GRAY

MP4 | 1920x1920 | 1:05 | 2023

To apologize

my mother texts me some birds.

“What are these?” she asks beneath

the picture, which is blurry from

how, instead of walking closer

to the flock, she pinched the screen

with her fingers to bring my eyes

closer to their bodies, each one

in a different stage of lifting off

from the lake’s slate table.

“Whatever they were,” I say,

“they’re gone.”

— P. Scott Cunningham

Applying the lens of artificial intelligence and digital manipulation to the verse of P. Scott Cunningham’s GRAY, this collaboration between artist and poet decodes the language of the withheld to unravel the ties that bind. Drawing inspiration from early generations of genetic sequencing, the creation of the final work denatures, fragments, and replicates the ‘DNA strands’ of an AI-generated image synthesized from the language of the poem to reveal points of termination. The process reflects both the dynamic tensions and brute physicality beneath the surface of Gray. The resulting collaborative piece considers the legacy of biological bonds, the persistence of generational scars, and the choices that would cleave a departure from the past. With the last line of the poem, a question remains: where blood is thicker than water, when do the rules break from code?

FEATURED IN

Catalyst: Digital Transformation in the Arts. Knight Foundation. Miami, FL. 04 December 2023. GRAY (a collaboration with poet P. Scott Cunningham).

VoyageLA | Meet Connie Bakshi. 02 October 2023.

Poetry Society of America | Selections from theVERSEverse: Curated by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram. 07 September 2023. 

Selections from theVERSEverse. Poetry Society of America. Brooklyn, NY. 01 — 30 September 2023. GRAY (a collaboration with poet P. Scott Cunningham).

Feral File | The Poetry Journal of the Future. Written by Ana María Caballero, Kalen Iwamoto, and Sasha Stiles. 02 October 2023. 

OUTLAND | Studio Visit: Connie Bakshi. Interview with Wade Wallerstein. 24 July 2023.

Feral File x theVERSEverse | “FeralVerse Exhibition Opening.” Hosted by Elisabeth Sweet. 06 April 2023. Online

FeralVerse by theVERSEverse. Feral File. Online. 06 — 13 April 2023. GRAY (a collaboration with poet P. Scott Cunningham).

COLLECT ON FERAL FILE. (PRIMARY SALES CLOSED)