Video as an Essay: Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Seasons in the Artistic Project “A Sunless Summer in Shangri-Lá”

AbstractThis visual essay is made up of a series of images and a video essay on the artistic project "A Sunless Summer in Shangri-La" (2022). The project uses cyclic generative adversarial networks (cycle GANS) to invert the seasons in a series of videos. The networks of the artificial intelligence algorithm were trained with a database composed solely of images from the Yosemite Park in the United States of America. Therefore, by inserting images captured on a cloudy summer's day on the beach in Xangri-Lá (Brazil), the system starts to work unexpectedly, producing oneiric landscapes of snow dunes and seas of clouds. Based on these poetic interventions, the project initiates a discussion on the adoption of hegemonic systems that disregard local techno-bio-diversity.