Pastlife Photobooth

2026 · Installation · interactive installation, machine learning

A commissioned physical photobooth that uses Stable Diffusion + IP-Adapter to transform live portraits into vintage 1940s family photographs, printed instantly as thermal receipts. It runs entirely offline on an Macbook: webcam capture, AI style transfer, and receipt composition in a single Python pipeline triggered by a foot switch.

Using a physical printout to ground ephemeral AI generation in a tangible, yet fleeting, artifact that equally renders every user a ghost from a foreign past. The piece explores the artificiality of nostalgia and the fragility of memory, playfully questioning how emerging technology constructs, alters, and ultimately erases our personal histories.

Digital Tundra @ the Henan Provincial Cultural Centre

The piece is shown

  • Role — Concept & interaction design, ML pipeline, installation consulting
  • Tools — python, Stable Diffusion, ip-adapter, OpenCV, pillow, esc/pos
  • Shown at — Digital Tundra @ the Henan Provincial Cultural Centre

strawberrycongee — Jade (strawberrycongee) is a London based experimental game maker and creative technologist who works at the intersection of engineering, design and research with a focus on play and curiosity.