Hell Diffuse is a series of AI-generated imagery that synthesizes religion and technology. The picture is complicated by obsolete machines and newfangled deities. An eschatology for the end times and final events in world history and human destiny could indicate the future buddha or the technological singularity. Either that or we’re stuck in hell on earth.
Prompt an artificial intelligence about temples and shrines, purgatory and the underworld, armageddon and the afterlife. It conjures bodhisattvas and demons using laptops. It hallucinates nuclear weapons and astronauts, UFOs and CRTs, robots and monsters. It envisions buddhas with virtual reality headsets and immolated figures in smoke and fire. There’s God and Godzilla. Hooded hackers recite their prayers in lines of computer code. A laughing buddha sits in an empty lot with a dilapidated globe. The AI projects a phantasm of the past into an apocalyptic future.
This AI was fine-tuned on Yao Jui-Chung’s instant film and flash photography of Buddhist and Taoist religious art, including depictions of heaven and hell. The resulting images have one pole floating in the fantasy world and another grounded in photorealism. As temples are already sites of artifice, the image generation model can be absolved of its errors.
A single-channel video of Hell Diffuse is part of the exhibition Night Dream: Treasure Hill Light Festival from 23 March to 5 June 2024.
Category: Machine Learning
Christopher Adams is an art producer and computer programmer based in Taipei.
