Stephanie Dinkins’ artworks are centered around the creation of immersive platforms with the use of new media, such as AI, to compile the stories and experiences of Black women. When we first think of AI art, we usually think of art generated by Google gemini or AI videos generated by Sora 2, to which both are entirely created by generative AI, with the only human input being the prompt. The majority of people do not believe that these generated content are real art, as they are not created by humans and are not natural, however, Stephanie Dinkins does not use this approach to create her projects, but to use the algorithm of AI to compile a data set of a particular subject, collapsing the time of the narratives to connect the past, present or even the future, creating a timeless art piece where it resonates to all the timelines of black women history. Her method offers a powerful blueprint for how new media technologies can be used for cultural preservation and raising awareness of modern social problems.

For my research, I found "Secret Garden" a very fascinating work. It is an online interactive project that Stephanie created in 2021 surrounding the subject of the intergenerational memory of the history of Black women. According to her website, “guests meet women with stories to tell: surviving a slave boat, growing up on a 1920s

Black-owned farm, surviving 9/11, and embodying an AI powered by African American women”. I am particularly drawn to it because not only do I believe that it is important for us to understand the history of colonization and slavery in different parts of the world, Stephanie’s work also moves beyond a conventional documentary style. Normally, we would watch video documentaries or read books to learn more about such history, but “Secret Garden” provides a new depth of perspective by creating a fragmented landscape where stories from different centuries coexist. This ultimately allows the audience to grasp the connections between a story of a slave ship and an account of embodying an AI.

[Image of the "Secret Garden" interface, showing a garden environment with visual elements representing different stories]

(Img source: https://www.stephaniedinkins.com)

I realized that this work involves multiple channels of soundscape where voices and stories overlap, and sometimes it even creates an intentional dissonance, making it ‘hit different’. This element enlightened me to reflect on how history is often told as a story. It is not a clear, singular narrative, but as a chorus of competing, fragmented, and conflicting voices that we must actively collaborate with people with different experiences to listen to and piece together. A noticeable feature of “Secret Garden” is that it refuses to provide a single narrative to the audience, which forces the viewer to comprehend the artwork and think to understand it in their own narrative.

It got me thinking that, for my own work in the future, I could explore the use of sound and spatial design to create an immersive documentary, and with the compilation of different stories and timelines in the same space, it promotes the spirit of non-singular narratives, so that I can show the complexity of collective memory.