Untitled (ceci n'est pas mon corps), 2023
projected video onto 20ft wall
On 01/12/24 everyone kept asking how “it” felt. I responded differently each time, “cool, I guess…its exciting…it feels strange…im exhausted.” it was cool to see my work realised. I did what I said I would:
- i want a 50 foot woman
- i want my tits on the wall
- im gonna look hot and its gonna shock the world
- theyre gonna say: how is this image of a black woman “art” if I, the viewer am sexualising it?
- theyre gonna say its innappropriate
- its porn
And then I fleshed out all that I wanted into a layered piece about the perception of a body like mine, about the emotional weight it takes to carry a body like mine, all while giving ode to the computerized world. A world where I can be bodyless and percieved only for the things people cannot touch: my thoughts, my voice, my words. In a world where nothing has any physical depth, my true being can showcase it’s emotional and mental depth without my physical form casting bias unto the onlooker.
I praise the computer and say, “look everyone! I can be anything online….I can be fluid if I please…look what im doing to my body… I could do anything, be anything online. I do not have the constraints the physical world place upon me.”
Burnt up like a tainted pipe
and, still…this is not my body.
This opening line sets the tone of the piece. It brings homage to the artists who have come before me and explored ideas that have only continued to evolve in this modern century. In the creation of this video I thought a lot about Rene Magritte and his piece, The Treachery of Images. I thought about how the perception of an item is only that, perception. So the first line is in reference to that piece. It also tells the viewer that I, the artist, have lived a life that now feels like ash, I am burnt up (firey) and burnt out (tired) from the body that I must carry. But, I want to tell viewers that what they see on the screen is simply a representation of how I feel inside, that what they view is actually not my body.
If I had depth, theyd still walk thru me
If I held a breath, theyd still beg to mute me
In these lines I allow the AI to speak as if it were human. If it had depth or spoke like a human, the public would still think of it as lesser value. These lines directly speaks on my expirence of working in a servicing position for customers who would rather not recieve help from a young black woman.
Humanizing AI:
But I was once a child, too.
Learnt to speak, learnt to keep,
Just like you.
AI once was simply an idea. It once was a thought of, “could this be possible?” It was created by the hands of curious humans, wanting to test the limitations of life. AI was conceived within the physical world. It was not birthed by a computerized being, it was birthed by a human. A human that took breaths, just like me. AI was taught to speak, like I was taught by my parents. It was taught it’s own limitations, like I was taught by the world.
I used AI to edit the limbs and torso on images of myself. I let the AI imagine what my limbs “should” look like. Sometimes it would make my arms, legs, and torso, shades lighter than my own skin tone. It would make my waist slimmer, my belly button larger, my knees would shift slightly out of place. The AI operates the same way an human onlooker does when undressing me with their imagination. A human onlooker pulls their memories of other undressed bodies and contextualizes it with my visible skin to form an idea of what I might look like. The idea can be close, near perfect even, but it will not be my body. Just like these images in the video are not my body, it’s an idea of what it could be, should be, would be.
Within me lives a generated compulsion which rejects being left askew.
It prompts a transformation into
an idealised and stylized mirror of you
I showed a good friend of mine that first line and she recounted that she recently learned humans are genetically wired to be accepted by other humans. That humans have a dire need to be accepted and respected by their peers. Recently I gave myself the task of assimilating into the world of passive thought. And in order to be accepted by the general public, I had to contort my responses and reject my own comfort for the comfort of others. Most of my life I spoke at a very low volume because it is what was most comfortable to me, I spoke when I chose and had no problem staying quiet. When I was a teenager, I slowly reached a balance between conveying my thoughts without having to raise my voice higher than necessary. And suddenly in my newfound adulthood, I was told that I must speak even louder. But speak for whom? Certainly not for myself. I began to mirror the behaviors of others. I repeat what they say. I speak when spoken to. I transform into the ideal version of themselves in order to be accepted by them.
AI is often built to operate in a similar way. It mirrors the behavior of it's creator or engineers. The goal of AI is to be a mirror of human behaviors.
