Future in a Jar (2022) is a series of digital images co-created by a human artist and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Each image presents a scenery of a futuristic city in an underwater world of jar. The concept of the "jar" is a metaphor to disclose human's shrinking living space on Earth, but it also represents a fantasy world of living. The project's ideas are rooted in our concern about how environmental issues could affect people's lives in the future. Technology may advance to the point of allowing people to build such complex cities fully underwater, but they are still facing the fate of living in a jar. Using the characteristics of artificial intelligence, which incorporate a large database of human creativity, this work articulates a future we cannot predict. Dystopian or utopian? That is the question for the future.
Future in a Jar (2022) represents my inaugural exploration into the intersection of generative AI art with speculative thinking and ecological themes. This series comprises digital images collaboratively created by a human artist and artificial intelligence (AI), depicting futuristic cityscapes within underwater environments encapsulated in jars. The "jar" serves as a metaphor for the diminishing living spaces available to humanity on Earth while simultaneously evoking a fantastical realm of habitation. The conceptual framework of this project is anchored in concerns regarding the potential impact of environmental issues on future human existence. Although technological advancements may enable the construction of intricate underwater cities, humanity remains metaphorically confined within a jar. The question remains whether this future will be dystopian or utopian.
This work was co-created with text-to-image generative AI, which draws upon an extensive database of human creativity to articulate an unpredictable future. The series was created using Disco Diffusion, an open-source generative AI system contributed by the community, which predates the recent surge in text-to-image technologies. This project marks my initial engagement with text-to-image generative methods, driven by a fascination with the technological aura and a desire to explore its potential for generating diverse content and styles. Despite its technical simplicity, this series laid the groundwork for my subsequent practice at the intersection of generative AI and speculative ecology, highlighting AI's capacity for synthesis and its compelling representation of "what if" scenarios.
Moreover, my interaction with generative AI in this project has prompted deeper reflection on ecological relationships and their inherently dynamic nature. When viewed from a human-centric perspective, the crises we face may indeed lead to a bleak future, as depicted in many science fiction and futuristic narratives. However, generative AI, as a non-human intelligence, has the capacity to transcend our limited perspectives, offering new insights and possibilities that may enlighten us to consider alternative futures that beyond a doomed dystopian vision.
During the creation of this series, AI-generated animation technologies emerged within Disco Diffusion, marking my first experiment with animation. However, the animation seems to explore only a single possibility that one image might convey. I view this more as an experiment, as I believe this single animation cannot fully capture the broader range of meanings or interpretations that the image might evoke. It serves as a starting point for understanding how animation can extend the narrative potential of generative AI art, but it also highlights the limitations of relying on a singular perspective in a medium that thrives on diversity and imagination.
Exhibited at:
AI: The Next Evolution (2023), RCCE, Baltimore, MD, and Chimaera Gallery, Online.
18th Athens Digital Art Festival (2022), Online.