I used ai to feel a fathers presence
Project: Artificial Memories 2023
I always knew there was a thing called DAD — but I knew nothing about it. Except embarrassment when kids would tease me about it. I started telling others my father was a soldier who died in a war. It was easier than saying “I don’t know him” or “I don’t know where he is.” People want solid answers. No one likes the unknown. Unknown is weird and uncomfortable — so war it was. And instinctually, culturally, I learned never to ask my mother about him. That topic was never up for discussion.
At age 10, for the first time, I saw a photo of my real “DAD”. He was holding me, he was smiling, I was a baby, and my mother was standing next to him, not smiling. It was a 4x6, black and white photo. I stole it from my mother’s boxes and put it under my pillow. I have no recollection on how many nights I got to sleep with it, but I do know it eventually disappeared. It went “missing”. That was the last photo I would ever see of him —- until 25 years later.
I did have that one “DAD” experience. In 1995, my mother remarried and this new man became “DAD”. He also became awful. I remember uncomfortably using the word on him a handful of times. All the meanwhile - lying to myself. As if trying on a shirt that is five sizes too small - forcing it to fit. From a naive sense of excitement, to be like everyone else (not fatherless), In 1998, I wrote a letter to my cousins in Russia that I NOW have a “DAD”. As if a check list completed, A mom - check. A dad - check. Ok. I am ok now. But we were not ok.
After years of abuse, alcoholism, and death threats, my mom left him. Thankfully. That man was in my life for five years. That was my first formed memory of a grown man. A man close to my proximity. Every other new man following; was no better - but also no worse. But, this time I knew better. There is no DAD. That naive dream of: a mom - check, a dad - check, was now dead. Reality was clear, circumstances were clear - these lost men were nothing except takers and abusers. One thing was consistent - they always left or shape shifted. Until one day, at age 17, I left before I saw anymore of them leave or shape shift.
In 2021, at age 35, I once again became intrigued and hopeful to find my father. Over the years I tried online searches, ancestry.com, and 23andme. I asked cousins, aunts, but no one seemed to know anything. Only thing I would get from them was “You should ask your mom”. But my mother never had much of an answer. One day, it came to my realization, my father would have had to give a letter of permission for me to leave Russia. My mother wouldn’t have been able to leave with me to Canada without that letter. That was a massive mind trip - knowing he KNOWS I am in Canada. I asked my mother how she got this letter and she let me know it was my uncle who travelled to see my dad in 1997 to get this letter signed, So - maybe he knew where my dad is? I couldn’t reach my uncle - but I was able to reach my grandfather (my uncles Dad). So - I asked him. It was March 6th, 2021. On March 16th, 2021 my grandfather sent me a message: “Here is your father’s phone number, he is waiting for your call.” It took him only 10 days to find him.
That first video call was a memory I’ll never forget. I will keep that memory to myself. But - I will say: it was beautiful. After we found each other; I spent the next year getting to know him, learning about his life, about his upbringing, his experiences, and about my step brothers. It was such a light time. I felt free - just at peace. Like a feather, floating, but with a purpose. For first time, those two boxes checked off. I had a mom - check, a dad - check. I saw what qualities I got from him, his goofiness, his deep thinking, and his height. And, I am sure so much more. He’d had a hard life, like many Russian village factory workers. His health was not good, his body was deteriorating. He often would laugh and call himself “an old cripple”. He would tell me how strong he was only 3 years prior. We had regularly scheduled video calls. I will always remember the good from this part of my life. Relearning Russian, just so I can speak with him. Him making jokes just to make me laugh. I was content. But - that one thing - consistency - repeated itself once more. He shape shifted.
In 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, everything in our relationship started to change. I was no longer able to send anything to him because of the sanctions, which made him really angry. Our conversations were no longer light. He was no longer light. He no longer cared to make me laugh, instead he made me cry. He’d shape-shifted. Our final conversation ended abruptly after he called me stupid, as I was so beyond flustered and was finicking with the google translate as he spoke so rapidly out of anger. Since I hung up that call, we’ve never spoken again.
Experience teaches, trauma pushes.
In June of 2023, I became fascinated with the idea of experimenting with memories - or more like creating ideal ones. Memories that never had actually existed, but ones I’d wished to have. I joined OPENAI - DALL-E and started creating text prompted images. I fixated on this. I spent countless hours, thinking of all the ‘activities, moments, or type of interactions’ I wished to have had with my DAD, if he was around from birth to current. All the while, perfecting and learning the way the algorypthm would take the words, or how it would prefer them, in order to create an image as I’d wanted. I ended up creating over 200 images. The images I kept is only when I felt “it”. When they resonated and it felt right. I repeated similar prompts over and over and over - with the way I wanted the images to look. I wanted to create an uninterrupted flow - a uniform. I also wanted a distorted look of the characters, as if it were a memory plucked out of a hazy dream. No clear and obvious features, dreamy. So it becomes more about the experience, the feel, and less about the characters themselves. All in black and white.
I never had a vision of what I wanted the images to look like. As for example; the idea of going fishing with my father - was a floating, intangible thought - that felt impossible to try to even visualize on my own. Until, I used the concept of AI and conceptualized an image of my father and I fishing. Now, even today. When I think of us “fishing”, that image I’d created with AI comes to mind. Sure, it isn’t real. I am aware of that - but what I feel inside looking at the image, is as real as it would ever get, of me and a father fishing.
Creating theses 200+ AI images, was such a healing journey.
To me they’re beautiful.
They’re timeless.
They’re lost, but they are also finally found.
I look forward to sharing this intuitive series with you. The images will be shared slowly, a few at a time, over the coming months. I hope you may feel IT - that sense of a missed memory. A glimmer of a possible connection to a past memory of ‘what if’.
Here are the first four — the beginning of this growing archive.🖤
Thank you for reading.
Nadia
