non-existent trip to china, 2023
A memory triggered by a sense of memory that has never existed. A memory triggered by an image. Never existing memories created by never existing images.
Generating impossible visuals of my artificial trip started when I spent almost 4 months on a social media platform that is popular in China, called Xiaohongshu. Having to enter this platform as a person with a different nationality, I had the chance to meet many Chinese women and listen to their stories of everyday life, as well as their culture. I have celebrated their traditional events with them and cherished the rituals. I have learnt Chinese phrases and words to express untranslatable emotions in languages I already speak. I have collected the daily life photographs that my friends have sent me to make me feel a part of their lives, their community. After going through my personal archive of these collected images, a spark of memory has flashed before my eyes; a feeling of being “existed” in a certain place in the past, or perhaps a flashback to the future that is meant to happen, yet to come. That specific flashback inspired me to generate my non-existent trip in China through a blurry perception, almost like a filter that was attached to my eyes.
Each image in this series was originally created using algorithms to generate dream-like, blurry visuals that invoke a sense of nostalgia and longing for an imaginary place and time. To further explore the connection between memory and imagination, I have used specific textures as layers to create a sense of “photograph” to expand the generated image surface.
“Fascinated by the texture of the city and the lights that are blooming in my eyes. Liminal spaces I have gone through, rooms that I have stayed at, streets that I have wandered, the women I have met and stories I have been told.”
A trip planned to China but never happened.
Prompting AI to create single images, analog texturing to create the illusion of photographs.
“The blur of the images are created through prompting, to give the feeling of pace, disappearance, moments that never existed but still sweeping away.”
