What would it be like if robots could express creativity? Would it redefine art as we know it today? The answer lies in robobotanist and AI artist David Atlas of Demon Sanctuary’s latest creation: a mesmerizing coalescence of dynamic, dream-like visuals poetically depicting nature through an AI lens. The three-minute-long visual seamlessly blends the known with the unknown to create a remarkable compilation of machine-generated images that no human eye has ever been exposed to. Until now.
Playing alongside is the newly-released track “The End (Music for Cars)” from British pop-rock band The 1975’s fourth album, Notes On A Conditional Form. While the album itself is a smorgasbord of different musical styles, this orchestral track stands out, partly because of Atlas’ introspective interpretation. Questioning the possibility of self-sufficiency, Atlas muses whether humans (or machines) can attain that state indefinitely. “To me this song touches heavily on this. It has a hopeful hopelessness about it.”
That “hopeful hopelessness” can certainly be felt throughout The 1975’s latest track. There is a raw vulnerability glimpsed through the wilted flowers, dying plants, and even a teary-eyed human face among other forlorn organisms that seem to morph in and out of each other. Halfway through, the song nears its crescendo with a juxtaposition of two flowers: one blossoming, one withering, signifying the powerful forces of creation and destruction.
Atlas’ artificially-designed artist (who was made using a form of AI known as a Generative Adversarial Network) may be creating illusory artwork based on photographs of our natural world, but the emotions it is creating are definitely not illusive. The mysterious visuals will move you deep within, imploring you to navigate the recesses of your mind and its memories, bringing forth a slew of feelings you never knew existed.
