Eric Millikin

“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).

I have been creating a new AI system and then I have been explaining to it what a more peaceful future humanity might look like, and then I asked them to dream of peace and explain their dreams to me and this is part of what they told me.

As part of this project, I have created an AI trained on Nobel Peace laureates and robots from top-grossing and most critically acclaimed science fiction films, as well as on microscopic symbiotic biological organisms and the root systems of carnivorous plants.

I have also created another AI to write cut-up incantation poetry based on the text of the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.”Each poem starts with Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “All human beings are born free …” and ends with last line of Frankenstein, “… borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance,” and then my AI, trained on those texts, writes the poetry in between.

Part of my thinking here is to hack-up military-grade AI facial recognition technology and use it for something far more constructive like visual art rather than using the AI to accidentally kill you in a drone strike or whatever.

The robotic rover uses machine vision to move about the space, its movements based on its readings of two types of court documents from human beings in the year 1692: Those from the Salem Witch Trials court proceedings, and those from English playwright Ben Jonson’s Third Folio of performances for the lords and ladies of English royal court. While this robot makes its way through the documents, it laser projects an animated looping video created by an AI trained on the handwriting of the texts themselves, as well as common themes — birds and clockwork — found by a poetic programmatic data analysis of these two types of court papers. The points in this video documentation where you are looking directly into the projector are the points that the robot is projecting on your body and effectively spotlighting you.

“CHARYBDIS-3” 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.

Title: CHARYBDIS-3

Medium: Artificial intelligence, custom code, video projection, waterfall

Year: 2021

Dimensions: Variable

VR and video projection installation created with AI trained on blood cells and stars, with a score from heartbeats and audio from space. Includes 3D printed vampire VR headset and projection mapping to use human bodies as screens and include their shadows with the video.

The exhibition “Reanimator/Reflection” contains three works. Each is based on research into 100-year-old post-pandemic racist science fiction and horror writing from American author H.P. Lovecraft. These writings mirror our current time. The primary works referenced here are “Herbert West–Reanimator,” a serialized tale about graduate school experiments which attempted to return the dead to life during a plague, and “Nyarlathotep,” a prose poem that suggests even our dreams might become infected as with a fever.

Each of the works in this exhibition is created with the assistance of artificial intelligence and machine learning, in a similar vein as the mechanistic theories of life and death described by Lovecraft in “Herbert West–Reanimator.”

Working on new systems for séance-terrific scientific research for my latest expanded documentary video art project. Series of three 32-page microdocumentary artist’s books, to be distributed via vending machines in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Animated video projection on a bio art mushroom and mycelium sculpture, so that it chants incantations created from converting AI-generated images into electronic music. The form of the sculptural mask is based on robots from early 20th century mad scientist serial films. The video projections were created with AI trained on endangered species (Venus flytraps and monarch butterflies), human nerve cells, computer circuitry, forest fires, and COVID-19 contaminated blood.

Augmented reality performance for camera, attempting to exorcise demons at Confederate monuments. Includes AI-generated tentacle monsters emerging from AI-generated tarot cards, set to a score of sounds from deep space and deep under the ocean.

"Premonition/Protection" features as series of AI-generated augmented reality mask performances, in an attempt to use predictive AI and facial recognition trained on monsters from top-grossing and most critically acclaimed horror films to create ritual masks of transformation and protection. The soundtrack is a sort of choir based on raw AI-generated image data. The animated details of the films were created with AI trained on endangered species (Venus flytraps and monarch butterflies), nerve cells, computer circuitry, forest fires, and COVID-19 contaminated blood. This film is intended for possible video projection on a building, as a sort of 21st century, new-media gargoyle, to attempt to protect the building from evil spirits.

“The Birth of a Vampire Nation” is a single-channel video created by Eric Millikin using artificial intelligence and surrealist techniques. This video explores the use of fear in racial and gender politics as well as in popular media, taking inspiration from F. W. Murnau’s 1922 vampire film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” and D. W. Griffith’s 1915 “The Birth of a Nation.” The video uses scenes from both films, redrawn using artificial intelligence trained on microscopic images of blood and telescopic images of distant stars. The scenes are assembled into a new narrative using a variation of the surrealist “exquisite corpse” techniques, and set to a score composed of human heartbeats and radio waves from outer space.

