Ambie Drew
Opening Event 16 Apr 2026 6:30 pm
Exhibition 17 Apr - 2 Aug 2026 | Wed - Sun 12-6pm
Part of arebyte 2023/26 programme The Body, The Mind, The Soul
Girlhood consumed by the content algorithm feeds us
arebyte’s Hotel Generation Programme presents Soft Bodies, Cold Machines, a solo exhibition by British artist Ambie Drew.
Transforming the galleries into a teenage girl’s fantasy bedroom and metaphor for today’s internet culture, Ambie’s Soft Bodies, Cold Machine starts playful before slowly revealing an unsettling understory.
Exploring what it means to grow up online in a world shaped by targeted advertising and AI-generated imagery, featured works confront the audience with the impossibility of disentangling oneself from our curated digital persona. Capturing the anxiety of being consumed by the content algorithmic systems feed us.
To create this new body of work, Ambie purchased and tested popular beauty gadgets promoted to her through social media ads. The artworks that emerge from this process reflect both the physical and psychological impact of living amongst a constant stream of images and consumption. As boundaries blur between private and public life, human and machine, and reality and representation; the ‘girl-bedroom’ is reimagined as a cybernetic organism where these forces collide.
Ambie’s ‘girl-bedroom’ is staged across four main artworks: the short film Annihilation Transformation! reinterprets the iconic metamorphosis scene from the 1990s manga series Sailor Moon, while Girl™Altar takes shape as an interactive pink dressing table containing cutesy kitsch collectible trinkets gathered by the artist. The rotary phone-operated Memory Palace showcases how Ambie’s analogue memories are forever attached to her online persona. The two-channel film Soft Bodies, Cold Machines presents Ambie’s hyperfeminised alter ego taking center stage as she violently resists the machine.
Drawing on a lineage of feminist art, Ambie’s bedroom is both a political space and a personal archive. Her work echoes earlier explorations of identity, technology, and the body; while bringing these concerns into the present moment of AI-driven culture.
Yet rather than offering a purely dystopian vision, Soft Bodies, Cold Machines suggests the possibility of disruption, a ‘glitch’ in the system that might open up new ways of seeing, being, and resisting.
In dialogue with Ambie’s exhibition, the generative artwork FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT (2022) by artist Maya Man launches arebyte’s Media Wall Programme with daily displays at 2pm and 6pm, turning the Digital Art Centre window display into an evolving exhibition space.
Opening Event
Thu 16 Apr 2026 |6:30 pm
Exhibition Tours
Led by curator Pita Arreola
Wed 6 May 2026 | 7pm
Sat 20 Jun 2026 | 3pm
Media Wall Daily Display
FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
by artist Maya Man
2:00-2:20pm |6:00-7:00 pm
Ambie Drew in conversation
with Alex Quicho
Sat 16 May 2026 | 3pm
Maya Man in conversation
with Pita Arreola
Online Event, Wed 8 Jul 2026 | 7pm
Exhibition Booklet
EXHIBITION CREDITS
Artist Ambie Drew
Curator Pita Arreola
Creative Technologist
Henrique Lázaro
Musical Score Bara Noha
Technicians Eryn English-Polch,
Ross Godman, Dmitry Timofeev,
Orsola Zane
Fabricator Tim Crombie
Time-Based Media Specialist
Blanca Regina
Time-Based Media Assistant
Nurul Wardani
Graphic Design & Identity
Camilla Does
Mentorship Zaiba Jabbar
Special thanks Mark Flisher, Dian Joy, Chris Keenan and Luke Routledge
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ARTIST BIO
Ambie Drew (b. 1996) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Worcester. Her practice interrogates how digital consumerism and artificial intelligence shape the construction of gender and female identity online. Working across moving image, sculptural installation, and text, Ambie adopts a hyperfeminised alter ego to explore the consequences of living in a heavily mediated world where the physical and digital exist in constant flux. Incorporating obsolete technologies, her work reflects on how intimacy, memory, and reality are entangled with internet culture and machine-driven desire.
CURATOR BIO
Pita Arreola is Head of Programmes at arebyte, leading the organisation’s artistic programme. With fifteen years of experience in the arts, she has worked closely with creatives to develop experimental projects that critically examine the social and cultural impact of emerging technologies. Based in London, she is also the Co-Founder of Off Site Project, a curatorial platform supporting new media talent. From 2021 to 2024 she served as Curator of Digital Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is co-editor of Digital Art: 1960s–Now (V&A, Thames & Hudson, 2024), a book tracing the histories and evolution of digital arts.
Soft Bodies, Cold Machines is part of Hotel Generation, arebyte’s annual artist development programme supporting the next generation of UK digital artists through curatorial mentoring and industry-focused training. Each year, one participant is selected by a panel of sector experts to develop a solo exhibition at arebyte Digital Art Centre, with the 2025 edition awarded to Ambie Drew.
2025 Artists: Ambie Drew (Midlands) - Winner, Lucy Ellis (South East England) Yashika Goel (South East England), Emir Johnston (North England)
2025 Mentors: Zaiba Jabbar, Curator & Founder, HERVISIONS, London, Aisling Murray, Founder & Director, Beta Festival, Dublin, Giorgio Vitale, Curator, Technologist & Founder, Synthesis Gallery, Berlin, Bi Xin, Curator, Writer & Director of International Programs, Chronus Art Center, Shanghai
2025 Judging Panel: Hannah Andrews, Former Director of Digital Innovation in the Arts, British Council, London, Annka Kultys, Founder & CEO, Annka Kultys Gallery, London, William Latham, Professor, Computing Department, Goldsmiths, University of London, Maitreyi Maheshwari, Head of Programmes, FACT Liverpool, Nimrod Vardi, Trustee & Founder, arebyte, London