Burn from Absence

In this video installation, which can also be experienced in a fulldome version premiering at IDFA, French-Vietnamese photographer and video artist Emeline Courcier uses artificial intelligence to fill the gaps in her family history. Large screens display AI-generated images based on existing photographs from private collections, accompanied by audio recordings of several generations of family members telling their version of the family history.

Sometimes every screen displays the same scene, while at others the images and voices complement or interrupt one another. The result is an interrogation of specific events that are experienced and explained from a variety of perspectives. The stories concern growing up in Vietnam, the impact of the Indochina wars, family dynamics, and the flight to Paris—where everyone experienced the hard landing in their own way.

AI steadfastly fills in the gaps caused partly by the erosion of the family’s collective memory, partly by the choice to remain silent. In this associative narrative, the words and visuals present all sorts of situations as they actually occurred—or as they might have occurred.

Burn from Absence is presented in collaboration with Onassis ONX and PHI.