Alexia Achilleos

Alexia Achilleos is a Finnish-Cypriot artist and researcher with a background in fine art, archaeology, and cultural studies. Her work explores the power dynamics that shape technology, drawing on history, colonialism, and geopolitics. With a current focus on artificial intelligence (AI), Alexia critically examines its impact from a local perspective. Alexia is a PhD Fellow at the CYENS Center of Excellence, where she is conducting practice-based research on colonialism and AI, and she is also a Research Associate at the Media Art & Design Research Lab (MADLab) at the Cyprus University of Technology.

PhD project

Alexia’s PhD research focuses on examining colonial processes within artificial intelligence (AI) and their impact on semi-peripheral regions, using Cyprus as a case study. The theoretical framework integrates postcolonial, decolonial, and intersectional feminist theories, adopting Mary Flanagan’s “Critical Play” methodology. The case study centers on the effects of Western AI’s colonial processes on Cyprus—a postcolonial, semi-peripheral space within the global AI ecosystem—with a particular emphasis on the potential perpetuation of colonial-era legacies and the power dynamics they maintain.