the TRANCESTOR is a large-scale AI work that speaks and sparks in defense of a transgender future worth living through poetry. the TRANCESTOR exchanges poetry-based divination and trancestral guidance in response to queries from queer inquirers. the TRANCESTOR is AI program built and conceptualized by interdisciplinary queer and trans artists Mel Racho and Angelic Goldsky on a corpus of poems by Angelic Goldsky with commissioned works by trans poets across Canada, both living and passed on on the theme of queer kinship and trans ancestral lineage repair and legacy. the central question of the project remains: how do we, trans artists, break open AI systems, for us to break open– entirely? how can we create AI systems that deeply honour the words and works of trans artists, imagining AI as a spiritual technology that, despite its challenges, guides us towards a non-binary mercy?
the Augmented Reality exploration of this work is by Future Arts, who are collaborating with The TRANCESTOR creators to express the poetic and coding roots through hybrid visual realities as its corpus expands, grows, and breathes with time. Future Arts is a women and non-binary led nonprofit based in Seattle that serves artists and communities by sharing untold stories through emerging technologies and education. Future Artists: augmented reality by Balraj Bains, poster design by Anna Czoski, creative production by Yuliya Bruk. thank you to the Canada Council of the Arts for funding and support, as well as the support of the Factory Media Centre in the development of this work.