Header photo: JP Possmann
Good By Hamburg: A performative walk at the HafenCity with the AI-based App “Climate Future : Image Generator” [CF:IG]
part of
CityClimate meets CreativeCoding [CCmCC]: A data art project for sustainable urban development in times of climate crisis
Good by Hamburg was performed at the CCmCC festival in Hamburg, on October 4th through 6th, 2023.
I built the Progressive Web App, helped shape the photographic aspects of the work, and took part in the performance.
With/by: Julius Gervelmeyer, Fabiola Kuonen, Ilja Mirsky, Meredith Thomas.
CCmCC was a project from HafenCity Universität Hamburg, City Science Lab.
A tour guide takes you on a narrative photo walk through HafenCity; the app prompts you to take pictures of your surroundings and image how they will look in 50 years – how will they be affected by the climate crisis? What’s this mysterious new species that pops up?
Back in the lab, after the photo walk, you are presented with your pictures transformed by a StableDiffusion image transfer model to maybe match what you imagined.
Note on the use of “A.I.” in this project: this project took a long time. When it was developed, we were around “Style Transfer” being novel. When this project finished, I had become much more critical of GenAI and LLMs, as we call them now. The magic has – fortunately – worn off and revealed copyright theft at an unbelievable scale and yet another case of “break things” VC tech bro hype. At least this work “comments on” our false trust in GenAI images. A tiny bit. I probably wouldn’t make it with what I know today, look out for another repentance project, I guess…
