my filth.
Games enjoyed in 2025
Out of Hands
Silent Hill f
Slitterhead
Labyrinth of the Demon King
Five Red Mickeys by wriks – https://wriks.itch.io/5-red-mickeys
VILE: Exhumed by Final Girl Games – link
Frontiers of the Mind by MinusOnePublishing – link
How A Body Sounds by Yami Kurae – link
The Century Burn by fixgritt – link
MROI_ by dosogy – https://dosogy.itch.io/mroi
Fused 240 by Mike Klubnika and Wriks – https://mikeklubnika.itch.io/fused-240
Euwitch by vaato – https://o-vaato.itch.io/eu-witch
Music enjoyed in 2025 (to be updated)
Pissgrave – Malignant Worthlessness
Kazuki Koga – Catharsis
Caustic Phlegm – Purulent Apocalypse
Vainio & Vigrous – Peau froid, léger soleil
La Maison Dieu – Gang Signs at the Center of the Labyrinth
NyreDolk – Barndommens hjem
Teitanblood – From the Visceral Abyss
neutral – lågliv
Jason Crumer – Lake of Fire
³zircon – .thryxal
Empty Vessel – Ruin Value
Rotat – Somnambulant Hysteria
Neptunian Maximalism – Le Sacre du Soleil Invaincu
imp – Castle III
Swingsets – Fixin’
Caustic Wound – Grining Mechanisms of Torment
Body Tenant – Worm’s Meat
Golden Purifier – Iron Age Paranoia
Green Tea – Bending Your Sauna
Angel of Murder Suicide – Elevator Ambulance Scum
Yikii – A Fish Unter the Pillow
Daniel Menche – Veer
Christina Giannone – The Opal Amulet
Winter Sphere – The Forgotten Winter
Obscure Skuadron – Mysterious Existence
Black Sites – C4
Kevin Drumm – If Tomorrow Gets Here
Richard Ramirez / Eroticism – Anal Summer
Disembodiment – Spiral Crypts
Kakothanasy – Metagonism
Siavash Amini – Caligo, Severed Like the Red Moon
Mortar Mouth – Rites of Rust
Silesian Space Program – Earl Grey Blue Flower
7DD9 – Crossroad
Runeboy – Call for the Countryside
Grole – Come Here At Your Peril
Detonation Day – Rebuilding Self
Loathing 嫌悪 – 黄昏時
Relay for Death – Mutual COnsuming
Hate Sewage – II
Pont Alexandre III – Convalescence
Pain Appendix & Tantric Death – Satan’s Imperials
Capricorni Pneumatici – IX TAB
Frailord – Nocturnal Pandemonium at the Phallic Gates of Vanity’s Labyrinth
YÜ//F – Monolith
Argiope – Sepulchre Womb
Occulted Death Stance – Wake & Hate
Laibach – Alamut
Calvary – White Ruins
Disappear_ – Forgotten
Joseph Nechvatal – Ex Stasis 69
Veneficium – Grand Black Maelstrom Mysticism
Nerthus – Love Letter Via Echelon
Anatoly Grinberg – Snowing
Heppakirjat – Dust of this World
Strigiform – Aconite
Brainboms – Die
November Növelet – Electrical
Sewer Election + Ån – De Sälla Jaktmarkerna
Worm – 10000メートルの高度での催眠術
John Duncan & Torturing Nurse – Glass Mind
Experiment in Terror – There Is No Thing To Relieve
Films/Series (Only released end of 2024 and this year… Didn’t watch a lot of recent cinema in fact)
Discount Funeral
Black Eyed Susan
Sayuri
The Ugly Stepsister
Empathie S01
VHS Halloween
28 Years Later
Together
Reflet dans un diamant mort
