The film The Surrogate was developed through an iterative, multi-layered process combining edited reconstruction, frame interpolation, and stop-frame animation. Footage was repeatedly deconstructed, with individual frames extracted and reintroduced into AI systems to shape and control content. This cyclical process allowed emergent imagery to be selectively refined. Prompts were employed across multiple AI platforms, including Dreamina, Flow, and Runway, each contributing distinct visual and temporal qualities to the evolving sequences.

An AI-generated environment was further developed and composited in Photoshop and a large acrylic painting functioned as a physical backdrop within the film, grounding the digital processes in material space. The integration of painted, constructed, and AI-generated elements reinforced the film’s exploration of mediation, illusion, and the unstable boundary between physical and virtual environments.

I am using AI as a mediating process through which Uncanny moments arise. Keeping my process open enables return, iteration, and the use of the technique of mise-en-abyme. Through this practice, trauma is externalised and re-encountered symbolically to facilitate integration.