As part of the fourth IViR Science Fiction and Information Law competition, DigiCon will publish the stories of the finalists every week. The winning stories will be revealed during the CPDP 2026 conference in Brussels on 19-22 May.
The fifth shortlisted story is now live on DigiCon.
It is called “Djembe” and was written by Seun Lari-Williams.
It follows Tunde, a Nigerian street musician performing at a Brussels Christmas market in 2039, in a world where the emotional resonance of live art is automatically captured, quantified, and put to a public vote. The crowd that clapped for him becomes the evidence used against him.
The featured image accompanying the story is from Better Images of AI, a non-profit library challenging the tired visual tropes of AI, robots, glowing brains, metal hands, and replacing them with images that reflect its actual material reality. DigiCon has been collaborating with them, and you can explore the full flipbook on their website.
