“Sonder”, a term coined by John König in 2012, describes the realization that every passerby has a life as complex as your own. By nature, we tend to perceive life to be centered around us. There are moments in our daily lives where we get closer to grasping the complexity of the networks connecting us. Walking through a city and actively listening can give a glimpse into other people’s lives for a small period of time. DeepFakeSonder takes fractions of real people’s conversations and, using AI, creates deep fake stories of everyday life. This project aims to recreate the feeling of “sonder” and the experience of hearing just fragments of someone else’s story without much context.

The work was created during the artist’s studies at the Master’s program Interface Cultures and has been shown at the AI & Art Pavilion at Esch 2022 at the University of Luxembourg, as well as the Ars Electronica Festival 2022.

Sara Koniarek (*1996) is an Austrian artist, positioned at the threshold between digital art and technology. Her work focuses on different topics such as language, identity, cryptography, gamification and the duality and relationship between digital and analog media. She completed her BA in graphic design and photography and is currently studying at the Kunstuniversität Linz, MA Interface Cultures. Her work has been exhibited at various exhibitions and festivals, including at the Ars Electronica Festival 2021 & 2022,  the AI & Art Pavilion at the University of Luxembourg and was the recipient of the Prix Robert 2021.