Artificial Galapagos are four fake scenes where virtual creatures generated by computer neural networks inhabit. These bazar creatures lives in this “electronic utopia” where computer is the creator, the whole environment seems to be quite harmonious but in fact is filled with irregularities.

Design Concept

The work is inspired by a Chinese classic text which describes lots of strange creatures, a dream-like mythical world where animal genes are radomly broken up and reorganized. While animals in this book come from the ancient people’s imaginations and their observations of nature. I’d like to know what will happen if Artificial intelligence become the observer and the creator.

The Galapagos Islands is known for its diversity of life. The unique biological environment there inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution. In this “electronic utopia” where the computer acts as the Creator, life also evolves, but under a different rule.

Life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years, and computers are visually simulating this process in just a few hours. I’m hoping that my work can build a bridge that allows us to see the nature in the eyes of an AI, and bring us a new perspective and an opportunity to think: With the intervention of electronic technology, how will life evolve in the future?

I collected scientific animal illustrations and trained the model with StyleGAN2.
On the right are some strange creatures from the imagination of an AI. (Modified with Photoshop)