I KNEW THAT IF I WALKED IN YOUR FOOTSTEPS, IT WOULD BECOME A RITUAL
For this work, I developed a machine learning model based on my own family photographs that is able to create its own images that combine and emulate characteristics of my family photos. I think of the model's remixing and approximating as a metaphor for personal and generational memory. I feel that our understanding of the past is always an approximation. Names are forgotten, moments are conflated with other ones. Memory is something that mutates over time and over generations. I think of this at times, as less of a fault and more of a healing fluidity that allows us to process the past in a way that's enmeshed with the context of the present.
The form of this work is a video piece and series of prints. For the video, family members were asked to speak about specific photographs. Images generated from the machine learning model are animated using footage from these interviews. The facial expressions mimic the original expressions of the family member and the audio is from their original voice. The photographs that are the subject of the interviews are also shown alongside the speaker. Surrounding the video, are prints of the generated images mixed with actual family photographs.
You can read more about my process in this written piece.
video
still from video
still from video
close-ups of cyanotype and lumen prints
close-ups of cyanotype and lumen prints
installation at Center for Book Arts
installation at Center for Book Arts
← back to selected work