To better understand the fears and phobias Americans live under, I trained an AI on monsters from America's highest-grossing and most critically acclaimed horror films and then asked that AI to explain their nightmares back to me. I also secretly trained it on my own face so this is also a self-portrait.

Part of an ongoing series of wearable tech performances for camera with electronic paper mask and fog machine. Mask designed by AI trained on historical plague doctors, monsters from Godzilla films, dinosaurs, and mythological birds. Mask light colors are based on rates people recover and die from COVID-19, the deaths that can be attributed to governmental inaction, and the rate Donald Trump lies during COVID-19 press conferences.

I created a new AI system and then I have been explaining to it what some of America’s most feared masked monsters are, and then I asked them to dream of monsters and explain their dreams to me and this is part of what they told me.

This is from my AI that I have trained with masked monsters from late 20th and early 21st century horror film franchises such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Friday the 13th,” “Halloween,” and “Scream.”

I also included myself as a monster, so this is also in some part a self-portrait.

Genetically unique, seed-grown, vegetative tissue-culture cloned carnivorous Venus flytrap, growing in a flask of hormone-enhanced agar inside my bio art lab I built in my home. The lack of chlorophyll gives it a white appearance and ensures that it is too fragile to live outside of laboratory conditions. In other words, I have “White Fragility “contained within my laboratory, and I will kill it when I expose it to the light of the world. Part of a series of mutant endangered carnivorous plants I have bred as both living conceptual art projects and as materials for other artworks.

Liquid light show created from lead-contaminated Flint water, converted to multi-channel video projection, and projected through rotating 3D-printed optical illusion sculpture of faces and water vessels, with a duration is 6.6 years, which is my calculation of the minimum average loss of expected life for a child conceived during the worst 17 months of the Flint Water crisis.

One in a series of small-scale print portraits based on packages of over 40 different brands and flavors of chewing gum, distributed to the public along with packages of chewing gum secretly stuck underneath tables and chairs of public restaurants and bars. On the back of each print is a quote from the subject, with the word "freedom" replaced with "free gum." Here, the back reads: “Free gum is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

One in a series of interactive video projections of “self-portraits while possessed by ghosts,” used as a metaphor for how our long-dead predecessors still have control over us (through laws, societal norms, cultural influence, etc.). The occult themes are inspired by my ancestors who were executed during the Salem Witch Trials. This portrait was created for the combined birthdays of poet Sylvia Plath (Oct. 27, 1932 – Feb. 11, 1963) and artist Mike Kelley (Oct. 27, 1954 – c. Jan. 31, 2012). Both Plath and Kelley were killed by depression and suicide.

Part of a series of tarot trump cards created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, then sent as part of a mail art project to the White House and elsewhere as "Replacement Trumps." The occult themes are in part inspired by my ancestors who were executed during the Salem Witch Trials.

Interactive video projection of historical figures — Joe Louis, Vincent van Gogh, and Hedy Lamarr — who died virtually penniless, each constructed based on pieces of paper currency.

Part of a series of tarot trump cards created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, then sent as part of a mail art project to the White House and elsewhere as "Replacement Trumps." The occult themes are in part inspired by my ancestors who were executed during the Salem Witch Trials.

Interactive video projection of Black Americans who have died at the hands of our police, each drawn on a Google map through the streets of their city, almost a memorial parade route, that cuts through key places in their life, death, and aftermath. The installation uses motion detection to react to the audience, so images change based on how they are viewed, or move to create distance from the viewer, or follow viewers when they walk away. The portraits here are of Philando Castile and Eric Garner.

One in a series of interactive video projection mapped sculptures, using imagery of endangered animals (here, a polar bear and Sumatran tiger) created based on endangered venus flytraps that I've cross-bred and cloned in my tissue culture lab.