Dr. Julia Schneider | Doc J Snyder

Handgeschneiderte Comic Essays & Artistic Research
exploring AI, society & complexity.
Her work invites curiosity, reflection & imagination beyond habitual narratives of progress.


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Dr. Julia Schneider aka Doc J Snyder explores the in-between — between AI and society, economy and everyday life, science and art, analysis and imagination — through comic essays, exhibitions, talks, and workshops.

With a background in labor & innovation economics and AI consultancy, she turned to comics in 2018 as a way to make complex topics accessible. Her first major work, We Need to Talk, AI, marked the beginning of a growing body of comic essays that range from short interventions to book-length publications. Her work has been featured across European media, museums, and festivals — including ZDF, ARTE, FAZ, and the SĂŒddeutsche Zeitung, with exhibitions at venues such as the Futurium, Deutsches Museum Bonn, Deutsches Technikmuseum and ZKM. She is a regular presenter at major science and culture spots, from the re:publica festival to the German Science Year (Wissenschaftsjahr), and her projects often emerge through collaboration with artists, researchers, and institutions. In 2024, she co-curated AI, What’s Up?, a travelling exhibition on artificial intelligence at European science centers, starting at Universum Bremen.

Current Projects

>>>> Upcoming: Proof of Work – A Comic Essay on How to Build on Every Talent, with Miriam Beblo and Zoe Brandcyk (scheduled for 08 November 2025, release as part of Berlin Science Week, 5 pm, KI-Ideenwerkstatt Berlin, appr. 50 p., in English first)

>>> Lynch, Kafka, die IBB und ich (Lynch, Kafka, the IBB and I – A Personal Comic Essay Account). A humorous yet critical take on bureaucratic challenges, inspired not only by Lynch and Kafka, but also by my personal experience with the IBB (Investitionsbank Berlin, Berlin’s investment bank) (2025, 10 p., in German). The comic was even shared by the Berlin Police and Citizen’s Representative’s official page – one of my best landing pages so far, according to independent voices.

>> Klimawandel und Strafrecht: Wer wird eigentlich bestraft? —- Ein Comic-Essay, with Maren Burkhardt (2025, 2 p., in German)

>> KI nachhaltig entwickeln? Seegurke sucht Seegraswiese (Developing AI Sustainably? Sea Cucumber Seeks Seagrass), with Pauline Cremer, Marcus Voß and KI-Ideenwerkstatt fĂŒr Umweltschutz (2024, 4 p., in German, also as Giant Exhibit in the rooms of KI-Ideenwerkstatt and as a folding poster, funded by the Federal Environment Ministry)

>> Altern, or: One day, baby, we’ll be old (Ageing, or: One day, baby, we’ll be old), with Pauline Cremer and in cooperation with Deutsches Zentrum fĂŒr Altersfragen (DZA) (2024, 3 p., in German)

>> AbsurditĂ€t fĂŒr Deutschland—Ein Comic Essay (2024, 7 p., in German) & Absurdity for Germany (2024, 7 p., in English)

>> KI-Box Klima (AI Box Climate), 1000 + 25 educational kits for young people, carried out by Kosmos b e.V. and TĂŒftelLab and supported by the Federal Environment Ministry (2024 and 2025). The box includes all four of my AI comics: We Need to Talk, AI (2019, with Lena Kadriye Ziyal), Schokoroboter und Deepfakes (2022, with Nele Konopka and Kristina Laube), A Pigeon’s Tale (2023, with Pauline Cremer, Marcus Voß, and Birds on Mars) and KI nachhaltig entwickeln? Seegurke sucht Seegraswiese (2024, with Pauline Cremer, Marcus Voß , Clara Isakowitsch and KI-Ideenwerkstatt fĂŒr Umweltschutz)

>> AI, What’s Up? (KI, was geht?), co-curation and content for an exhibition about AI, in cooperation with Science Center Universum Bremen: wall comics for the Blackbox AI, and comic films to think about AI in the Thinktank, with Archimedes Agency (2024-2029, in German, English and French, other partners: experimenta, Heilbronn, AHHAA, Tartu, MusĂ©e de l’Air et de l’Espace, Le Bourget)

