My Word (2023), by Carme Puche Moré
Who defines what we are? What happens when images betray our words? How do we survive in a world that constantly misunderstands us? ‘My Word’ is an audiovisual creation project based on artificial intelligence biases where a woman shows us her journey to define herself.
MY WORD is an audiovisual creation project based on text-to-image latent diffusion model (LDM) technology that uses implicit bias in technology to be part of the debate on the unconscious biases generated by the patriarchal and colonial system . It starts from a creative investigation of the current tools developed to relate the creation of imagination with the new stakes of Artificial Intelligence.
We know that the imagination generated by audiovisuals has a great power not only to represent the world we live in, but to shape how we relate to each other. The imagination is so powerful that it modifies behavior. Sometimes the simple fact of being represented or not can make us feel validated (or rather not) for a profession, for example. It’s that of If she can see it, she can be it. But we’re not just talking about the fact that a girl feels validated for being an astronaut, but about endless looks that determine and mark our way of being, our beliefs and consequently our actions in this world.
If we look at big data and imagine the world as a big sheet made up of billions of images, all of them organized by the law of the logarithm of proximity (words near an image define it), and take this sheet as a reference for the creation of new images… what dress will it give us? When society has not yet been able to create an imaginary that approaches reality, responsible, rich and inclusive with all the people who inhabit the planet, an Artificial Intelligence tool reaches the hands of everyone to be able create new images from these same biases. The result is sometimes devastating. It is true that the result is sometimes terrifying, but at the same time, we have found some hopeful results. We are investigating how the machine interacts with diverse and inclusive imaginaries. What we are discovering is that the machine tells us, in some way, that through art we have the power to generate a new imaginary that at the same time transforms the way we describe the world, even through the same words.
Direction, script and editing: Carme Puche Moré
Voice over: Claudette Wells
AI cinematographer: Sergio Álvarez-Napagao
Sound design: Jordi Rabascall Madrid
Violin: Olivier Jambois
Diversity conultant: Salima Jirari
Thanks: Erin Donovan
With the collaboration of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Carme Puche Moré
Director and screenwriter, she worked in journalism for over fifteen years before transitioning to filmmaking. Her filmmaking career began with “Camille” (winner of Best Screenplay New Visions at the Sitges International Film Festival 2011) and continued with several fiction pieces, including “The Welcome” (selected in over 20 international festivals). In the realm of documentaries, she premiered the feature “The Jump!” at the IN-EDIT Film Festival in 2014 and “Minshara” at the D’A Film Festival and the Biennial of Thought (CCCB) in 2022. Additionally, she is involved in projects exploring dialogue with artificial intelligence, such as ‘My Word’ (selected by +Rain Film Fest, and part of the IA exhibition at the Barbican Centre and the CCCB)
Currently, she is working on her second feature-length documentary, “All The Mothers,” funded by the Department of Culture, and working on various projects related to image generation with artificial intelligence, such as ‘Ashes’, a reflection on the imagery of witches and the overlooked history of their victimization, or ‘To be loved’, an experimental project to investigate the use of family archives for model training and, at the same time, images that heal.
Sergio Álvarez-Napagao
Associate Professor at UPC and researcher at BSC-CNS Barcelona Supercomputing Centre of UPC, is a specialist in artificial intelligence and also a director of photography in various productions, some of them directed by Carme Puche Moré, with whom he began an artistic relationship in 2011 with “Camille” that continues to this day with “My Word”.