#MERZmory: Faces
Sharing memories in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
So they exist. Trained on my memories. The faces you see here are created in a harmonical orchestration by me and Artificial Intelligence. I trained AI on my photographs — and so the imagery you see here is a merge between humanity (pre-trained FFHQ-Datasets) and my own life.
But they are not just faces — they have names. And not only names — they have their stories to tell. Stories, also co-created by AI. Funny and frightening, melancholic and absurd. Everyone has their own fate. And you can read it below.
They remember odd moments in their lives — and now, after reading it, these memories become yours as well.
=Erika=
Erika remembers:
“My grandfather invented a new language. As soon as he spoke, he spoke in his new language, I didn’t even know it. He spoke his dreams and thoughts and new language. He spoke it and we had to understand him, we had to understand the meaning of the words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs and we did. We understood everything and we listened and we did not argue and did not argue and did not argue and did not argue.”
=Edgar=
Edgar remembers:
“I became an artist after one epiphany-alike event. One day, I was walking around the woods in the forest of my village in Poland, when I stumbled upon an apple that had partially fallen down from the tree. It was on the ground. I picked it up and held it in my hand for a while, just to look at it. Suddenly, an epiphany struck me: what if I were to carve out the core of that apple into some kind of small creature, like a squirrel or a horse… What an idea! It was the first time I thought of becoming an artist. I still remember that moment very well!”.
=Eliza=
Eliza remembers:
“My mother met my father in a very unusual way. I’d even say, nobody will believe it. She had a dream three times in a row, in which she met a tall man, approaching her. In the first dream, he kissed her with a silver pen, in the second with a silver knife, and in the third with his beautifully curled hair. As it really happens, she met him on a bus, thirteen days later after she had this dream. He was tall and handsome.”
=Elvis=
Elvis remembers:
“As a student, I found five ontological postulates:
- I am incessantly making false statements.
- I don’t know if I am making progress towards a true ontological statement.
- There is a precise definition of a true ontological statement.
- It is a fact that a true ontological statement is made only under the conditions of a valid observation.
- I don’t know what a valid observation is. So in a sense, self-defining is much more precise than you might think — but it doesn’t make the situation any less paradoxical.”
=Elsa=
Elsa remembers:
“In the 1980ies I lived in East Berlin. One day I had a strange experience: the sky was dark, the air was still, no birds singing, no animals moving. I was nervous, I looked up at the sky, trying to figure out what was happening, but there was no apparent reason. I walked out of my house, listening, but there was no “noise”. No wagons or cars passing by, no elevator running, no TVs or Radios sounding, no shouts or calls. I was very unhappy, I thought it is the end of the world. I thought my external sensory perception stopped working, I thought I have the fantasy, the nightmare of no sensory perception. Then suddenly I heard a single bird singing, then two, then the entire forest started to sound, then I thought I was just dreaming about no sensory perception. It was September 1989.”
=Elliott=
Elliott remembers:
“As I was a kid, I had a strange experience: I was out at the beach, and I was getting ready for my first surfing lesson. All of a sudden, I heard music. It stopped, started again, stopped again. I asked my dad what it was, and he said that it was amazing that I heard the waves. I remember thinking, ‘Nah, that’s not what I’m hearing. That’s not what I’m hearing.’ “
=Emery=
Emery remembers:
“In the college, I couldn’t find myself. One day changed everything: I was sitting in the plaza with my mates discussing existentialism with spoonfuls of chocolate powder in teas, although it is unknown whether they have read any of the French philosophers they mentioned. I felt terribly disappointed with myself, at my insignificant smallness, and my sense of uselessness, meaning, my stupidness. Suddenly I stopped talking and said ‘I don’t want to live completely alone, I want to live for me but also with me’. I felt the most wonderful sensation ever, my thinking cleared up, at that moment my life started to have sense.”
