Megan Young: "Charting the Course"
September 19, 2024 – October 30, 2024
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 2024 from 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 19, 2024 beginning at 5 p.m.
(In person): Cultural Arts Building, Room 2033
(Hosted on Zoom and was recorded): https://echo360.org/media/4f0564b1-3142-4f5f-a358-9f82170216c1/public
Megan Young's interactive installation, “Charting the Course”, is a new commission that maps the complexity of inherited histories. Viewers talk with Carry, a custom AI StoryCatcher, to hear the multifaceted experiences of women impacted by migration and displacement. She invites them to contribute their own stories, too. The project explores the intersections of AI technology, digital heritage, and our dreams for the future.
“Charting the Course” features various components introducing viewers to the concepts and development of a thought provoking AI journey.
Custom Software: The voice-interactive AI (named "Carry") is built in Python using natural language processing and RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) machine learning techniques to draw excerpts from participant conversations as memories. Carry shares narrative excerpts, asks questions, and continues to learn and grow through every interaction.
Textiles: Designed to reference ships' sails, each piece features a unique combination of custom printed cotton or linen cloth and embellishments. They are strung with hanging wire
and weighted with custom red clay bricks. The series extends concepts developed through Young's previous body of work, “With What We Could Carry”, featuring 3D scans of the artist and her family printed as computational, wireframe-style renderings on sailcloth. In this exhibition, the wireframe patterns have been repeated and abstracted so as to become a kind of backdrop.
Video Portraits: The digital studies imagine what Carry might look like as she catches, or is caught by, our collected narratives. Building on her background in dance and performance, the artist imagines Carry traveling through time as data...as language...or as memory. The looping experimental animations were developed using motion capture data processed in Blender and TouchDesigner.
Writing Station: This exhibition would not be possible if not for the contributions of viewers and participants. Over a dozen women have supported the work, so far, by sharing their experiences through recorded conversations with the artist. In that spirit, we invite gallery guests to write about their own experiences with themes of displacement and belonging. Additionally, they may reflect on their interactions with Carry, offering suggestions or critiques. Behind the installed table and chairs, viewers may read more about the development of the custom software and learn about the team behind the project.
CREDITS
concept + direction by Megan Young
technical support by Naveen Addanki, Bhagath Singh, Malhar Dhopate, and Sreya Kolachalama
conversational contributions by Michelle Camacho, Hala Abu Baker, Deirdre Colgan, Rosely Conz, Cheryl Murray, Rebecca Nava Soto, Feiran Yang, Anastasiya Lysyuk, Parinez Valinezhad, Aasawari Kulkarni, and those who wish to remain anonymous
This exhibition is part of the carry:root project and has been supported by an AI Fellowship with the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design and through the Faculty Assistance in Data Science (FADS) program of the Luddy School of Informatics at Indiana University.
Funding for this exhibition at UNCW’s CAB Art Gallery is supported by UNCW’S Seahawks Advancing Interdisciplinary Learning (SAIL).
BIOGRAPHY
Megan Young is a transdisciplinary artist researching how emerging technologies reflect collective experience. Her background in media performance and interactive design includes solo exhibitions and performances nationally and internationally, garnering features in Hyperallergic, The Atlantic, and on National Public Radio.
Young's artistic approach magnifies personal actions through large-scale installations that critique unjust social structures. She produces experimental videos, immersive experiences, and game-like scenarios that position viewers as crucial decision-makers. Notable works include "Longest Walk," challenging U.S. police militarization; "Cloud of Whiteness," demonstrating how camera vision systems uphold and privilege whiteness; and "Sign Stealing," investigating how surveillance systems
reduce our presence to mere data. She has presented through Art Souterrain, Armenia Art Fair, Ammerman Center for Arts & Technology, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, CounterPulse, and Open Engagement, in addition to other notable venues.
Young has overseen artist-directed projects across the Midwest and curated group exhibitions for institutions including the Ohio Arts Council, SPACES, Transformer Station, Medici Museum of Art, and Zygote Press. Honors and awards include a CEC ArtsLink social practice residency in Armenia, a Knight Foundation technology grant, and an Indiana University AI Fellowship. She holds a BFA in Dance Composition from Ohio University and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art + Media from Columbia College Chicago.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a transdisciplinary artist working across physical and digital mediums to explore what evades capture in a machine vision landscape. My practice draws from personal narratives, transhistorical research, and social practices to assemble loosely woven past and future stories. Resulting works range from interactive installation to immersive performance, video art, and virtual reality experiences. By employing dual use technologies like semi-autonomous drones, industrial scanners, and artificial intelligence within unexpected scenarios, I illustrate the gaps in their mechanic and algorithmic perception. I stretch those expanses of computational unknowing and stage collective responses around what could be that is not yet. I ask, “how can we build the care-based systems we deserve?”
