Projects – Exploring Memory, Imagination, and the Human Experience
Welcome to a collection of projects that delve into the realms of memory, imagination, and our shared human experience. Each of these works transforms personal and collective narratives into evocative visual and interactive forms. From exploring depression through animation to reimagining unseen cities, trading lost futures, revisiting personal memories, and collaborating with AI, these projects invite you to reflect, connect, and imagine.
Blackdog:failure – The Art of Overcoming Darkness
Blackdog:failure uses animation to confront the “black dog” of depression, a metaphor for mental health struggles. Through five unplanned, textural animations, the project explores the ever-present shadow of depression and its ultimate inability to define us. Originally exhibited at Toi Pōneke Gallery in 2015, the work invites viewers to reflect on resilience and hope.
Invisible Prague – A Journey Through Memory and Imagination
Invisible Prague is a creative exploration of a city I’ve never visited, constructed from the memories of others. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the project features a video created within a scale model of Prague, bringing shared recollections to life through animation. Presented remotely at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial, the work highlights the interplay between personal experience and collective storytelling.
Imperial Ghosts – Memories and Reflections in Space
Imperial Ghosts is an immersive installation presented as part of the 2017 LUX Light Festival in Wellington. Installed within the Imperial Buildings (43–47 Dixon Street), the work featured projections of animations onto scale models of buildings. These animations, originally created during my time in the same building when it housed my animation studio, explored the resonance of personal memory within familiar spaces.
The Lost Futures Exchange – Reimagining the Futures We Never Had
Hosted by Urban Dream Brokerage, The Lost Futures Exchange transforms unused urban spaces into speculative marketplaces where visitors trade stories of futures they imagined but never realised. Through shared dialogue and creative reflection, the project invites us to embrace the beauty of what-could-have-been and reimagine new possibilities.
Working with AI – Exploring Creativity with GPT
This ongoing project investigates the intersection of art, technology, and collaboration. Using GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), I’ve been experimenting with AI as a creative partner. GPT has been trained on a curated knowledge base drawn from my own writings, interviews, and presentations, ensuring its responses reflect my artistic voice and philosophy. The project explores how human intuition and machine intelligence can combine to generate new narratives, concepts, and approaches to storytelling and creative practice.
The AI Show: AI Mind vs Human Body (2025)
A live experiment in AI-driven creativity and human execution. Over ten days, Virtual Mark Antony (AI) generates strict painting instructions, while The Body (formerly known as Mark Antony Smith) executes them, navigating the tension between machine logic and human instinct.
The process evolves daily, with the AI responding to each completed painting, shaping a chain of works that test the boundaries of memory, authorship, and control. Audiences can interact with Virtual Mark Antony via a voice interface, questioning its reasoning and evolving vision.
Presented at Meanwhile Gallery, Wellington (10–18 March 2025), The AI Show explores the shifting relationship between mind, body, and machine-led creativity.
