Medium: 4 Channel Interactive Animation
Year: 2023
Presented at: The Arts Council of the Brazos Valley, Texas; 18th International Conference on Design Principles & Practices, Spain; The Process Gallery, Indiana

“We explained her diagnosis to her, about the tumors, the cells, metastasis. Nouns so abstract that we might as well have been describing witchcraft.” -Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Inspired by Vuong’s metaphor of medical terminologies’ equivalence to witchcraft and the inaccessibility of language through intergenerational assimilation, Nouns So Abstract explores the visualization of a “Chinese Witch.” Part one, Birth, explores the artist’s experience giving birth to her first and only child, from midwife pre-natal visits, failed doula coaching, acute hospital trauma, and postpartum depression. For Birth, she has created interactive animations from collected AI still renderings and sound generations of keywords (aka nouns) that include: “chinese” + “witch” + “natural” + “bonding” ++. The AI platforms are all open-access and includes DALL-E 2, Midjourney and DeepAI. The AI renderings showcase what the Internet believes is a Chinese Witch, highlighting misconstructions, demonization, and stereotypes inherent in these AI learning algorithms.

The videos feel like speaking underwater; featuring cinemagraph overlays of the artist, foggy obscura and density triggered revelations. Viewers leave feeling like they’ve experienced witchcraft.