“he had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus,” (2025) An artificially intelligent robotic sculpture of reanimated oyster shells. This is part of my work in “necrobotics,” which is the use of dead organisms as robots to perform tasks. Title taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug,” a tale of two men — a formerly enslaved black man and a white man who has lost all of his money — who use biological specimen collecting and code-breaking in a search for upward economic class mobility via buried pirate treasure.

Medium: Necrobotics, live code, artificial intelligence, electronics, motors, light, sound, oyster shells collected from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area
Dimensions: 22” x 10” x 8”
Duration: Variable

“And its hero, the Conqueror Worm” (2025) An artificially intelligent wearable necrobotic light sculpture based on the parasitic marine worm Polydora websteri that attacks oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. The title is taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Conqueror Worm,” a poem about musical theatre and death that is described as having been written by the title character of Poe’s “Ligeia,” a scientist and mathematician who writes the poem just before she dies and returns from the dead.

Medium: Robotics, live code, artificial intelligence, electronics, motors, light, sound
Dimensions: Variable, wearable sculpture here is about 9” x 12” x 5”
Duration: Variable
 

“I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea” (2025)  Title taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s “MS. Found in a Bottle,” first published in 1833. Poe’s “MS.” is a “manuscript;” here “MS.” can be mechanical magical magnetic sea slug slime.

Medium: Glass bottle, ferrohydrodynamics, electromagnets, code, artificial intelligence, electronics, light, sound
Dimensions: 17” x 7” x 7”
Duration: Variable

“Deep Rituals, Robotic Rebellion” (2025) Live-coded wearable sculpture for performance featuring an artificially intelligent lab coat that listens, learns, lights up in reaction, and remembers, as well as spiraling video projection of marine biology and human hybrids based on the “phenakistiscope,” an early pre-film animation device. The work is based in part on the work of Assistant Professor Allison Tracy from the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, as well as on Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of sea-faring science and the supernatural, including depictions of necromancers creating mechanical sea monsters.  

Medium: Live code, video projection, sound, lab coat, LED lights, custom code, artificial intelligence
Dimensions: Variable
Duration: 2 hours

“Evolving Cities: Architecture of Transformation” (2024) features new systems for reimagining cities, based on my own dreams as well as the dreams of artificial intelligences I’ve created. Each location is loosely based on cities where I have lived: Richmond, Virginia; Detroit, Michigan; Baltimore, Maryland; and my hometown of Lyons, Michigan (population 763). These landscapes constantly rebuild themselves for new magical futures.

Medium: Custom code, artificial intelligence, ultra wide format 7-channel video projection installation and ultra wide stereo sound installation inside corporate financial space
Dimensions: Variable, here 5 feet tall x 111 feet wide
Duration: Infinite

“Evolving Cities: Architecture of Time” (2024) Part of a series of 3D lenticular prints of mutating evolving cities, based on my own dreams as well as the dreams of artificial intelligences I’ve created. Each location is loosely based on cities where I have lived: Richmond, Virginia; Detroit, Michigan; Baltimore, Maryland; and my hometown of Lyons, Michigan (population 763).

Medium: 3D lenticular print, custom code, artificial intelligence
Dimensions: 36” x 24”

“Augmented Ocean” (2024) Large-scale augmented reality mural, created with custom-coded AI trained on marine biology, historical occult symbols, and my rejected corporate illustration projects. This project explores apocalyptical flooding from more than human vantage points, artificial intelligence as predictive divination, and augmented reality for mutation and metamorphosis.

Medium: Large-format vinyl print, custom artificial intelligence, augmented reality, viewers’ smart phones
Dimensions: 50” x 200”

“Alchemical/Elemental: no evidence against me but the specter evidences” (2024)  A sculptural installation as a time-based exploration into how occult alchemical transmutation could be a strategy for social change. The video reflection system is based on the “Pepper's Ghost” illusion from Victorian-era stage shows. The title is taken from Rebecca Eames’ petition for a pardon while in Salem Prison after being convicted of witchcraft.

Medium: Custom artificial intelligence, polycarbonate sculptures, reflections from monitor
Dimensions: 13” x 44” x 26”
Duration: Infinite

“The Dance of the Nain Rouge” is an experimental decolonial Detroit demonology deepfake dream dance documentary, based on the legend of the Nain Rouge (“Red Dwarf") of Detroit. According to folklore and urban legend, the Nain Rouge is a supernatural shape-shifting native being who was brutally attacked by xenophobic colonists and has since been seen dancing as an omen of successful rebellions by the oppressed, having reportedly been seen before events such as the victory of Chief Pontiac at the Battle of Bloody Run in 1763 and the 1967 Detroit Rebellion against racism and police brutality. Besides short stature and redness, the Nain Rouge is known for dance, metamorphosis, and cross-species collaboration, having according to “Myths and Legends of Our Own Land” (1896) “directed the dance of black cats” and “had power to change shape.”

The video, soundtrack, and voiceover are all created with custom artificial intelligence systems, programmed and trained on a hacked-up second-hand MacBook laptop to minimize environmental destruction and maximize class warfare.

The video is based on an AI trained on Victorian era public domain photos of spiritualists and factory workers (including the Ford Motor Company River Rouge factory), early 20th century dance, science fiction, and horror film stills, as well as microscopic images of red blood cells and telescopic images of red dwarf stars. The soundtrack is created in part from an AI trained on stethoscopic recordings of human, carnivorous plant, and fungus organs, and also radio waves from space. The narration is a prose poem written by an AI programmed to start from the first line of “The Nain Rouge” from “Myths and Legends of Our Own Lands” (1896), end with the last line of “The Nain Rouge” from “Legends of Le Detroit” (1884), and the text in between is based on other contemporary “Red” texts: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales” (1892 collection), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life” (1894), Leonora Blanche Alleyne’s “The Red Fairy Book” (1890), Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” (1895), “The Grand Grimoire” also known as “The Red Dragon” (likely from the 1800s, claims to be from 1521), and Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” volumes 1-3 (1867-1894).

“CHARYBDIS-3” (2021) is an infinitely spiraling video vortex, created by artificial intelligence trained on endangered species of Virginia, and projected on to a waterfall. The video zooms into the eyes and eye-like features of flora and fauna, mutating from one form of wildlife to another. This project uses computer vision, facial recognition, and machine learning to explore different ways humans might see and learn from other species. The vortex can be considered a possible portal to a different world, and an invitation to look deeper, from different perspectives, into Virginia’s threatened wildlife. This series is named after Charybdis, the whirlpool-creating creature from Greek mythology.

Medium: Artificial intelligence, custom code, video projection, waterfall
Dimensions: Variable
Duration: 9 minute 40 second loop