Sincerely, Victor Pike

A poor memory leads Gregor Petrikovič to make audio recordings of conversations with loved ones, friends and acquaintances. Since 2016, he has been building an archive of anecdotes and recollections. With AI-generated visuals, Sincerely, Victor Pike, winner of the SOLO AI Award 2024, combines these faceless voices in a patchwork to produce a collective memory around the semi-fictional figure Victor Pike.

The dreamlike, nostalgically grainy quality of the images raises questions about authenticity and the nature of memory. The images are clearly not real; the shapes and settings are recognizable, but full of anomalous and alienating detail. Cars fly through the air, bodies merge. At the same time, this may actually be true to the nature of memories, which lie on the boundary between the real and the surreal.

This not only questions the relationship between technology and memory, but also challenges the notion of AI as an instrument detached from humans, precisely because it is used as a means to portray something as subjective as memories.