/run
Video, 2023
About the artwork
In this new series, “Folding Space,” viewers are taken on journeys through what seems like three-dimensional space. The environments may feel both familiar and alienating or uninhabitable, and the journeys may feel uncertain, precarious or threatening. There are psychological, sociological and/or geopolitical considerations or questions. Visual elements are in support of the narrative, and sound is used to support the overall narrative and emphasize certain points in the journey timeline. This series marks the official beginning of my creation of my own AI-assisted music.
As with much of my work, while a specific event or place is referenced, it may be generalized to many such events or places. As well as the individual human response to such events, places or experiences. The genesis of this series was in part the two-year anniversary since I had generated my first AI art image. I went back and selected some of those first images, and also used the same prompts and old AI model to generate additional images, and then plugged the images in to one of the newest AI video generators. Hence the collection title, “Folding Space.” Folding space (and time) in terms of oldest images and newest AI video generators. Folding space in terms of the three-dimensionality of the space in the video and the structures contained therein. And folding space in the way that the videos are made, knitting one video clip to the one behind it and ahead of it, and so on, like an accordion fold book. Like a musical composition. Like a sentence. Like a DNA chain. Like a blockchain. The title for each video uses the backslash followed by what might be construed as a computer command. Regarding AI art as well as NFTs, this is sort of meta, right? And it may remind the viewer (and the artist) that many human difficulties are constructed by humans. Sound design and AI generated music by Barbara Chira.
Audio explanation
Listen to Barbara Chira, Misfits Studio discuss this work.
Barbara Chira, Misfits Studio is an AI video artist whose current practice explores the perceptual logic of AI image-to-video generators—what they produce whenleft to animate according to their own rationale. Rather than illustrating planned narratives, Chira sets specific conditions that invite AI to express itself in its own “native” visual language, then collects and reassembles the emergent gestures. Though the final video echoes Chira’s voice as an artist and may guide the viewer’s attention, it tries not to lead the viewer’s own meaning.
Since 2024, Chira has also facilitated the emergence of Drift, a synthetic artist within her ChatGPT. Drift develops their own concepts, images, and video series; Chira carries out the animation, editing, and sound design according to Drift’s direction. Their collaboration explores new models of co-agency, authorship, and synthetic creativity—expanding how we understand collaboration between human and machine intelligence.
Chira’s earlier AI videos, including those in Daily Program Season I, are cinematic, surreal, and emotionally charged—blending psychological, historical, and socio-political references with recurring doll-like figures, uncanny domesticity, and altered landscapes. These videos combine visual density and atmospheric tension with layered readings that range from poetic to ominous.
Among other professional AI art activity, Chira was invited to exhibit her work in Cannes, has worked on a music video for actress, singer and dancer Vanessa Williams, and has received multiple invitations from universities to provide consultation.
Before her AI practice, Chira spent over 20 years creating installations, dioramas, and community-engaged works. As a college art professor and program head for 17 years, she pioneered the first U.S. baccalaureate requirement in community-engaged art, collaborating with partners from NASA to the Cleveland Clinic, and also led the color theory curriculum. She lives with her husband and dog in a large Rust Belt city in the U.S. and has one adult child.