Nemo Smith: Democracy Hijacked

Text by Carolina Semprucci

Photos by Marcel Top

June 18, 2025

Nemo Smith is not an average politician. He is, in fact, the precise average of all UK politicians. As an algorithm-generated political figure, Smith and his persona are based on the campaigns of British politicians and parties.

To create Smith, the London-based artist Marcel Top trained an algorithm to generate a new face based on the portraits of all current British MPs. The result was then used to create an ultra-realistic 3D model which also allowed the artist to create full-body imagery and deepfakes.

Through the use of technology, Marcel Top pushes widely used campaign strategies to the extreme, using Nemo Smith to channel the absurdity of the current political landscape, the lack of ideals, and the advent of fear-driven voting. The project addresses the public manipulation shaping recent and upcoming elections, ultimately highlighting a shift in politics that undermines the democratic ideal of an informed and rational electorate.

After analysing the UK political parties’ spending on election campaigns—with a focus on advertising and data collection—Top collected and categorised campaign assets according to their message and visual language. What recurred was a polarising message: the tendency to push people to vote against rather than for something. This concept became central to the creation of Nemo Smith and his fictional campaign.

In his campaign, Nemo Smith embodies all the deceitful tactics used by parties to secure the highest number of voters. His slogan, “I am not a politician,” reflects the ambiguous and opportunistic nature of campaigning. While on one hand that is the truth—as he is not a real politician—it is also a lie: being the product of all other politicians, he will not bring anything new or any actual change to his voters, contrary to what his motto might imply in political language.

By creating a politician who only stands against things, Top uses exaggeration to generate conversation around the current state of political campaigning. The project not only raises concerns about the extent of electoral manipulation but also highlights how such tactics—when amplified by deepfakes, data exploitation, and hyperreal imagery—pose a growing threat to democratic integrity. Nemo Smith thus invites the viewer to question how susceptible democratic processes are to manipulation, reinforcing the importance of transparency, accountability, and digital awareness.