Speculative Cinematics: AI, Eco-horror, and the Moving Image

This event features a presentation by conceptual artist Jillian McDonald, whose hybrid video works combine live action and generative AI to imagine uncanny worlds shaped by eco-horror and speculative fiction. Jillian will be in conversation with faculty member Natasha Chuk about the aesthetics and expressive power of the moving image in an era where cinema, AI, and ecological imagination converge. A Q + A with the audience will follow.

Jillian McDonald is a dual citizen Canadian-American artist living in Brooklyn and Troy, NY. She received an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College at City University of New York and is a professor at Pace University.

Natasha Chuk, PhD is a media theorist and independent curator whose work explores the historical, philosophical, and creative dimensions of media and technology. Her research focuses on how media systems shape perception, embodiment, and cultural imagination. She teaches courses in the areas of film, photography, video game studies, new media art, and media theory at the School of Visual Arts and Parsons.

Jillian McDonald, Tunnel and Radio Skies, 2024 (video still, courtesy of the artist)

Host or Publisher SVA MFA Photography, Video and Related Media