Artists create fascinating pictures of an alternative Hong Kong with AI

Artists create fascinating pictures of an alternative Hong Kong with AI

Bianca Tse is one of the numerous artists who are increasingly dealing with artificial intelligence (AI). "She shortened the way between my ideas and my visions," said the 43-year-old, while sitting in front of her photo "Breathing Room", which recently in the Blue Lotus Gallery in hong was issued.

A look at life in Hong Kong

In the photo, three Chinese men sit comfortably, albeit precarious, on stools that are on a narrow tower of neglected apartments. "This photo could not exist in real life," she said, "but it captures the feeling of the cramped living conditions in the City and the special Hong Kong flair."

The inspiration behind art

tse work combines imagination and historical references and draws from their own childhood memories as well as from the history of the working class in Hong Kong. Many of her pictures are in a version of the kowloon walled city . Deardest populated place in the world. Refugees who had fled mainland china during the Chinese civil war poured into the Hong Kong, British at the time and made the area their home. Although the Kowloon Walled City was demolished in the 1990s, it continues to live in the memories of the Hong Kong.

The influence of AI on the art scene

Although Tse shares the concerns of artists that their work on training for AI models could be used without remuneration, she sees in AI tools such as Midjourney also opportunities to create works that would otherwise be impossible. "I don't need to get involved, not to build scenes, and it saves time and money above all, because nobody would invest in me to create all of these works," she said.

The technology has opened a new world for TSE, which works as a freelance creative director in advertising. She has published her AI Experiments on Instagram . Her early work was presented in 2023 in the French “Rencontres d’Arles” exhibition “A State of Consciousness”.

memories of the Kowloon Walled City

in a recently taken exhibition in the Blue Lotus gallery she showed her work alongside photographers such as girard and Ian Lambot, who documented the Kowloon Walled City famous. Tses surrealistic representations are based on reality. In its more comprehensive representations of Hong Kong, it attaches importance to details such as leafing off the color, the pollution of the concrete walls and the rust of wavy metal roof. These textures are often overlooked and get into the background, compared to the dystopian, cyberpunk-inspired representations of the city in video games such as "Stray" and films such as "Batman Begins".

The pursuit of authenticity

People in their pictures look familiar and represent daily life in Hong Kong: from muscular workers who build bamboo scaffolding, to a woman in a typical Hong Kong hairdressing salon with a mountain of curlers in her hair. A recurring topic in Tses is how chaos and poverty exist right next to happiness and hope. In "Imaginary Friends" she shows a little girl in a market, surrounded by garbage bags that have turned into soft toys. This scenery is based on her own childhood memories when she waited in the rain in front of the frozen meat business where her mother worked.

The challenges of Ki-Kunst

Through working with generative AI software, TSE has learned not to be afraid of the possibility that human artists become superfluous. "I think if everyone was trying to use AI, they would see that the role of the artist or designer cannot be replaced," she said. A single command is easy, she explained, but "if you really want to create something that is close to your vision or is meaningful, it is actually very difficult."

tse has done great post -processing work to reduce the effect of the Uncanny Valley - the uncomfortable feeling that people feel when they come across something artificial but almost human. "I don't like to create perfect people. I prefer someone who looks more like everyday life," she said.

The collaboration with photographers

The cooperation with Girard was a special challenge when it came to creating a "photo that has escaped". In the late 1980s, Girard photographed the Kowloon Walled City and observed a flight attendant of Cathay Pacific, who rose from a taxi and went into town with her luggage. Their elegance and grace were in a strong contrast to the rough environments, but he lost them in the winding streets before he could take a picture. Although he was waiting, he was not lucky.

"I didn't get it and thought the picture was gone forever," he said. But with Girard's approval of Tse, TSE fed his photographs and a number of input requests in Midjourney and created several thousand versions to make the woman and the photo look realistic.

"I found it fascinating to work with her because her work is such a clear deviation from my own," added Girard. The result was "very close" on how Girard remembered it. "Somehow it felt a little disoriented and satisfactory that someone else took a picture of what was going on in my own head."