Uncanny Hills

November 14, 2022

'Uncanny Hills' explores change. It is a journey into a place where the landscape has been transformed by our actions and the forces of nature. The title is a play on the term "uncanny valley," which describes the unease experienced when encountering something almost, but not quite, human. Similarly, the Uncanny Hills are almost, but not quite, like our world. They represent a future that is both familiar and strange, a future that is both hope-filled and uncertain, a world that is both beautiful and scary.

Exhibited at:

• 3,788 sq. m "The Light of Asia" display in the Guanyinqiao Business District, Chongqing, China, Jan 10 - Apr 9, 2025 | Video
• Art Innovation Gallery's "Floating Pixels" Exhibition during Art Basel Miami, December 1–3, 2022 | Video
• MIT School of Engineering in Cambridge, MA, October – December, 2023 | Video

A Machine's Dream of Nature

February 8, 2022

'A Machine's Dream of Nature' is a generative artwork that explores the simplicity, complexity, and beauty of nature. Driven by computational aesthetics, the work makes use of linear algebra, geometry, and learning algorithms to create vibrant landscapes.

Exhibited at:

• Vellum LA's "This Unearthly World: Nature as a Palette of Expression" Exhibition, Jackson Hole, WY, Feb 10 - 13, 2022 | Details

Featured in:

• Vellum LA News: Vellum LA Presents: This Unearthly World

Artificial Convergent Evolution

January 19, 2022

Artificial Convergent Evolution is an artistic visualization of a novel AI-based convergent evolution process, inspired by convergent evolution in nature. It results from an experiment investigating the aesthetics that emerge when generative models are isolated and then pushed towards convergence.

Convergent evolution occurs when unrelated organisms independently develop similar traits due to similar environmental pressures. For example, the eyes of humans and octopuses have similar structures and functions despite not sharing a common ancestor. Similar environmental conditions can lead to convergence, resulting in similar appearances through different evolutionary paths.

This artwork utilizes a custom-designed neural network to simulate this process of isolation, branching off, and convergence. Initially trained on a large, generic image dataset, the model's copies are subsequently trained in isolation to specialize in disjoint sets of images. Following this divergence, the copies are then pushed together, converging on similar evolutionary paths.

This novel artificial convergent evolution process helped generative models diverge from their original training sets while converging towards similar aesthetics.

Featured in:

• Why These 8 Artists Are Making NFTs
• Why Collectors Buy NFTs and How to Get Started
• Artsy x Verisart: 22 for 2022, an NFT Auction Featuring 22 Artists for 2022
• Artificial Convergent Evolution on Artsy

The World's First 8K 360° AI Landscape Painting

September 18, 2021

This was my first 8K 360 degree AI art video, and it is the first of its kind in the world to the best of my knowledge. The original video is rendered natively in 8K resolution, not upscaled in post-processing. It is powered by the resolution-independent GAN that I developed earlier this year. The model is able to generate images of arbitrary resolution and aspect ratios, including cylindrical 360-degree videos. Theoretically, there's no limit to the output resolution although resolutions above 8K require workarounds due to memory limitations.

I chose a playful title for this work, knowing that you can claim 'first' in virtually anything if you make it specific enough. However, it was indeed the first of its kind!

Exhibited at:

• Circa LA: the largest LED screen in Downtown Los Angeles, CA, June 2024 | Video

Genesis of a Simulated Universe

November 1, 2021

"Genesis of a Simulated Universe" depicts the birth of a digital realm brought to life through creative algorithms.

A Machine's Dream of Seasons

October 13, 2021

Imagine a machine dreaming of seasons it can never experience. 'A Machine's Dream of Seasons' came to life through an artificial neural network, running in a windowless, air-conditioned server room. Despite not being able to experience seasons, it captures the essence and emotions of spring's renewal, summer's warmth, autumn's transformation, and winter's quiet beauty.

An Impressionist's World

October 3, 2021

It feels natural to associate certain periods in the past with the type of media used to depict the world at that time. In the 1960s, for instance, television was the dominant medium, and we associate that decade with the black-and-white images of the small screen. In the 1800s, however, the majority of imagery was created using paint and canvas. The world neither looked black and white in the early 1900s, nor like impressionist paintings in the late 1800s. But what if it did? What would the world have looked like during the Impressionist era? 'An Impressionist's World' imagines the world as perceived by an impressionist. It was created using a neural network trained primarily on impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, as well as works by other prominent impressionist and post-impressionist artists, including Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh.

Diamond City

September 26, 2021

'Diamond City' is a neural rendition of a fictional city in the metaverse, constructed on a decentralized network, running on nodes distributed across the galaxy. The artwork was created using a custom-built neural network and creative algorithms.

A Machine's Dream of America

September 8, 2021

What do machines dream about at night in American data centers? They dream about American landscapes! 'A Machine's Dream of America' depicts an artificial neural network's dream of a wide variety of landscapes across the United States, showcasing some of the most surreal views from Hawaii, California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, the Midwest, and New England.

Exhibited at:

• Los Angeles Public Library, April 2022 – Feb 2023 | Video
• Long Beach Airport, CA, October 2023 - September 2024 | Photo

Terrestrial Hallucinations

September 5, 2021

"Terrestrial Hallucinations" explores the latent space of an artificial neural network, searching for the geological, chemical, and biological processes that made Earth suitable for life. It is an artistic exploration of how a machine might imagine the 'origin of life' on Earth.