ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

Rhubarbes Lab Uses Niji and Magnific AI to Build a Dystopian Design Archive

digital · 2026-09-12

Rhubarbes Lab operates as an independent visual-design initiative that utilizes artificial intelligence to create dystopian visuals, leveraging expertise in automotive design. By employing generative image tools like Niji and Magnific AI, the project explores how futuristic vehicles, characters, and artifacts might look when industrial design intersects with science-fiction narratives. The results feature speculative machines, bio-mechanical beings, alien pilots, and concepts for collectible toys. Instead of labeling itself as "AI art," Rhubarbes Lab focuses on designed objects imbued with personality. Elements such as mechs, cybernetic animals, and wasteland vehicles coexist within a single fictional ecosystem, forming an archive of potential toys, prototypes, or remnants from a future conflict. The project also delves into armored creatures and harsh industrial forms, along with dystopian character design. Information regarding exhibitions or release dates was not provided in the source.

Key facts

  • Rhubarbes Lab is an independent AI-driven visual-design project.
  • The project explores dystopian worlds, speculative machines, bio-mechanical creatures, alien pilots, and collectible-toy concepts.
  • It draws on a background in automotive design.
  • Generative image tools used include Niji and Magnific AI.
  • The project tests futuristic vehicles, characters, and artifacts through the intersection of industrial design and science-fiction world-building.
  • Its focus is designed objects that carry personality rather than "AI art" as such.
  • Mechs, biomechanical entities, wasteland vehicles, cybernetic animals, and alien figures form one fictional ecosystem.
  • The archive is framed as machines that could be toys, prototypes, relics, or survivors from a future conflict.

Entities

Institutions

  • Rhubarbes Lab
  • Niji
  • Magnific AI
  • Design You Trust

Sources