Maud Acheampong (they/them) is a Ghanaian-American New Media Performance artist interested in soft technologies like misery, ugliness, nostalgia, monstrosity and the way they manifest in our digital ecologies – for better or worse. Through Dainty Funk, their digital avatar and horror drag persona, Acheampong takes on bright, monstrous forms and chronicles these phenomena through a digital lens. Dainty Funk is that moment of connectivity– between beauty and beast, art and science, technology and feeling. They reject the construct of ‘humanity,’ naming the digital as a site through which ‘human-like artificial intelligence reflects the racialized dehumanization embedded in an already racialized technology. These works manifest as self portrait photography, video essay, publications, and performances contending with where we must go when we are denied our humanity. Acheampong is a Digital Interdisciplinary Art Practice MFA candidate at the City College of New York and a Member of the NEW INC mentorship program at the New Museum. Acheampong’s work has appeared in The Vibe Room, Sissy Anarchy, Mixed Mag, and Vogue.