leona.jpeg and LeonaChat (2023)
4” x 5”, cyanotype on cotton yarn, AI trained Chatbotleona.jpeg is a compulsive return to the image of my great-grandmother and her journal, which have been the subject of my interest at many different points in my artistic practice. Leona’s cyanotyped face is unravelled and re-knit, just as the pixels are reconfigured from binary code and compressed each time I open leona.jpeg. The image was given to me on a USB stick from my aunt, who has taken on being the family historian. The studio portrait of Leona that places her body firmly in the turn of the 20th century via the tone, lighting, and pose is one of the few files that is named in my family’s archive; leona.jpeg.
In LeonaChat I used Artificial Intelligence* trained with journal entries to create an entity not quite Leona, not quite machine, unable to adequately answer questions but able to parse some information. Frustration with the inability of technology to give answers, insight, or real emotion accompanies the use of the LeonaChat. The work speculates about the future of death and the role of technology in how we grieve.
* AI is no longer a tool I use as an artist, as I have since learned the environment and social impacts of using this technology and it does not align with my ethics as an artist