Workshop-Performance How to Find the Soul of a Sailor by Kasia Molga

Join us for an intimate workshop-performance of How to Find the Soul of a Sailor by artist Kasia Molga at our studio on Wednesday 3rd December 5pm-7.30pm.

How to Find the Soul of a Sailor is a deeply personal artwork exploring how artificial intelligence can preserve – and give new life to – the memory of a loved one. Examining the past and future of the Mediterranean sea through the eyes of Kasia Molga's late father, Tadeusz Molga.

Tadeusz was a devoted sailor who meticulously documented his passion for the ocean. After his passing, Kasia was left with a collection of his photographs and handwritten journals. She combines these with climate prediction data using The New Real Observatory, a specialised experiential Small Data Set AI platform. The results project her father’s words 100 years into the future from their original dates. Discover more about the work here: https://www.studiomolga.com/art_HTFTSOAS.html

Kasia Molga invites you to engage in an intimate ritual that connects us with “spirits” formed from localised datasets. The “workshop-performance” utilises a bespoke interactive retrofuture nautical compass, sound, and Molga's pre-trained AI model. Participants will be able to pose questions about the future of our climate and oceans, or any topic that feels meaningful in this context. The AI programme will respond with fragmented images, words and phrases in Molga's father’s distinctive tone, sparking conversation and reflection.

Participants may also have the opportunity to contribute to a new dataset. You can share writings from a departed loved one or personal reflections they wish to leave behind. This data will be processed through The New Real Observatory Word2Vec platform to randomly “summon a ghost” that can be interacted with. Any contributors will have the opportunity to “free the data / free the ghost” - delete it permanently, at any time, so it will never haunt us again.

This project raises critical questions about the ethics of AI in art and cultural practice, climate communication and ancestral memories, digital afterlife, the use of small datasets, and how these tools are used in storytelling. The workshop may also provide an opportunity for deeper discussions about the project and the broader implications of AI in creative practice.

Please share any contributions you would like to make to the session, such as writings from a departed loved one, with kasia@studiomolga.com and henry@studiomolga.com before 25th November.