Am I the Machine? Am the Home?

Am I the Machine? Am I the Home? (2024) is a 3D animated video work that I produced in collaboration with New York architect, Cleveland Adams. It is an exploration of the intimate relationship between human consciousness, technology, and domesticity through a surreal digital landscape. The transparent female head serves as both vessel and viewfinder, containing within it a hybrid dwelling constructed from obsolete technology components and organic female forms. This juxtaposition examines how our inner worlds and definition of home are increasingly shaped by the digital tools we consume and discard.

By inviting viewers through a USB portal—a contemporary Alice’s rabbit hole—the work questions where embodied experience ends and technological augmentation begins. The interior gallery reveals documentation of our physical models, creating a recursive dialogue between AI-generated imagination and tangible craft. This interplay of synthetic and handmade elements challenges conventional notions of authenticity in our hybrid reality, where the boundaries between digital dreams and material practice increasingly blur.

The piece contemplates how we build our mental architectures from the ephemeral scaffolding of technology while remaining tethered to the tactile world. Through this lens, “Am I the Machine? Am I the Home?” examines the transient nature of digital tools against the persistence of physical materiality, asking what truly constitutes the spaces we inhabit in our minds and define as home.

Studio Acknowledgments:
Research & Animation Assistance: Yesha Shah and Marilyn Fang