=Ernesto=
Ernesto remembers:
“I always take a walk in the forests. One day something strange happened: while I was standing in front of the tree, I saw the spirit of my late wife. She said to me: ‘Do not worry, I’m in peace. I’m not worried about you too. Keep fighting for the rights of our children. Do not be like me. Do not make the same mistakes I made. That’s all I wanted to tell you. I take care of the girls (my daughters), don’t worry about them.”
=Eva=
Eva remembers:
“Yesterday in the school we had a weird experience: a teacher was in a very gloomy mood; our class was not behaving very well; it was at the end of the day; we were very tired; we were unprepared; we didn’t get the lesson. We were like zombies, like shadows. So the teacher said, ‘Now we’ll do something different, we’ll recite some poetry.’ And we did; we recited poetry, we did it in unison; we did it very well; we did it in harmony; we did it slowly; we had a good time; we felt like we did it for ourselves and we did it for our teacher and we did it for ourselves and we did it for ourselves and we did it for ourselves.”
=Everett=
Everett remembers:
“I am weird. I have always been weird. I have never conformed to mass audiences. That being said, I am not the only weird person in the world. Weird is good. Weird is special. And weird doesn’t have to be hidden.”
=Elewa=
Elewa remembers:
“My father was an artist and gave me once a very wise advice: he told me that it is better to be unknown internationally than to be known locally… and this I find absolutely true.”
=Ellie=
Ellie remembers:
“In my village, there was a very weird custom: nobody was allowed to shout at his parents because their nightingale was teaching music to her chicks in a nest at the time.”
=Emiko=
Emiko remembers:
“I was a little girl, as a child I always wanted to have a doll. When I was about eight or nine my mother gave me a tin doll. It was a simple doll a cube a half a meter high with a tin head and a tin body and two tin legs and a tin one hand. I took care of that doll. Played with it, fed it with water, and then one day I was playing with the doll and my hands started swelling and got numb. I was playing with it for a couple of hours and I did not notice the reaction. Afterward, I did not see my mother for a long time and I had to take care of myself.”
=Eduard=
Eduard remembers:
“Call me a freak, but I always wanted to be an actor. Now, knowing that not everybody understands me, part of me is glad to be able to say what I mean without having to explain it. I show people what I mean instead. I act it out. At least I’m not misunderstood, I say to myself. But who’s to say why I should be misunderstood, when I’m so clear to me, right?”
=Elton=
Elton remembers:
“Three days ago, something weird happened to me. For a moment, I forgot how to speak. I tried to say a sentence but I couldn’t. So I went to a doctor, he prescribed medicine and everything was okay.”
=Eleanor=
Eleanor remembers:
“But then something strange happened to me: I saw the mouth of the tunnel. The mouth was massive, black, bottomless…waiting for me. And the mouth was alive. It held me, pulled me, sucked me into it. I was flying at it. I screamed, I cried, I tried to fight, but the mouth won’t let me beg for mercy! I was swept into the mouth at great speed, deeper and deeper…and then everything was dark.”
=Enlai=
Enlai remembers:
“As a child, I always wondered, ‘Why do only children have to study so hard’? Later I found out that it was because all their parents’ family histories — the genealogies, the heirlooms — had been scattered during the Revolution. So what you study is yourself.”
=Easton=
Easton remembers:
“Suddenly I saw him crash and roll and crash and roll and crash and roll and crash and roll and crash and roll. He went down the hill and under the trees and then he was gone.”
=Emmanuel=
Emmanuel remembers:
“One year ago I had a strange experience. I was repeating the alphabet to myself, something I do often to relax — B, C, D, E, F — when I heard my eight-year-old son shouting my name intensely at the same moment. I had the distinct sensation of his presence — not in the room, but inside my head. It was eerie; I felt him there.”
=Elsie=
Elsie remembers:
“The first thing in my life I can remember, was sitting on my mother’s lap one day, and the clouds were rolling by so beautiful, and I was so happy. I felt so close to God… I knew there was something else about me. I didn’t know what it was. But I knew I was different than everybody else.”
=Elijah=
Elijah remembers:
“I had once, a kid, something like a revelation: The thought-gods were talking to me. Not so real. Like seeing cowboys in car headlights. ‘Elijah,’ they said, ‘Elijah! Elijah!’ Only the cowboys were the sun playing its golden games with dust patterns dancing in the air. I never forgot it. It was like nothing else.”
=Ella=
Ella remembers:
“As a child I loved evenings. Stars were like creatures. They moved and changed forms. It was like living through the fairy tale ’Nothern star’.
=Ethan=
Ethan remembers:
“10 years ago right on this day, something unusual happened to me. I got my first ever text message! I was so happy that I called my mom and read it to her. The message came from a girl I liked a lot at the time, a true life changer. That text message changed my life because it was the very first time someone had ever said they liked me.”
=Ennika=
Ennika remembers:
“Something weird happened to our teacher. She said, `Hope is a’ — she repeated the word twice — ‘Hope is a. . . ‘ She couldn’t finish, began to cry, and left class.”
=Eddie=
Eddie remembers:
“My last holiday was two years ago. I went to the Algarve and ate too much and felt awful and came home and said I’m not going on holiday again. I’m leaving my body to medical science.”
=Evgeny=
Evgeny remembers:
“My parents came from a generation that was affected by the bloody events of the 20th century. In our family, we had a heavy silence. I, too, have a heavy silence. But here, for the first time in my life, I managed to talk about what was hidden. It was a very strange, new feeling.”
=Elisha=
Elisha remembers:
“Two years ago I had a very strange experience, as I was hiking in the mountains. I had a strange sense of the spiritual nature of the world around me. Today I understand it as an experience of the enlightenment. I felt that everything is in motion, that all objects in the world around me were in the process of transformation, that something in the world is in constant motion. It was so beautiful and enlightening. I felt so happy and free in nature, and I became aware of the great simplicity of the world and of everything in it.”
=Ean=
Ean remembers:
“One year ago one thing happened, which changed everything around me. I was in Paris, working on a monograph on the history of the city, when one sunny day I got a call from a friend who said: ‘Listen, a building in Marais is going to be demolished. I know where the materials will go. Why don’t you come and get it?’ That didn’t sound too hard to me, so I said yes. I put all my notes and books in a bag and went with him to the building. I didn’t know what to expect. The building looked deserted and I never thought I would find anything in it, but then when we got inside it, the floor began to open. To my surprise, I found a small treasure-trove of old French decors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a collection of the most marvelous building stone I have ever seen…”
=Eloise=
Eloise remembers:
“My first love was the mysterious one. My second was the kind one. My third was the funny one. Now, I am the older one. The fourth one …
=Evelin=
Evelin remembers:
“10 years ago I had a mysterious thing happened to me — and everything changed. I have found myself in a huge sphere of magic, ancient wisdom, ancient knowledge… I have found true friends, I have become the happiest person in the world… I have found my mother, who has given up on me because I have been a bad daughter for more than 15 years. I have found my father, who has been searching for me all his life. I have found my sister, who has been stolen from me. I have found the Mother of the World, whose Heart is a Sun of Love and a Centre of Life. I have found the Great Power who has been protecting me from dangers and death, from disasters and from enemies, from pain and from diseases. I have found my Teacher who has been preparing me to become a Channel for this Great Power so that it can be transmitted to all of you. And now this Work is being done.”
=Eliana=
Eliana remembers:
“I went with mom and daddy to a weird museum. There were animals dressed up in different costumes. I learned that animals are better dressed up than ‘Elianita’.”
=Emi=
Emi remembers:
“Till last year I had a very weird habit. Every time I was going to sleep I used to squish my right hand into my face to see if it was still there. Eventually, this came to Emi’s knowledge and she realized that I had done this habit for 8 years. Yeah I still do it but very rarely if I feel I’m not in the right place at the right time”
=Edgard=
Edgard remembers:
“This was the favorite joke of my father: Why did you buy a cow? Because I like to take her out for a walk. And another: What happened one day to the cow of the miller of Loir? She came home with a notebook between her horns.”
=Edel=
Edel remembers:
“My first word was ‘Sold.’ I was a real estate child.
=Eero=
Eero remembers:
“As a kid, I imagined the End of the World in a very odd way, as a happy end. That was due to the work of the British scientist Julian Huxley (1887–1975), whom his colleagues called “Darwin’s bulldog”. According to Huxley, the end of the world would come peacefully and logically, as a mathematical construct. The first man will destroy himself by his own hands; but before that, he will make machines which will take over this job. These machines will kill him knowing that they are doing their creator’s works. Then all the machines will get together and elect one machine to be the leader. Supposedly, this was how God “created” the world, setting the Earth spinning precisely at 4:00 PM according to Greenwich Mean Time of the 15th of October, 4,004,400 BC.
=Ely=
Ely remembers:
“Once as I was traveling in train across Europe, I had a very strange incident. I was just about to go out to have my dinner in the restaurant car when there came two or three very official-looking gentlemen into my compartment. They were quite friendly to me, but they were evidently looking for someone. They were looking at each passenger, and the first one said to the second, ‘I think it must be this one.’ Then the second one said, ‘No, it must be this one.’ I thought they were after some spy, and they were looking for him, but they didn’t find him. Afterward one of the passengers told me that the first one was the chief of the Italian Secret Service, and the other one was his chief of staff.”
=Everette=
Everette remembers:
“As a kid, I had a dream. Become artist. This dream has become my reality. Now I am living in my dream. To be fair, in my dream is still something missing. Love. And now it is a problem. It is a problem to tell that this dream I have. I know, that dream is very pure and innocent. It’s a dream that it’s possible to love each other, to take care of each other, to trust each other. But after I was involved in life as a model, like a star, as a famous person, now I have a problem believing in love. Yes, now I have a problem believing in love.”
=Elvira=
Elvira remembers:
“Yesterday in the library I’ve seen something unbelievable:
two girls sitting in two different desks, sitting in two different seats, sitting in two different chairs, sitting in two different rooms, sitting in two different sides of the world, sitting in two different sides of our planet, sitting in two different sides of the Universe, sitting in two different sides of the Universe, sitting in two different sides of the time, sitting in two different sides of the life, sitting in two different sides of different futures, sitting in two different sides of different lives, sitting in two different sides of different moments, sitting in two different sides of different words, sitting in two different sides of different feelings, sitting in two different sides of different visions, sitting in two different sides of possible futures, sitting in two different sides of different colours, sitting in two different sides of different coincidences, sitting in two different sides of the same Earth, sitting in two different sides of a dream, sitting in two different sides of a wish, sitting in two different sides of a life, sitting in two different sides of a world. But they have one thing the same — they have a shadow of a common story that has the same beginning and the same end.
=Elexis=
Elexis remembers:
“Before I became an artist, I was a scientist. But then, well… If you’d like, I suppose I could explain the creation process to you.”
=Edan=
Edan remembers:
“Once a weird man came to my art gallery. He said he was a detective who worked for a company that was going to pick up a painting I had in the gallery. He gave me his business card and said the company’s name was something like ‘Art.” I thought he was trying to trick me into selling the painting (all my stuff was already insured, the painting was worth about $100,000) but he said that he would show me the card. He went to his car to get it, and I took the opportunity to call the cops. He’d left before they got there, but I told them everything I knew about him (he left the gallery while I was making the call, so I was able to tell them his license plate number). I later found out that he was really an art thief.”
=Edric=
Edric remembers:
“I found the meaning of life last year. Then I threw it away again.”
