Grimes ushers in a new era of internet infestation
Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, has long embodied the digital pulse of modern culture. Her latest work brings that connection to the forefront, merging creativity and unease in equal measure.
The experience of watching the video for “Artificial Angels” can be compared to spotting something sinister that isn’t really there—a flicker in the corner of your eye that leaves behind a trace of anxiety even after nothing is found.
The music video mirrors this sensation with its repetitive and surreal imagery. Familiar scenes unfold like endless loops from a generative AI demo reel. Grimes moves among dynamic digital forms and surreal characters, performing against a backdrop of uncanny, hypermodern symbolism: cavemen smoking cigarettes marked with an OpenAI logo and chaotic bursts of cartoonish animation that mirror our collective digital exhaustion.
“This is how it feels to be hunted by something smarter than you.”
This phrase, repeated by a deliberately crude AI-generated voice at both ends of the track, sets the tone for a world where technology’s growing intelligence feels both fascinating and threatening. The song and video flash with intensity, but like most internet spectacles, fade quickly from memory—briefly astonishing, then gone before the day ends.
Author’s Summary
Grimes’ “Artificial Angels” transforms digital anxiety into art, capturing the fleeting shock and surreal tension of life intertwined with artificial intelligence.