Collective memories [they are all emerging | все появляются]
People you see in these illustrations never existed before and apparently don't exist now. However, here they are, on the illustrations made by the diffusion text-to-image model (Midjourney in this case). Looking at them, we get a feeling that we could start telling their stories more or less right away — because these stories are already there (or, maybe, here). Fairly quickly any of us gets a rough idea of what's happening over the course of this image sequence. But does it? Who are these people, except they are nobody in a very literal sense? When the diffusion model takes whatever words and images I brought it today and descends into the dark, opaque waters of the latent space in its basement to resurface in just a couple of minutes with whatever it made of the images and the words: this is the moment when they all emerge.
They are somehow demanding, yet no demands are made. They are particular — but in the most general sence. They look familiar, sometimes almost insanely so — still, none of us has encountered each other before.
In this short, yet inexplicably eventful non-story all its characters (non-existent, of course) converge briefly to make a momentary foray into the picture only to wither away instantly back into no time, leaving the viewer a tiny bit more confused than just moments ago.
This series is a part of the «Collective memories» project