=Edvin=
Edvin remembers:
“Last week I had a mind-blowing epiphany as I was sitting in a café reading James Joyce. It suddenly struck me that Joyce was nothing but an amateur. His stories are incoherent. He didn’t pay attention to the small details. He used to repeat the same words over again. Then I started talking to myself like this idiot ‘Macchiato’, ‘Cappuccino’, ‘Mochaccino’, ‘Haschisch’, ‘Rotwein’. I thought about it for half an hour and figured out that all great writers must be idiots to write well. It was like that James Joyce bloke said about Ulysses.”
=Elvin=
Elvin remembers:
“My parents never told me, that I as kid wasn’t ‘a person’, but the ‘d-word’…. I remember how they solved it later, by writing ‘ with a character meaning ‘very’ over ‘d’”.
=Eliel=
Eliel remembers:
“Once, my grandmother told me our family secret: in our house, in our hearts, in our kitchen. Our family secret was fufu. We were poor people, but in my grandmother’s eyes, in my mother’s eyes, in my grandmother’s heart, in my heart, in my mother’s heart, in the heart of my grandmother — in all of us is that joy that thing that tasted like fufu.”
=Eusebio=
Eusebio remembers:
“People always called me “weird person”. I was wearing glasses and talking with a lot of people. I was very outgoing and everyone was always asking me: “Who are you and what is your name?” and I was like: “I’m the best!” and the people were like: “Oh, you’re good”. And when I saw the video with the clown saying: “I’m the best!” I said: “This is me!””
=Erina=
Erina remembers:
“I’ve sent once a letter to Jerry Saltz. He returned the letter to me with a small note:
“Dear, please don’t make another “Sturm und Drang” about the state of the art world. I’m not interested in your arguments. I’m not interested in discussing any of this. I don’t want to hear any more bitter, contemptuous rants about the art world. I don’t want to hear any more accusations about people who aren’t “smart.” I don’t want to read any more rants about collectors, especially ones about “the untalented ones.” Don’t send me any more of your rants. Just for an experiment try to figure out how to be happy in the world you live in. I’ve met lots of people like you. You’re stuck in the 70’s and ranting about the art world. You just don’t get it. Think about the problems of the world and do something about them. Try to make things better. Try to make yourself happy. If you won’t, I will insult you again. Being bitter is for losers. Yours, Jerry””
The letter was signed “Your admirer.”
=Elowen=
Elowen remembers:
“In my previous life, I was truly a dork. I was very, very dorky. I was dorkier than dorks. And I was dorky with dorks. And I was dorkier than dorks with dorks. This is why you should always stay with your first love! So, it’s no surprise that I married a dork.”
=Evana=
Evana remembers:
“In our family, we had a very strange tradition: we never told each other we loved each other. Not even dad and mum. It was so strange and so unusual. Now we stick to this. If we do not know what to say we say: I love you.”
=Espen=
Espen remembers:
“My first job interview was probably the weirdest event in my life. The interviewer showed me a book with pictures from ice-blue fish and fish without ice-blue, and she asked if ice-blue was a real fish. She wanted to know everything I knew about ice-blue, and she gave me 5 minutes' time, letting me answer all the questions. I couldn’t answer a single question, but I was given a job.”
=Eagan=
Eagan remembers:
“The thing is, one day I understood the meaning of my existence. I’m a part of something way bigger than myself. And I belong here. I know I do. I’m not just doing this for myself. I’m doing it for everyone. I understand that now.”
=Mr. Enigma =̧̈́̈́ͮͦ̐҉̣̝̼͕̥͇̣̥̪̮̪̖ͅ
Merzmensch is exploring the boundaries of Artificial Creativity. In his series “MERZmory” he trained various StyleGAN2 models on thousands of his photos — in every photo shimmer splitters of his memory.
In “Faces” he examines facial metamorphosis between original training datasets and Merzensch’s memories. Every character has his or her unique name.
Read more about Merzmensch’s approach here: https://towardsdatascience.com/visual-ai-trained-on-my-memories-a54c55967c28?sk=3e37e2716ccee2101ba07025e5bcfd60
This is an Ethereum edition.
