Artificial: The Art of Graphic Resurrection

New Yorker cartoonist Amy Kurzweil never met her grandfather, a Viennese musician who fled the Nazis in 1938 and died before Amy was born. Using archival documents, Amy teamed up with her father, renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil, to build a chatbot that writes in her grandfather’s voice, and she documented the experience in her 2023 graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story. Join Amy for a dynamic visual tour through her book and an exploration of family stories, love and loss, the power of drawing memories, and the artistic affordances of AI –not as a replacement for human creation but as a tool of remembrance. 

Amy Kurzweil is a New Yorker cartoonist and the author of two award-winning graphic memoirs: Flying Couch and Artificial: A Love Story, which was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, The New Yorker, and Kirkus. She is the 2024 winner of the Overseas Press Club's Best Cartoon Award for her comics with the Los Angeles Times. She has received fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, The Black Mountain Institute, Yaddo, and MacDowell, and her work has been nominated for a Reuben Award and an Ignatz Award. Her writing, comics, and cartoons have also been published in The Believer, The Verge, The New York Times Book Review, WIRED, and many other places.