Pieced

To create this hypnotic experimental dome film, an AI model was trained using thousands of photos of buildings in Montreal, taken with a fisheye lens. The pictures were processed with a self-learning algorithm that gradually recognizes patterns in data, and develops its own rules for how to represent those patterns, taking into account the geometric and perspective requirements of a 360-degree dome projection.

Once trained, the model can generate an endless stream of comparable cityscapes, based on the data it has been provided, but which don’t actually exist: a deconstruction and a reconstruction—but then with variations—of a highly recognizable urban environment, which loses its everydayness through processing.

Propelled by the electronic sounds of Mourad Bncr’s music project [indistinct voices over PA], the images morph one into another. With their unreal colors they form an unstable, imaginary reality, like the fever dream of an alternative intelligence.