In a not-too-distant future, a media archaeologist has tasked herself with compiling an atlas dedicated to lost or unknown ways of seeing. During this mission she finds herself captivated by a NEON Rainbow Fairy Light, an object seemingly plucked from a child's bedroom. The archeologist proclaims the fairy light to be a quintessential artifact that encapsulates the entire history of the decline of nature's original "glitch"—the atmospheric rainbow.

Proper observation of rainbows has become rare due to a double process of pollution. On the one hand, climate change, environmental degradation, and light pollution have dulled atmospheric rainbows’ brilliance, making their occurrence increasingly unusual and their sightings more precious. On the other hand, within the realms of image processing, digital pollution has corrupted and distorted the representation of rainbows even more: as generative artificial intelligence struggles to differentiate between symbolic representations—the rainbow-alike—and actual depictions of natural phenomena, images of authentic rainbows have become anomalous.