Author: Jeroen Cluckers (BE)
interactive installation, color, 16:9, silent, be, 2024

Latent Landscapes explores the relationship between human and machine perception. A lightbox filled with sand serves as a tactile interface where visitors can draw in the sand. This miniature sand landscape is filmed and translated into a text prompt to generate new images, animated in real time. The AI model at the core of this installation is trained on a dataset composed of diverse imaging techniques spanning different eras of visual recording – from early photographic methods such as glass plate negatives and long-exposure prints, x-ray scans, vhs and other analog video formats of late 20th-century technology.

By incorporating these historical methods of image-making, the system mirrors the evolution of human attempts to record and interpret reality, weaving together fragments of visual memory across time. By merging human interactions with AI-generated interpretations, the installation questions the objectivity of observation. It highlights how both AI and human perception are shaped by prior expectations, sensory input, and the ways in which memory and technology reconstruct reality. Through the interplay of light, sand, and artificial intelligence, Latent Landscapes invites the viewer into an evolving dialogue between physical interaction, AI interpretation, and the ephemeral nature of perception.

Jeroen Cluckers is an artist-researcher exploring the boundaries between analogue/digital, natural/artificial, and real/virtual. His award-winning work has been shown in 40+ countries, incl. Ars Electronica, ZKM, ISEA & CVPR. He is affiliated with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Antwerp, Belgium.

CREDITS:
lead technical developer: Lowie Spriet
technical developer: Rob Mertens
lightbox designer: Jo Cluckers

Latent Landscapes is processed in realtime through PAIC, a self-developed AI-pipeline (patent pending). With the support of the Immersive Lab of AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts Antwerp (BE).

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