About Sarah Sweeney
Sarah Sweeney is a digital artist who explores photography and other documentary media through the lens of digital manipulation. Her work raises questions about the media objects we use to preserve our lives. She works across a range of media, including photographic composites, iPhone apps, photographic sculptures, augmented reality, stereoscopy, animation, video, and Instagram feeds. In each piece, she weaves small bits of recorded material into larger objects that are simultaneously real and imagined. She is an Associate Professor at Skidmore College and received her BA from Williams College and her MFA from Columbia University.
Artist Statement
“Conversations with My Deepfake Dad”
My father died when he was forty-four and I was seventeen. When I turned forty-four I wanted to talk to him again. I contacted Resemble AI, a company that creates clones of voices using machine learning, and we worked together to create an AI model of my father’s voice. This project is a series of six conversations created through my interactions with the audio deepfake of my father. His responses are based on different sources of information–producing a kaleidoscope of different dads. Through our conversations I struggle with the question–how do you reconstruct someone who is no longer here?
Exhibition
“Conversations With My Deepfake Dad: Conversation One By Sarah Sweeney For Wave Farm, Radia, July 2023.
Afternoon Show: Sarah Sweeney's "Conversations with My Deepfake Dad," WGXC, May 2023. The Radio Art Hour, WGXC, May 2023.
Re-fest, La MaMa Galleria (CultureHub), New York, NY, April 2023.
Re-fest, Hot Shot Muffler (CultureHub), Los Angeles, CA, April 2023.
Some Bodies, The Opalka Gallery, Albany, NY, November 2022 - January 2023. Conversations with My Deepfake Dad, CultureHub, New York, NY, October 2022.
Shown From Afar: Art During the Pandemic, Woman’s Work Art, Poughkeepsie, New York, June - July 2020.
OCCCA Today: Celebrating 40 Years, The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, California, June - July 2020.
Continuing the Dialog: The State of Photography II, Nazareth College Arts Center Gallery, Rochester, New York, October - December 2020.
Unseen, Collarworks, curated by Akili Tommasino, Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Troy, New York, United States, October - December 2019.
Motion Studies, co-curated animation exhibition with Paul Sattler and Rebecca Shepard, Schick Gallery, Skidmore College, New York, October-November 2019.
Blueprints, Spectral Lines Salon, Ridgewood, New York, July-November 2019.
Eects That Aren't Special, curated by Tim Davis, The Opalka Gallery, Albany, NY, March 2018.
Technical Images, Leroy Neiman Center, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, December 2017.
Still, solo show, Courthouse Gallery, Lake George, NY, January 2017.
Reections on Art from the Site Lines of Nature, Catwalk, Catskill, NY, September 2016. Laughter and Forgetting, Invited artist, Meet Factory, Prague, Czech Republic, September 2016. MCCC Arts at Fifty, Gallery at Mercer, Trenton, NJ, September 2016.
11th National Juried Exhibition, Axis Gallery, Sacramento, CA, August 2016.
Digital Culture, CICA Museum, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, July 2016.
Walking the Line: Fact and Fiction, Spring Street Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY, June 2016. Photo15, Selected for catalog, Front Art Space, New York, NY, November 2015.
Laughter and Forgetting, Invited artist, Bucharest Art Week, Bucharest, Romania, October 2015. Re-Picturing Photography, Union Street Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, September 2015.
Screening Scholarship Media Festival Exhibition, Annenberg School Of Communication, University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, March 2015.
Slingshot Festival of Music, Electronic Art, Tech, Film & Comedy, Athens, GA, March 2015.
This into That: Found Object Art, Assemblage, and Other Transformed Work, Nave Gallery Annex, Somerville, MA, March 2015.
The Dam Show, Reservoir Art Space, Ridgewood, NY, December 2014.
2014 Selected Art Faculty Exhibition, Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY,
September 2014.
2013 Art Faculty Exhibition, Mercer County Community College, West Windsor, NJ, October-November 2013.
new atlantis, km temporaer, Berlin, Germany, August-September 2013.
public media, private media, curated by Nick Montfort, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston,
MA, May 2013.
2012 Commission Cycle, Rhizome, New York, New York, June 2012-present.
Random Acts of Time, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, May-June 2012.
New Views, Mercer County Community College, West Windsor, NJ, November-December 2010.
Snap to Grid, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA, November 2010.
Figuratively Speaking, Village Gallery, Montgomery, AL, November 2010.
Reality & Artice, 2010 New Jersey Arts Annual, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ, May-October 2010.
Digital Works, National Juried Competition, The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Long Beach, NJ, June 2010.
2008 Catalogue NY, OFFF, Post-Digital Creation Culture, New York, NY, November 2007. Garden State Project, Gallery 125, Trenton, NJ, May 2006.
Buy It Now, Black and White Gallery, New York, NY, December 2004-January 2005. Scope Art Fair, Black and White Gallery, Miami, FL, December 2004.
Rundgang, Kassel, Germany, Summer 2003.
Digital Timepieces, curated by Georg Burwick, UCR/California Photography Museum, Riverside, CA, May-September 2003.
Faking Real, curated by Stephen Hilger, Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, NY, New York, April 2003.
Process/ion, curated by Eva Respini, Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY, November 2002.
Living with the Genie Conference, Columbia University, New York, NY, March 2002.
Somewhat Corrupt=Computer Art Show, curated by Stephen Apicella-Hitchcock, Plaza Gallery,
Fordham University, New York, NY, December 2000.
Conversations with my deepfake dad (Conversation 1: interviews), (created through voice clone) 26:30