StarQuest is a series of AI-generated video works that reimagine the world of American competition dance through the lens of algorithmic media. Drawing on the emotion and spectacle of Dance Moms and the synthetic precision of machine vision, Maya Man stages a choreography of ambition, repetition, and control.

At its core is a dataset of 111 AI-generated dance scenes, each eight seconds long. These short sequences function both as fragments of performance and as units of code—data that moves, feels, and performs. Using custom-built software, Man sequences the dataset into non-linear, generative films that continuously reconfigure themselves, creating new choreographies with each viewing. The result is a system of endless variation: a stage that never rests, where movement becomes algorithmic and rhythm becomes procedural.

At the centre of StarQuest is the “AI default girl,” a synthetic performer born from datasets and optimized for beauty, obedience, and perfection. Caught in perpetual cycles of training, performing, winning, and losing, she embodies the paradox of contemporary visibility: to exist is to perform, and to perform is to repeat. Both product and performer, she mirrors the conditions of digital life, where the boundaries between labour, entertainment, and identity blur.<br><br>Through its recursive structure, StarQuest reflects on the aesthetics of optimization and the choreography of attention. It asks what happens when performance itself becomes automated—when the drive for perfection is no longer human aspiration, but a system’s default setting.