Name: Welcome To The Auntieverse
Uploaded: 2025-07-22
Duration: 12 min 31 s
Description: Step into the Auntieverse, where Singapore artist and designer Niceaunties fuses AI, nostalgia, and biting wit. In this bold visual showcase, tradition clashes with tech—and no cultural quirk is off-limits.

Step into the Auntieverse, where Singapore artist and designer Niceaunties fuses AI, nostalgia, and biting wit. In this bold visual showcase, tradition clashes with tech—and no cultural quirk is off-limits. 

Welcome To The Auntieverse

Conferences

Thanks so much Andrew, Will, and Nigel and hello everyone. My name is Aisha Khana. I'm CEO and co-founder of ADOAI and also a co-chair of this event. I am so excited to be here to introduce our next segment here to share her unique fusion of AI. Art and Southeast Asian culture, join me in welcoming the visionary behind the Antiverse, a surreal reimagining of the everyday that I hope will inspire and delight you all. Please put your hands together for Singapore-based artist and designer nice aunties. When I was young, my world existed in a radius of 2 kilometers. Most of the time was spent with my grandma and auntie while my parents worked. Life was very simple back then. There was no internet, just books and TV to spend the time. One day, my world and imagination exploded when my auntie introduced me to Doraemon, a robot cat from the future with really cool gadgets. Since then, I love imagining characters and making up stories. When I started using AI 2 years ago, I felt the same creative energy just like back in childhood. But this isn't to say that life before AI was boring. It just moved at a very different pace. I worked in architecture and it takes 3 to 6 years, sometimes longer, to complete a building. Even a small project like this charity doghouse, which I called the Reservoir Dogs, took 3 months to finish. Using AI, I was making these animated vignettes once a day. So the pace in creating these ideas was extraordinary. But of course, I knew that I could not have done it without the life experience and memory before AI. So 10 years ago, my partner in architecture had this idea to occupy the East Coast Park of Singapore with these colorful beach huts. They were to be made with upcycled ocean plastics. So this idea won an award at the World Architecture Festival in 2016. I remember my shock when he showed me this photograph of a dead sea bird with its stomach filled with ocean waste. 10 years later, this is my version of the same bird, except this is the auntie lounging on the beach in an imaginary place called Anillantis. And this is inspired by Atlantis and the Great Pacific Garbage patch and occupied by Auntie. So this became like 5 videos showing how aunties were chilling out on the beach for plastics, and they started to clean the ocean floor, dressed in mermaid costumes, and they also collected waste in the city. And then upcycle them in workshops and factories and eventually selling them in Auntie's outlet malls with items for plastics. So Anlantis is part of a larger universe called the Antiverse. Which is a world where aunties are the main characters. So the auntie is not just an older woman in the family. They are a stereotype figure, a social stigma typically associated with aging, being naggy and old fashioned. So the auntie has many, many traits. And um, for instance, um, an auntie can be very critical and sometimes conflicted. For instance, my auntie will call me fat and then she will feed me more food. So, you know, anyone can be labeled an auntie if you have these traits, even a man. But you know, growing up with women surrounded by them, I knew the auntie is much, much more than that. She's complex, she's funny, creative, quirky, and often misunderstood, um, but she shows her love in a multitude of ways. So the antivirus is my way of honoring their everyday labor and to question my own attitudes towards aging. But most of all, I wanted to reframe the idea of the auntie. I explored many things like aging, beauty image, the body image, and who gets to be visible on the fashion runway. I also explored auntie's big hairdo and how to maintain them. And everyday subject matters like laundry. Also things like astronomy, astrology, like the recent planetary alignment. Auntie even tried to have a cooking show. Welcome to Cooking with Auntie. First you add this and then. Zoom in. And then you add that, take photo. And then, and then here, fried rice with no rice, yay. It didn't go so well. The cooking show was canceled. But I was fortunate to talk about the Antiverse at TED in Vancouver and also exhibited my work all around the world like at Times Square and Sunset Boulevard in LA and also at the Science Museum. This is a character from the Antivert, the Falling Gallic. I also hung oversized auntie underwear at an art festival in Uruguay last December. Uh, it's called Nice Aunties by Nice Aunties. So the idea of beauty is often associated with youth and aging with decline or something to be reversed or concealed. I explored and questioned the pain and torture that people go through for beauty treatments to meet societal expectations. But at the same time, I marveled at the similarities between our skin and the planet. You know, like cellular regeneration in our bodies is akin to life growing in landscapes and nature. So this idea was developed into a physical sculpture for the beauty brand L'Oreal. And I worked with a sculptor and this was exhibited at the headquarters in Paris last month. So at the beauty of longevity event, I talked about the antiverse and I shared ideas, eastern philosophies about aging and social infrastructure. Now this was transformative for me and my project. Just not too long ago, you would never imagine an auntie being associated with new and evolving ideas of beauty. I mean, she is a very stereotyped figure. So this is amazing. And Singapore, I want to talk about Singapore. So this is a very beautiful and ultra modern city, but not many visitors get to see behind the scenes, you know, where people hang out in the heartlands, where they shop, where they do their groceries. So my grandmother. She was a fishmonger's wife, and she spent her whole life doing housework at home, serving the family. She used to make fish balls to sell at the local market, and we have no visual records of her for some reason, no photos, no videos, but luckily with AI I was able to recreate. My memory of her and her life. And here is the surreal story, goddess. Zamba Jack. Yeah job I. Boy. Once upon a time, a goddess arrived on the planet, saw this cute little place. And decided to stay a few days. She was having fun, tending to slippery things, making chewy balls. She could do everything, she handled it all. She was very, very busy and did it so well, and she forgot who she was, where she came from. Day after day she did this task. Centuries passed. Still she labored quietly unnoticed. And then one day all of a sudden she woke up, remembered who she was, and left. Gosh, what was that? I have to get back, have to get home. Too many chewy balls. The goddess was glad to have a break and then Her sister appeared and asked, Why, where have you been? The goddess looked back at the place she spent time at and realized it was not real. It was weird. No worries, her sister said. Let's chill out. And so they did. See T N E N D What Thank you. That was absolutely amazing. nice auntie. Thank you. So I have a question for you. Is the concept of nice aunties or women this age, is it just about Southeast Asian women or Singaporean women, or do you think these complexities that you explore can cross borders as well? Well, I started a project wanting to understand anti-behavior in Singapore and the region where I grew up in, but as I put the project out on social media, based on the feedback that I get, It seems to resonate in all parts of the world. I mean, everyone has aunties, everyone has a mother, and they could understand the connection and the nuances of life, I guess. And I think it's just so incredible that just to confirm, you use AI for every part of the videos you created. Yes, um, so AI to make the visuals, AI to make the sound and the voice, um, AI sorry except the editing that was manual, yeah, that was me. That was me. Well, thank you so much, I thought it was a pleasure to have you here and your work is amazing. Thank you. Thank you.