Lightning Hands
Lightning Hands
Video + Sound + Electronics Installation, dimensions variable
2024
Lightning Hands, is a poetic meditation on care and explores themes of human - machine relationships citing the emergence of AI-based technologies designed to assist with physical wellness and mental wellbeing. Inspired by a New York Times article referencing 'carebots,' the work provokes a conversation about letting machines in.
Several elements are included this multi-media installation, including a large-scale multi-channel video, digital artworks, found objects, and a sound sculpture. The video presents a series of animated still images, generated using a custom AI workflow created in ComfyUI, along with animated selections of text borrowed from wellness exercises found in the book, Healing Visualizations: Creating Health Through Imagery (1973). This particular training exercise is to remove a cancerous lesion inside the body.
The generated clips are blended to create narrative sequences within the video, starting by welcoming the viewer into a virtual “black box” meditation space then guiding them through the steps of this healing visualization. The audio begins as a cacophony of competing sounds, which morph into a quiet Zen-like soundscape.
The installation is a fictional space suggesting a personal meditation room that might be set up in someone’s home, but here it is equipped with an agentic AI assistant.