KATHOLI presents a sequence of AI-generated images of the Virgin Mary, her stillness interrupted by subtle movements—gentle sways and slow tears—born from the imperfections of digital AI models. Referencing Catholic miracles of moving or crying statues, these movements disrupt her typically fixed solemnity and provoke a reconsideration of the miraculous.

 

The work alternates between deliberately forcing the statues to perform miracles through specific prompts and embracing the glitches that naturally emerge from the AI model's limitations. In this interplay, the Virgin Mary seems to come alive, caught between divine intervention, human manipulation, and the unpredictable errors of digital processes. KATHOLI blurs the lines between miracle and malfunction, turning the sacred into something uncertain and ever-shifting in the digital realm.

 

For Hannan, whose youth was partly shaped by Catholic imagery, this work draws on a personal history where the sacred was ever-present. The fluctuating image of the Virgin Mary reflects on how such formative influences continue to interact with a modern, digital reality, where the boundaries between belief and doubt, reality and illusion, are often in a state of constant flux.