MOTHER is an experimental, generative AI short film about motherhood. The film reconsiders representations of motherhood within generative AI imaging platforms, in response to the sanitised, heavily conditioned visual material that the subject typically generates.

Year: 2024
Exhibitions & Screenings: Elevation Film Festival (2024); Collapse, Safe House 1, Peckham, London (2024); ‘One Shot Award’, BBA Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2024), Berlin Short Film Awards, Berlin, Germany (2025), ‘TABOO - TRANSGRESSION – TRANSCENDENCE in Art & Science 2025’, Kino Šiška, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2025).

MOTHER was generated from a poetic script, written by the artist in prose form, based on personal experience as a mother and carer. This was fed as text prompts into the generative AI software Adobe Firefly to create the still imagery for the film.

The film follows a poetic visual narrative, teasing out the capabilities of the AI, working around the linguistic limits of modesty and categorisation in accepted prompts, and nudges the platform beyond its conventional, generic aesthetics, into richer, more evocative and visceral image making.

The work brings insight into the intersection of advanced technology and personal narrative, examining how generative AI can be directed to express deeper, more nuanced social themes. MOTHER attempts to prompt a broader contemplation on the ethics of AI in art, particularly in how technology impacts representation and identity within digital media.

An ambient, experimental electronic soundtrack accompanies the visual AI imagery, composed through the digital sampling of tracks by musicians Pan Sonic and EmptySet (courtesy of Mute Song Limited and Emptyset).

Funded by: Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh