The Creative CoLab, Artificial Intelligence, and Webcomics at ART | library deco
by Dana Reijerkerk
Freelance Data Consultant
In December 2023, I began freelancing with ART | library deco, an online African American virtual art library, digital gallery, and repository. As the Associate Director and Deputy Library Curator, I am responsible for the creative organization and direction of the digital gallery. ART | library deco archives the visual experience of African American art, literature, and history through the eyes of artists and institutions in the United States and abroad.
I am not Black. I’m a first-generation Dutch-Canadian-American (the colonial triad) and data professional by trade. My award-winning work explores the intersections and borders between technology and social power structures. I’m constantly thinking of the ways knowledge, wealth, and stories uphold “the binary” — cultural assumptions that life’s nuance and complexity can be reduced to a duality like either/or. I have over ten years of experience working with and in Indigenous and Black communities on user experience/user interface design, decolonization, and digital storytelling. And I am a widely published author and indie game developer with my work appearing in academic venues like The American Archivist and the indie video game marketplace itch.io.
I met the founder and Chief Curator of ART | library deco, kYmberly Keeton, last year when we were both awarded prestigious data science fellowships with Drexel University. We partnered on an original project, Relational Possibilities: Remixing Aesthetic Forms Through Indigeneity and Blackness, that used artificial intelligence (AI) and digital archives to tell stories about Philadelphia’s Black public art (Image 1).
Conversations about AI and archivists often follow a dominant-submissive narrative where the archivist (submissive) is subservient to the data science needs of the researcher (dominant). Relational Possibilities flips this narrative on its head and ponders how AI can actually help archivists. Using AI and machine learning, we built museum exhibitions, a community archive, video games, datasets, and a partnership. We recently presented our project at the Research Data Access and Preservation Summit and BitCurator Forum, where we held workshops for over 200 attendees at both events. We split our presentation into two Zoom breakout rooms and recreated a traditional museum exhibition experience. Attendees were given links to the museum and video games and were self-directed to play and explore. We knew these workshops were successful from the enthusiasm we received from our community and the influx of invitations to present this research at other venues.
Our collaboration brought unique value to the Drexel fellowship program and our research not just because of our avant-garde use of generative AI, but also because we’re women of different races. Unlike other fellowship-assigned projects, this data set confronted racism, environmental issues, and geopolitical boundaries. Our conversations therefore required us to self-reflect on these issues and confront our own racial and sociocultural backgrounds to explore and analyze the data. Relational Possibilities was successful in part because we created an open dialogue about the differences between our lived experiences based on the color of our skin. Because of this successful community archive project, we seized the opportunity to continue collaborating on Black Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (BGLAM) work.
Most recently, Keeton and I focused our efforts on engaging our art patrons and subscribers with immersive and interactive BGLAM design at ART | library deco. We use the lessons learned from collaborating during our fellowship to incorporate data science elements with digital archives. For example, we created a monthly webcomic titled #Still Black See (digital art by me!), revamped the newsletter, and embedded an original African American Artificial Intelligence reference librarian in the website. #Still Black See is a webcomic designed to include new art styles and design ideas in a playful promotional tone (Image 2).
Based on our AI research in Relational Possibilities, we created an AI librarian (Image 3). We fabricated a persona, Imani Smith, who represents our patrons — including image, demographics, and interests — and plan to train a chatbot to give “voice” to Imani. Using generative AI voice tools was a significant part of The Kindred Blackness Museum Project, a subset of the larger Relational Possibilities project.
Finally, we revamped the newsletter that was piloted a few years ago to regularly highlight some of the latest Black art news (Image 4). We also include a new issue of the #Still Black See comic in each issue. I made a point to make the template extensible to account for ART | library deco’s press, public speaking engagements, and other art forms, which has proven fruitful.
Our collaboration explores themes of sociotechnical harmony — we are decolonizing from within. Supporters of BGLAM do not have to be Black. Expertise in preserving African American art and digital archives is not dependent on the archivist’s own heritage. Keeton and I leverage our diversity of lived experiences and shared interests in BGLAM and data science technologies to manifest creative capital in our personal and professional lives. This enhances opportunities to center discussions of Black art by Black artists in the cultural heritage sector globally.
Explore our work for yourself:
