Date of Award
Spring 6-6-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Digital Media
First Advisor
Nora Khan
Second Advisor
Shawn Greenlee
Third Advisor
Adela Goldbard
Abstract
Using tarot and machine learning, I actively de-compose the narrative of four disintegrating sites — a conservation cemetery in North-Central Florida, my Dad’s house in California, an abandoned parking lot near my apartment in Providence, RI, and myself as an inherently mortal human.
Rather than a tool for prediction, I see tarot as a system of decay — breaking down human experiences into archetypes to allow presence with our existence.
What happens when we look at other predictive technologies, such as machine learning, as means of breaking apart our reality too? When talking about science fiction or speculative fiction, a repeated idea is that these stories are not about the future but about the present. Instead of perpetuating current biases through adhering to technological predictions, maybe we could more deeply recognize our flawed ideologies — and actively decay them.
I’m imagining a world where instead of creating institutions that we work to immortalize (at the expense of the humans and other beings who have to exist within them), we create systems-of-care that are built with their own dissolution in mind — Decomposition built in so new life can grow, so mutual thriving can evolve.
Recommended Citation
Suzanna, Hannah, "The ephemeral altar & the floating grave" (2021). Masters Theses. 632.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/632
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
View exhibition online: Hannah Suzanna, The Ephemeral Altar & The Floating Grave