Marianna Simnett, Leda Was a Swan, 2025

Beneath its reference to classical myth, Marianna Simnett’s video Leda Was a Swan (2025) explores the iterative, fractured subjectivities and macabre uncanniness of our present age of AI. In the twenty-five-minute video, Simnett breaks from mythical precedent by reimagining Leda—the Spartan queen who was assaulted by Zeus in the form of a swan—not as the victim, but as the offending swan. The swan’s transgressions are reimagined as acts, alternately, of self-pleasure and self-obliteration, depending on where and when you look. With an eerie flute as its soundtrack, composed and performed by Simnett, the video is at once featherlike, glitchy, and painterly—the result of a custom AI model trained on Simnett masquerading as both Leda and the swan. Commissioned by Pompeii Commitment—the archaeological site’s art program—and inspired in part by the ancient fresco of Leda unearthed there in 2019, Leda Was a Swan is on view at Berlin’s Société gallery through June 28, 2025.