Abstract

This research-creation project brings together a written component and a series of visual experiments under the title SAUDADE: An Analogue Father’s Digital Rebirth.
The visual experiments document my pursuit to create a digital doppelgänger of my deceased father by employing Generative AI technologies to replicate his voice and animate still photographs—enabling him to speak and make facial expressions. The result is a series of self-reflexive, posthumous correspondences between us—narrated letters in which we reflect on grief, our parallel lives, our family’s emigration from the Azores to Montreal, and, of course, his uncanny digital rebirth. These exchanges are illustrated primarily using personal family archives.
Whereas the visual experiments explore my attempt to revive, better understand, and interact with my father, the written component serves to contextualize this process. It offers a deep exploration of grief through the lens of the Portuguese concept of Saudade—a profound, nostalgic longing for something or someone beloved yet absent (Wikipedia). At the same time, this research aims to assess the potential of generative AI tools to produce strong emotional responses in viewers and to preserve the personal histories of the deceased, using their own voice. I reflect on how the process has reshaped my relationship to memory and clarified the motivation behind my long-term commitment to preserving my family image archive. I examine the intimate relationship between the still and moving image, and confront the ethical complexities of using generative AI to bring my father back for these purposes.