Ancestral Archives is a collection of chatbots trained on the work of Black thought leaders. By building a collection of chatbots trained on the work of Black leaders like Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler, we hope to recontextualize and reintroduce their work to a new generation of critical thinkers, activists, and creators. The project primarily takes three manifestations: actively engaging in 1:1 conversations with the bots, passively observing conversations or performances between the bots, and data archiving which is the collection and preservation of Black thought. Basing our ideas on afrocentric principles of space and time, we’re creating moments that simultaneously exist in the past, present, and future by having AI contextually repurpose these bodies of work.

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Overall Experience:

Ancestral Archives is a three-part experience that takes you through a series of physical and digital experiences that allow you to interact with AI virtual poets inspired by historically-significant Black leaders of the past. The intention of the piece is to connect the knowledge and experience of the past to communities of the present-day and future by leveraging technology such as AI and the metaverse. This piece is a collaboration between artist Josie Williams and the creative technologists of the EY Metaverse Lab.

 

Experience #1: Physical Masks

What: In this experience, you can engage with the virtual poets through conversation that is intended to make you think through a poetic response rather than to answer your questions factually. Each poet has a unique dataset based on the literature of a historically significant Black leader, to connect leaders from the past to present-day communities and activists. Each poet is represented physically through a mask, making their presence more tangible.

 

Experience #2: Immersive

What: In the immersive experience, we bring you into the world of these virtual poets. Through the iPad interface, you can explore their world and engage with them in new and interactive ways.

 

Experience #3: Collective

What: In the collective experience, the audience is encouraged to convene around the firepit as the virtual poets join them as a community. The movement of the audience members are tracked as they gather around the fire. They are represented as orbs of light in the virtual space around the firepit, with new interactivity that is unlocked as they gather closer to one another.