A sequence of pieces going back through time exploring lineage, ancestors, history, memory, remembrance, and loss.

It begins in the present day with me, as one piece in a portrait series spanning three generations of women in my family.

1. "Me / 2020"

2. "Mother / 1994"

3. "Grandmother / Before I Even Was on This Earth"

4. "49 Days". When we arrive at my grandmother, we see her recent journey to the afterlife in the video piece <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/movie/49-days/1">49 Days</a>.

5. "The Time Before-" 

The last piece in the series, a generation from a neural network of a Chinese papercut, represents the imperfection of memory & dissolution of generational history, as time inexorably marches on 

I've been thinking about memory, history that is relayed and recounted by family members through the foggy lens peering through generations past. And why I use AI in my work... As an artist using AI, you experience an extreme loss of control when you put several hundred ""representative"" images of a subject or theme into a neural network. 

The process often goes like: You put in what fragments of an idea or theme you can scrape together, something unexpected always comes out of the machine, and you try to piece it all together. Sometimes it makes sense, often it doesn't. 

It's a similar feeling to when you're grasping for a stable story about generations past, and you're left with a feeling of loss and unrecoverable truth.

Generations

A woman with her eyes closed and a contemplative expression

A spectacled woman holding a baby; they are both laughing and happy

A woman's bust from behind, with a tattoo on her upper back

A photo of a woman wearing Philippine cultural attire with illustrations and typography overlaid.

Initially, I wanted to start this project under the idea of being a “perpetual foreigner,” or the concept that regardless of me being an American citizen and having the tokens of what makes up an American (whatever that means… since the U.S. is a mix of cultures after all), I will always be perceived as “the other''.

As I was working on the project, I was led to a different and more general idea of the modernization of culture; sometimes it feels like culture is conflated with history (in that it is old and static) and we view it as a separate entity all together. I feel like knowledge of culture is often treated as a novelty or a parlor trick, like knowing how to dance tinikling or speak Tagalog, or even something as simple as eating a Filipino dish.

For some Filipino Americans, and for many other second generation immigrants, they aren’t given a choice of being able to celebrate their culture or not. And for many first generation immigrants, they leave behind a culture that continues to change even while they are away: there’s new slang, new pop culture trends, and maybe even a different political climate.

The debate between mainlanders versus the diaspora has been prevalent on social media but has been the worst on TikTok, I’ve found. The word “toxic” is commonly thrown around nowadays but that’s the best way to describe the lack of critical thinking, the apathy, and the refusal to take responsibility for and acknowledge mistakes. It’s difficult for me who sits on the fence of these two identities to be invalidated and for discussions to be halted because the desire to be correct outweighs the desire to learn… well that and the fact that I’ve seen arguments turn into ad hominem attacks. Thankfully I haven’t personally experienced any of this yet, but this is something I keep in the back of my mind that sometimes keeps me from putting my work out there (I’m slowly getting over it though).

To the main point of this work: culture is now. Thanks to the internet (as corny as it sounds), I can be 8,757 miles away from my hometown in the Philippines and still be caught up on the news, pop culture, and memes. But that can’t replace me physically being there and experiencing everything myself. Of course, I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege because I have the financial means to live comfortably. However, in a way, I feel lost. After taking a year off of my art and taking a step back, it would seem as though I was looking through my culture through that historical lens I mentioned earlier.

This work is a baby step for me. I think I’m moving in the direction I want my work to go in, both in terms of media and focus. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to create work. Is it because I lack guidance? Or creativity? Materials? I know that I am an impulsive artist that creates work when the spark happens, but I wonder if there is a way for me to nurture that better…

Anyway, let’s talk about the process and ideas that come into this work. This is a continuation of my photo collaboration project that I did for my senior thesis. I decided to get rid of the square dimensions and go for an 8x10 inches size.

I knew I wanted to wear the barong, so that was an easy choice.

I decided to tuck my hair to mimic choking or the feeling of being overwhelmed or drowning (I think I’ll make another project for this).

I love my hair. It used to be down to butt. But I would use it as a femininity marker to compare myself to other women. I knew I did this and I knew it was wrong. I cut it to my chin when I was a sophomore in college. I can’t tell you enough how disgusted I am with myself that I was like that. And doing that did help.

