Deep Seed: A Digital Folklore Experiment
Deep Seed was a digital test commission supported by local arts organisation No More Nowt, Ogre Studios and the Into the Light initiative. As a visual artist whose practice is rooted in craft, particularly ceramics, proggy mats, knitting and other tactile, hands‑on making, venturing into digital media felt a bit nerve‑wracking. I’m used to working with clay, wool and thread, not code or algorithms, so stepping into the digital realm was both exciting and slightly intimidating.
My way into this project came through my long‑standing interest in folklore. I’ve always been drawn to local myths, ghost stories and the kinds of tales that get passed down in families and communities. When I started looking more closely at how folklore circulates online, I discovered things like Creepy Pasta and the SCP Foundation (Secure, Contain, Protect). Creepypasta, derived from Copy/Paste, are user-generated, horror-related stories, legends, or images intended to scare readers, widely shared via forums and social media. Through their largely anonymous authorship, many of them feel like modern urban legends. The SCP Foundation is a collaborative writing project that presents fictional “anomalous objects” and entities as if they were real, documented by a secret organisation. Both modes of storytelling are built on the idea of collective sharing, where anyone can contribute and shape an evolving narrative.
Deep Seed grew out of that fascination with the idea of using AI as an oracle and online folklore as well as digital spaces acting as sites of contemporary myth‑making. The project culminated in a digital workshop at Durham Oriental Museum where I invited participants to collaboratively construct their own folklore tale. We began with a series of hands‑on divination games inspired by playground games and artefacts in the museum’s collection and prompts inspired by traditional storytelling techniques—character creation, setting, conflict, and resolution—but framed them within a digital context. Participants contributed ideas, images and fragments of text, and I used AI tools to help weave these elements into a cohesive story.
The resulting folk tale, The Tale of Sal the Horse Whisperer and the Vampire Rabbit, was a playful, slightly surreal story that blended rural Northeast imagery with supernatural elements. It felt very much in keeping with the kinds of weird, hybrid myths that emerge from online communities, but it was also grounded in the specific voices and imaginations of the people in the room.
After the workshop, I wanted to bring that digital story back into the physical world. I developed a small collection of ceramic sculptures inspired by characters, motifs and scenes from The Tale of Sal the Horse Whisperer and the Vampire Rabbit. These pieces translated the digital narrative into tangible, tactile forms, exploring how folklore can move between online and offline spaces. The sculptures were displayed at the Durham Oriental Museum between October and December 2025, creating a bridge between the museum’s historic collections and a very contemporary, community‑driven story.
You can view the tale and other materials from the project HERE
Deep Seed was an experiment in blending craft and digital media, folklore and technology, and it showed me that even as a predominantly tactile maker, I can find meaningful ways to engage with digital tools. It also reinforced how powerful collective storytelling can be, whether it happens around a kitchen table, in a workshop, or across an online forum.
Until next time,