A digitally manipulated portrait of a woman with a serious expression, wearing a black outfit and a metallic headscarf. Instead of a traditional hat, she has an oversized, intricately braided challah bread resting on her head like a turban. The background is solid black, emphasizing the contrast between her fair skin, red lipstick, and the golden-brown bread with sesame seeds.

Gallery Label: Hallucinating Traditions

Traditional clothing blends with imagined futures as portraits of the artist, Azra Akšamija, morph from one image to the next.

As the images evolve, relationships between artificial intelligence, tradition, and cultural identity become increasingly vivid, while the perceived boundaries between cultures and eras become increasingly blurred.

Images of Akšamija as well as a multitude of traditional costume references were used as the training data for advanced AI software. The resulting AI-generated headgear designs blur the past and future, referencing historical traditions while also opening a window to a future in which technology shapes both cultural and personal expression.

In the end, these speculative designs aim to challenge our understanding of culture, and prompt us to consider how both imagination and technology play a role in shaping our most deeply rooted traditions.

A conversation with AI

Scrolling across the large screen is a recorded conversation between Merve Akdoğan and the project’s custom AI bot. It reflects topics explored in the project, including traditions, identity, cultural appropriation, preservation of cultural memory, and bias in AI.

Credits

Hallucinating Traditions (2024), Azra Akšamija 

Materials: AI animation 

Dimensions: 5-channel video animation screened on holographic fan projectors 

Artistic director: Azra Akšamija 

Project research and development: Merve Akdoğan 

Production: Merve Akdoğan, Azra Akšamija, Shua Cho 