Stefano K. Testa

"Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein."
"And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Abgrund is a video that explores the theme of Artificial Intelligence.
All the images used in the video were sourced from http://fotogenerator.npocloud.nl/ , a Pix2Pix neural network-based imaging software environment, then manipulated with 3d animation software.
The sound has been generated with a machine learning system which simulates my own voice. The system is quite unstable, and its results oscillate between successful attempts to speak words, and unsuccessful ones, which sound at once like digital glitches as well as aching human voices. The words it tries to pronounce are "I am alive, and you are dead", an infamous quote from Philip K. Dick.

With this video I want to emphasize the uncanny feeling of unknown depth that emerges from confronting artificially-generated human-like intelligent software.