This project experimented with the application of AI techniques to establish a new way of designing landscapes.
First, I collected a ton of images to prepare datasets for StyleGAN, the AI model I used in this project.These datasets consist of four types of images: cities, toys, machines, and waste. With this AI technique, I synthesized images that have both a sense of familiarity and a kind of weirdness.
In order to articulate a new ecological aesthetics, I assume that I needed a way to short circuit my own habits of seeing. I used AI methods in this project like someone would use a hallucinogenic drug. Using these images as a digital template, I created four gardens on Inujima.
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These gardens have a relationship to the traditional japanese garden--not to be entered, but to be viewed and enjoyed mentally.
Additionally, I used a different AI model to develop the picturesque, perspectival views of these gardens. I reduced the composition to an abstract segmentation map which is then used by a pre-trained model to post-process the renderings. In a sense, the images of the gardens are being re-rendered with digital debris harvested from the Internet.
Music: enigmatic by bensound
