Aligned
+ Machine Mythology
Aligned is a short film of perception and reality being in alignment leading the self to a straight path, to meet an embodiment of certainty, which eventually joins the never ending journey.
In search for the complete mythology, Alya and I experimented with generating a full story and narrative, naming it Machine Mythology. Machine Mythology is visual reinterpretation of an AI generated text and image. In creating this piece the intention was to see wether we can achieve an AI narrative, that is the plotting of the story, the features of the characters and the properties of the scene. The process spanned over generative text and images, computational image manipulation, and finally on-canvas composition. By that we gave the machine a semi-autonomous method of storytelling from verbal to visual.
Surprisingly, the machine gave us contextual references to a Quranic-themed story of a weeping lady, hungry children, in a desert and a rescuer when we just gave us the word horse. Clearly, no such a story can be found within the Quranic text; that sense of alienation between the machine and the Quranic storytelling inspired the generative approach of the piece components, mainly the horse (the rescuer). To balance that, the piece was given a painting-like treatment to maintain the familiarity of the format and cultivate a human touch.
In collaboration with Alya AlQarni.