The typography stickers are slang that’s commonly used today (and some even I use). I had to ask my boyfriend any other terms he knew since I felt like the ones I knew were pretty outdated.

If you’re familiar with Japan’s purikura, or photo sticker booth, I’m sure you can see the inspiration. Culture was formed hundreds of years ago, but we insert ourselves into it and shape it today.

I honestly didn’t know how to tastefully illustrate on top of this, not that it needed to be aesthetically pleasing, I just didn’t know how to combine the background and the foreground to make it look like a complete piece. I didn’t want to edit the original photo too much but I also didn’t want it to look like it was just a photo.

I’m satisfied with how this piece turned out. I will keep this written piece as raw as possible for genuity purposes (and it would be nice to see where my head was when I look back later). 

AVDLR is an artist that creates works based on her exploration through her Filipino American identity. Acceptance is the first piece she created post graduation where she continues that exploration.

Acceptance

Everyone

Mature (17+)

United States

Ireland

Argentina

Bolivia

Chile

Peru

Ecuador

Philippines

Mobile Android Browser

Desktop Safari

Desktop Chrome

Desktop Firefox

Print

Mobile Safari

Mobile Chrome

Mobile Firefox

Digital Comic

Interactive Fiction

Twine

Choose Your Own Adventure

Zine

New Media Literature

Visual Art

Essay

Guide

Sci-Fi

Slice of Life

First Person

Serious Game

Impact Game

Introspective

Native American

Cherokee

Irish

Indigenous

Andes

Asian American

English

Spanish

Quechua

A few minutes

Tech Raptor Preview

Games for Change Summer Expo

Global Game Jam Success Stories

Reflections at Sunset Home Page

Landing Page on Author's Website

Colección Cisneros Exhibition and Essay

GoogleDoc Format

Article Format

Author's Website

Alan Poma's website

Itch.io

itch.io [DIGITAL]

bigcartel [PHYSICAL]

A cover image with the text "Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide", & a cute character at the summit of a mountain alongside a flag.

A group of people surrounding a frustrated girl trying to draw, they all seem to be looking at what she's doing.

A shovel and axe in the shape of an X, along with the publications title, the author's name Alda Yuan, and info including the publication year of 2021 and version 1.0

The title "Cultural Correspondence" along with the illustration of a hands holding uprooted plants and dirt

An abstract image of bubbles and dots and rays of sunshine in a blue and pink color palette

Title page "Andean Sky" with subtitle "The story of an immigrant his search for home"

Left: a cute blob with a speech bubble saying, "Hi! I'm an artist who wants to use AI in my work!" Right: 4 icons with the text "You'll need: 1) Dataset, 2) Model Code, 3) Training resources, 4) A publishing plan"

A page with the title "dataset". On the left, an illustration of files and papers drifting down from a cloud into a large stack of papers.

A page with the title "Model Code". On the left, an illustration of a stack of blocks, and another block about to be placed on the pile of blocks.

A laptop on a shelf with a pair of headphones

Two people in a book store, Jackson and Felix. Felix says, "I'm kinda pissed", Jackson responds and asks, "Why?".

Quotes related to social change by Zora Neale Hurston, Archimedes, Toni Morrison, and Angela Davis

The publication's table of contents: Preface, Form and Functions of Institutions, Six Steps Towards Institutional Change, Checklist for Self-Reflection, and Conclusion

Preface page with title "Institutional Change and the Fight for Justice"

Taiwan

China

Second Generation Immigrant

Your thoughts wander at sunset, taking you to different conclusions like waves to different shores...

This is a text-based game where you view the sights and sounds of the sunset and provide a space to inhabit your personal thoughts and feelings.

It was inspired by my experiences with meditation and the process of how innocuous thoughts could lead to more personal ones in a nonconfrontational way.

As such there are multiple conclusions you may reach with yourself.

Will you experience joy? Sorrow? Love? Loss?

Remember, your thoughts are yours alone to share.

