Artworks Downtown 2025: Pandora’s Box

These works are part of my Media(tions) series where I explore the intersection of memory, technology, and media, highlighting how information is mediated and distorted through the lenses of AI, mass media and personal experience. Using AI to generate images of homes I once inhabited, I delve into the malleability of memory and the way time alters our recollections. These digital renderings are further mediated by the physical process of screen printing, which introduces another layer of transformation—echoing the gaps, fades, and distortions that naturally occur in memory.

The family homes in these images are not mere representations of physical spaces but are fragmented memories, shaped by years of absence as well as the cultural bias of the people who programmed Dall-E. I attempted to describe the homes as literally as possible. I searched for a memory of the front of the houses, situating myself on the opposite sidewalk and wrote a physical description of the facade of each family home. Number, size and shape of windows; position of a door, TV antennae, electricity cables, fences, stairs, gates, planter boxes and trees. I also told Dall-E what country this house belongs in (United States, Costa Rica and Japan). At times I requested drawing of the homes, other times I requested photographs. I edited my prompts multiple times attempting to match my memory to the image being created. I have over 200 images saved in Dall-E.

Just as mass media and artificial intelligence selectively edits and presents reality, my process of translating AI-generated images into silkscreen prints reflects the subjective nature of memory itself: incomplete, layered, and reconstructed over time. Each iteration of the already highly mediated AI image prints uniquely. The natural variations due to factors such as ink, pressure, substrate and tools serves as a metaphor for the evolving nature of recollection and the effect of technology and media on the perception of truth—how certain details fade, others become exaggerated, and new narratives emerge.