Zeqing Liu

Zeqing is interested in questioning and reconstructing memory in the information age. In this project, she imagined a mysterious profession, the “Gouiatre,” capable of altering and erasing people’s memories. She created a fake historical museum about the “Gouiatre,” with real old photos generated by AI, as well as the traditional costumes of the “Gouiatre” generated by AI through numerous images provided by Zeqing, and old manuscript illustrations. Zeqing transformed the AI ​​sketches into real clothes and tissue paper, creating fake, aged period objects. She also made videos of “Gouiatre” portraits and audio narrations using AI. By leaving many imperfections in this fake exhibition, she gives the audience more space to discern the boundaries between real history and fictitiously generated information. In another room, the walls are covered with videos of all sizes. Zeqing took authentic photos of the real world and left them to AI to turn into videos without any intervention. The smoke of war turns into fireworks, political slogans become shopping malls, Easterners turn into Westerners, and so on. The AI ​​transforms every event and character in a more "happy" and "beautiful" direction, raising the question of whether, behind the technological advances represented by AI in the supposedly decentralized era of media, there isn't a more discreet form of centralization. How will we distinguish the authenticity of memories and history preserved as "present on site" in the future?