Security Interest
Video, 2023
About the artwork
This video continues my experiment with the synthesis and contrast of various dialectics. I try to use dialectics and the metaphor of disasters and/or conflict to express psychological and emotional processes. In this piece, “Tank Girls” are introduced. And I draw a parallel between U.S. long-term involvement in wars over oil and an individual's response to trauma. Just as an individual might react to trauma with protective, fight-or-flight responses, the U.S. has often resorted to military interventions to secure control over vital resources. This can represent the initial stage of attempting to regain stability in the face of perceived threats. The video further explores how prolonged engagement in these conflicts can mirror maladaptive coping mechanisms, leading to a cycle of re-traumatization. Both the individual and the nation find themselves repeatedly drawn into situations that trigger unresolved issues, perpetuating instability. Breaking this cycle would require a shift towards different approaches. Speaking of which, this video may be marking a shift away from the Dialectics collection and development of a different or more specialized direction. Sound design 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.