Bio
Kenna Lewis was born in 2000 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2024, she received her BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati, School of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), and her Associate’s degree in Graphic Design from the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash in 2024. Lewis has been included in various exhibitions, including “Art & Earth Day Student Exhibition” at Pyramid Hill, Hamilton, Ohio, and “Sophomore Research Studio: Confronting ________ Virtual Exhibition” at the University of Cincinnati DAAP, Cincinnati, Ohio. Lewis also has notable experience in commissions and public works, including leading a team in creating a temporary mural for UC's Fifth Third Arena Vault in 2020. This year, she received the Outstanding Applied Graphic Communication Graduate award from UC Blue Ash College. Lewis currently lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio, exploring themes of the cloud and decentralized internet through her video and installation art practice.
Artists Statement
As a digital native, I see the Internet as a domestic partner that I have known ever since I was able to type on a computer. As a result of living with, and using the Internet for the majority of my life, I have inadvertently taught the Cloud much about me, from the subtle nuances of my blogged personality to every one of my past residential addresses. Despite the extensive personal file that the Cloud has gathered on my identity, it remains an impersonal structure, who holds power and disperses its personality among bureaucratic agents like Google, Facebook, and Amazon The Cloud knows who I am, but its identity remains dispersed among bureaucratic tech conglomerates who decide how its power should be wielded. The multilayered, mutable personality of the Cloud dictates my interrogation and response. In response, I interrogate AI, in a way that is exploratory and investigative. Starting with conversations with ChatGPT and other AI models, I gather information, probe AI's biases, and end up with a work of speculative fiction that hints at a proposed truth. This compromise between my biases, and the Cloud's informs the imagery, narrative, and environment of my video art. Utilizing image processing software, stock videography, and gathered internet refuse, I construct speculative objects to contemplate on.