How to Find the Soul of a Sailor, which uses the cherished 40-year-old diaries of a seaman to bring his stories back to life, takes place at the University of Edinburgh’s InSpace Gallery until 21 December, 2024 and 6 – 11 January, 2025.
The multimedia experience, presented by interdisciplinary artist Kasia Molga, uses the handwritten diaries of her father, Tadeusz Molga, a devoted sailor who meticulously documented his journeys on Merchant Navy vessels from 1967 to 1987.
Real-life accounts
Kasia combines the diaries of her parent, who died seventeen years ago, with official navy ship logs and climate change data to illustrate the evolution of both the seas and the working conditions of sailors.
The exhibition is the result of The New Real, an artificial intelligence (AI) research hub in collaboration with The Alan Turing Institute, which helps arts organisations harness possibilities offered by AI.
AI platform
For the exhibition Molga uses a special AI platform, The New Real Observatory, to recreate written stories in her father’s tone of voice decades after they were written.
The technology also experiments with taking a so-called small data set, in this instance her father’s diaries, and uses it to discern enough of his personality to articulate how he would see things today.
The AI platform also provided access to a climate change model which transposed his stories from the 1980s to seas in the future.
Molga’s exhibition, which presents a combination of immersive audio visual experiences and physical artefacts, combines English and Polish, creating a bilingual experience that delves into the topics of climate change and the digital afterlife.
Her work addresses some of the complex questions around using AI tools to examine grief, loss, and preserving human memories and histories.
Kasia Molga fuses design with art, tech and science, and describes herself as a ‘design fusionist’.
She has exhibited her award-winning work around the world, including at Dutch Design Week, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the V&A.
