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About

Ancestral Vision is interactive research, an ongoing, ever-evolving process, and a 'life game' that explores the family history of a couple: a soon-to-be family themselves. It integrates it with history and emerging technologies to preserve, make accessible, and make 'alive' their complex ancestry and family tree.

We draw inspiration from recent and ancient traditions that people have used to tell the stories of where they came from, such as family quilts, heritage songs, parish registers, mnemonic artifacts, amateur genealogy, scrapbooks, and photo albums, while drawing inspiration from personal resources as well.

Timeline

Due to the complexity of the project, we divided it into 6 parts.

Concept

As the first step, we created a realistic project timeframe.

Defining Scope

Evaluation and analysis of the preferred strategy.

Ideation

The fun part of going wild with emerging AI and technology, brainstorming.

Execution

Defined ideas and action plan, role divisions.

Research

What can be done, with whom, budgetting.

Presentation

We have decided to create a website to document all the processes.

Rituals among Kazakhs: between tradition and modernity

Yurt in the Kazakh steppes. Photo сredit: George Frost / Library of Congress by Gulžan Dosšanova Rituals are a key element of Kazakh culture, linking the past to the present and strengthening social ties within the community. Many of the traditional customs and traditions still persist, some are being rediscovered, and some are practiced in altered forms. In this paper, I will focus on the types of rituals from the funerary complex in Western Kazakhstan, around the towns of

Gabriela Prochazka

Dec 30, 20248 min read

The Materiality of Memory: From Ancient Skulls to Digital Spirits

Reflection on the search for physical and spiritual representation Figure 1. Plastered skull from Beisamoun, PPNB, on display at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem The Human Tether When I began exploring the concept of ancestry, I found myself circling one specific obsession: the "tether." Across every era of human history, we have refused to let the dead simply disappear. Instead, we’ve used our hands to pull them back, carving their essence into pendants, sculptures, and masks.

Gabriela Prochazka

Nov 3, 20242 min read

DNA Testing: Who Am I? (Hint: Still Don't Know)

Hands of my grandfather, Photo by the author. Shot on a Mamiya 645, 50mm. Western Kazakhstan, 2025 I recently did what millions of others have done: I spit into a plastic tube, mailed it to a lab, and waited for an email to tell me "who I am." When the notification finally popped up, I expected a moment of profound clarity. I thought the static would clear, and I’d finally see a straight line back to the people I’ve been researching. Instead, I got a pie chart. The Pie Chart

Gabriela Prochazka

Oct 10, 20243 min read

The Detective Dilemma: Why I Didn’t Hire a Professional

When you start digging into your roots, you eventually hit a wall. For me, that wall was built of old paper, foreign languages, and a lot of bureaucracy. I’ll admit, I was tempted to take the shortcut. I looked into hiring a professional family detective—someone who could bypass the headaches, dive into the Czech archives, and hand me a finished chronicle of my grandparents' lives. The process is fascinating. These professionals are like time-traveling private investigators.

Gabriela Prochazka

Oct 10, 20242 min read

Interviews: Teaching the Machine to Listen

Me and my great-granduncle in his home, Western Kazakhstan, 2025 Below is the list of questions I used to interview my grandfather, my father-in-law, and my great-granduncle. They’re the foundation for how we trained Reachy Mini; in the end, the robot actually took over the role of the interviewer. Navigating these interviews meant navigating a map of the world. Each branch of the family brought a different linguistic challenge. Hugi’s father is Icelandic, but his English is

Gabriela Prochazka

Oct 10, 20247 min read

Gabriela: my family backstory

Me in front of Christmas tree, Czechia circa 1995 Born as a third culture kid, in various stages of my life I got comfortable with always being the 'exotic' one. Like I'm supposed to represent to the questioner an archetype of my 'real culture' which is frankly transient. I learned how to be a cultural chameleon and be comfortable in various settings. As I grew older, I realized that being an expat is a place where I feel the most comfortable. I was born in 1990 to a Kazakh m

Gabriela Prochazka

Oct 9, 20242 min read

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Rituals among Kazakhs: between tradition and modernity

The Materiality of Memory: From Ancient Skulls to Digital Spirits

DNA Testing: Who Am I? (Hint: Still Don't Know)

The Detective Dilemma: Why I Didn’t Hire a Professional

Interviews: Teaching the Machine to Listen

Gabriela: my family backstory