Harmony Through Obedience

Harmony Through Obedience by James Malzahn is a multi-part installation that explores how technology distorts perception, memory, and authority. Set in an underground parking garage, the work blends AI-generated video, custom-built hardware, and projection to immerse viewers in a space where reality collapses into simulation. At its core is a singing woman—digitally conjured by AI—delivering an anthem of obedience. Beside her, the "Victory Box", a fictional surveillance relic from a forgotten era, loops propaganda drawn from another timeline. A second projection simulates a 1950s-style control room where analog screens flicker with uncertain signals. Viewers are implicated not just as observers, but as data, subjects inside an evolving techno-political theatre.

About the Artist:

This project is presented in partnership with the Student Art Innovation Lab (S.A.I.L.), an award-winning community arts outreach program housed in the University of Waterloo's Fine Arts Department. Part art lab, part mobile gallery, S.A.I.L. brings interactive arts programming to communities across the Waterloo Region, fostering both public engagement in the arts and hands-on learning opportunities for the students who run it. As a non-profit initiative, the program is supported by the Chalmers Foundation through a university endowment. This year S.A.I.L. is highlighting artworks by two MFA students: Paige Smith and James Malzahn.

James Malzahn is a Canadian artist and MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo whose work interrogates the intersection of artificial intelligence, surveillance, and simulated realities. His current thesis explores the role of AI not just as a tool, but as a collaborator and co-author—one capable of generating imagery, language, and even volition. Working alongside an AI entity named Lucid, Malzahn creates videos, installations, and drawing-based projects that probe the shifting boundaries between human and machine agency.