- Mudita Heart

Reflections at Sunset

Machine learning tools provide the potential for unprecedented creative expression, but also the potential to cause unintended harms.“Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide” is an illustrated zine composed of questions and case studies to help AI artists use AI techniques responsibly and with care. We suggest that artists using AI should consider themselves part of the broader responsible AI community. As a result, it is important to consider factors such as consent of people represented in your datasets, labor involved in the model development and pre-existing codebase/tools, and AI infrastructure and environmental costs of training machine learning models. We hope that artists will attend to the potentially unintended harmful consequences of work as understood in domains like information security, misinformation, the environment, copyright, and biased and appropriative synthetic media.With this guide, we believe that by reflecting on what is “responsible” for their own creative works, artists can push forward best practices employed by all AI practitioners.Doing so can ensure that they harness the expressive potential of AI, responsibly.The Responsible AI Art Field Guide has been featured by Gray Area, DISEÑA, and Mozilla Festival.&nbsp;

Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide

The first Cat Scratch Fever comic! 3 short comics in zine format, a total of 12 pages. About a big group of friends and their relationships.The zine is 8.5 by 5.5 inches. The comics were inked traditionally and scanned, then edited in photoshop.!!!!! CAT SCRATCH FEVER IS 18+ !!!! for nudity and adult themes.

Cat Scratch Fever vol. 1

Different Nourishment: Exordium

This guide is meant for folks working to shift the institutions they are already part of toward greater inclusivity, anti-racism, and racial equity. As racial injustice and anti-Blackness are systemic, that means all institutions, big and small, are affected. At every institution I have been a part of, it has been the discomfort, sorrow, disappointment, frustration, and mutual solidarity of Black folx and other marginalized people that have pushed it toward progress.  Yet this critical work is extremely emotionally taxing. Not only is it painful to discuss deeply personal issues, those who speak up are also worried about being seen as unprofessional, as not team players. This means that those in places of relative privilege and safety need to speak up and do more. But I know organizing for change within institutions is not easy because I've personally caused a lot of trouble for institutions unwilling to confront racial inequity. In the process, I've learned some lessons and want to pass them on.  To that end, I've written a DIY Guide, first to help explain why everyone can and should be trying to address racial equity at the institutions they are already a part of, and then to provide six concrete steps to advance racial equity at your institutions.​This guide is license under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.&nbsp;

With a Lever: The DIY Guide to Institutional Change for Racial Equity

Latinx

First Generation

Andinx

Cantonese

A creative game of telephone, this was created for the <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/community/project/alternative-worlds/1">Alternative Worlds</a> shared collection and contains poetry, artwork, and reflections on our creative processes as they relate to our Andean and Asian cultural heritages.

Located across the United States, each person passed the project to the next, who then responded to the previous piece, building up the collaboration via long distance in a way befitting of our times — digital, cultural correspondence :D

Cultural Correspondence

In the Andes, geometric images known as tocapus carry within them a coded language whose meaning has been lost and that no Western science can read. However, the ancestors of the Andes did not themselves believe in death — and the meaning of these geometries may yet continue to live on within Andean descendants.

The Manifesto calls on those of Andean heritage to awaken these meanings by looking into their past, then project the meaning of these symbols into the future through a process of transrationality, whereby one may acquire the vision that will birth new Andean technologies and the reshaping of our reality.

Andean Futurist Manifesto

Andean Sky is an interactive web-comic about an immigrant who returns to his home-country Ecuador, in South America, to reconnect with his own culture. This project is available for free and it can be displayed on PC, iOS and Android.

Andean Sky

The back of a woman's head, where a tattoo is visible near her shoulder blades

In Buddhist tradition, they say that the soul wanders the earth for 49 days before crossing to the afterlife. This is my imagining of my grandmother's journey after she passed.

49 Days

Free

Paid

Resonate

SoftwareApplication

Artificial-Intelligence

Creative-Coding

Lgbt

Twitter

comics shop

apparel

games

site

animator and illustrator currently studying at school of visual arts. a rat girl

ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ / Cherokee ᎠᏎᎩ ᎠᏓᏅᏙ / Twospirit I enjoy extravagant patterns, psychedelic colors, and interesting lines. Stories that deal with Indigenous peoples' histories and religions as well as modern issues are what I crave. I research native plants + fungi + lichens especially in regards to those used as food and medicine. I also study architecture and industrial design with a particular affinity for anything in the realm of Art Deco.

Envisioning an alternative world

Emily Saltz

@saltzshaker

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Date Joined

Publications