Jameel Library presents Angelheaded Towers, a digital Library Commission by Ruba Al-Sweel. A straight-to-Instagram film in six chapters, it sits at the ternary plot of critical theory, networked technologies and generative AI.

Angelheaded Towers follows the journey of Earthrise, a speck of moon dust with a pre-human eye who falls out of grace onto earth. From the indignities and formative traumas of vision to hallucinations on seeing and being seen through screens, the film toys with Instagram’s platform physics as material integral to its form: the visual language, behaviours, and its vernacular and technical quirks.

Al-Sweel writes the film and accompanying notes from what she calls ‘the panopticon’s blindspot’, the blurred corners where power is undone by exposing its mechanics. She emphasises the ouroboric and symbiotic relationship between the user and the platform; images are not neutral or transcendental, but by-products of mass online behavior and a collusive operation between policy-making and technology. She argues for how vision and visibility are filtered through ‘algorithmic eugenics’ shaped by platform logic, repetition and the relentless desire to see and be seen, fundamental to human vision and subjectivity.

‘Angelheaded Towers’ drops every two months via Instagram. Follow @art_jameel to stay up to date.

RUBA AL-SWEEL’s practice is rooted in writing and focuses on media theory and networked communications. Her work has been published in magazines and books, with contributions appearing in The Brooklyn Rail, Art Asia Pacific, DoNotResearch, DAZED, DAMN Magazine, among others. Ruba has curated exhibitions in Berlin, London, Hamburg, New York, Paris, and online. Her films have been screened and took part in group exhibitions and programmes at venues including the Victoria Library (Melbourne), Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (Massachusetts), LARPA (New York), Diriyah Art Futures (Riyadh), Salasil Film Club (Dubai), and various online platforms. Al-Sweel is the Senior Manager of Publishing and Content at Art Jameel.