Teaching Notes from NASA
Video, 2023
About the artwork
Learning how to cook at the Nice Aunties Sushi Academy (NASA) is a complex endeavour. It requires a variety of tools, rare ingredients, and unusual processes. The aunties offer glimpses into their extensive recipe cookbooks, accompanied by some verbal warnings. In three languages, overlapped and whispered, they caution: 'I want to teach you how to cook, but whether it's edible is something else entirely.' The AI film depicts cooking components like white hair, scissors, unknown tools, sushi, and creatures. The film concludes with a dreamlike, absurd sequence where the aunties are seen mechanically recording or referring to a library of cookbooks and cooking secrets on the moon. Created in Dalle3 and animated in Runwayml.
AI generated music by Niceaunties, Sound design by Niceaunties
Audio explanation
Listen to Niceaunties discuss this work.
Niceaunties is a contemporary artist and designer based in Singapore. Drawing inspiration from the influential women in her family and the distinct 'auntie culture,' her work explores themes of ageing, beauty, personal freedom, and everyday life through AI and digital art. Her life experiences and architectural training inform the conceptual basis of her pieces, while her focus on the nuanced behaviours of 'aunties' highlights the culture prevalent in Asian communities.
These women, embodying a spectrum from strange and funny to mean and kind, profoundly influenced the artist's early life and creative narrative, laying the foundation for the unique storytelling of "Niceaunties." Exploring themes like aging, beauty, personal freedom, and the nuances of everyday life, Niceaunties expresses her vision through the mediums of generative and digital art. Her creations are marked by an amalgamation of surrealism, fantasy, and the vibrant aesthetics of kawaii culture.
Influenced by surreal art, fantasy, and kawaii culture, Niceaunties' art champions empowerment and self-expression.