>> A Pigeon’s Tale -‒ A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability, with Pauline Cremer, in cooperation with Marcus Voß and Birds on Mars (2023, 12 p., in English and German, also available for purchase as a German print edition)

Other works

Book-length comic essays

>> Schokoroboter und Deepfakes -‒ Ein Comic-Essay ĂŒber KĂŒnstliche Intelligenz aus der Perspektive von Jugendlichen (Chocolate Robots and Deepfakes ‒ A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence from the Perspective of Teenagers) with Nele Konopka and Kristina Laube in cooperation with the TĂŒbingen AI Center and the Bundeswettbewerb KĂŒnstliche Intelligenz (2022, 80 p., in German, also available for purchase as a print edition)

>> The Non-Fungible Comic -‒ A Comic Essay about Non-Fungible Tokens, with NoĂ«lle Kröger (2022, 56 p., in English and German, also available for purchase as a print edition)

>> Money Matters -‒ A Comic Essay about Money, with Pauline Cremer and Miriam Beblo (2021, 164 p., in German, also available for purchase as a print edition)

>> We Need to Talk, AI ‒- A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence, with Lena Kadriye Ziyal (2019, 56 p., in English, German (KI, wir mĂŒssen reden – Ein Comic Essay ĂŒber KĂŒnstliche Intelligenz), Turkish, Spanish, Russian, Slovenian and Czech, also available for purchase as a print edition and as open online course)

>> The Corona Scribbles, a Comic Column about Life in times of Corona, on 1E9 magazine (April 2020-May 2023, 31 episodes, in German)

Shorter comic essays

>>Coworker or Overlord? -‒ A Comic Essay about ChatGPT+, with dall-e-2 and ChatGPT (2023, 2 p., in English)

>> The Big Third and the Blockchain -‒ A Comic Essay, with Fall e-2, inspired by Katrin Becker (2022, 12 p., in English), release 2023 on 1E9

>> Overcoming the Flaschenhals -‒ Ein Comic-Essay zu neuen Computing-Konzepten (Overcoming the Bottleneck ‒ A Comic Essay on New Computing Concepts) with NoĂ«lle Kröger in cooperation with the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (2023, 3 p., in German)

>> AI in a Biased World, comic essay and artistic research project for the South African University of Stellenbosch’s Journal HERRI, Special Theme AI in Africa, illustrated by an AI to use the BIAS inherent in the algorithm, curated by Vulane Mthembu (2023, 1 p., in English)

>> Urheberrechte, oder: On the Shoulders of Giants – A Comic Essay about Copyright, with Karina Filusch, Eric Eitel and Nele Konopka (2022, 3 p., in German)

>> #teilenstattsplitten ‒- ein Comic ĂŒber das Ehegattensplitting (a Comic Essay about German Tax Splitting for Spouses), with Pauline Cremer, Miriam Beblo, Jutta Allmendinger, Janina Kugel and Monika Schnitzer, in cooperation with the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fĂŒr Sozialforschung (2021, 3 p., in German)

>> Abtreibung -‒ ein Comic Essay, with Maren Burkhardt (2020, 2 p., in German)

On this subpage, you’ll find three of my most important comic essays in German.

Other projects

>> ChatGPT Bullshit Bingo on LinkedIn (2024, 1p., in English)

>> AI đŸ‚đŸ’© Bingo ‒- A playful intervention for panels, keynotes and workshops on Artificial Intelligence, with Katrin Fritsch and Theresa Reimann-Dubbers (2022, 4 variations of cards, in English)

Exhibitions: My comics have been part of some beautiful exhibitions, including: Futurium Berlin; Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen; Deutsches Museum Bonn; ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe; Long Night of Science in Dresden and Berlin; I AM A.I. Exhibition. And I curated the exhibition „Whats up, AI.“

Sample press coverage