For the benefit of all humanity

For the benefit of all humanity, video and self-generated text, 2021

(as Tina Salvadori Paz)

Using an unsupervised OpenAI GPT-2 model (*), I generated stories starting from the sentence: “We finally managed to send the three men (Musk, Bezos and Gates) to another planet “. The chosen phrase refers to the space exploits of Musk, Bezos and Gates, which, although differently, are offered as ways to save humanity.

The stories are often dreamlike and with many unexpected associations. I chose one of them with very psychoanalytic accents for a video composition where footage is partially overlaid with a piece of a Blue Origin rocket launch, creating an alienating tension between the terrestrial world and the extraterrestrial imaginary.

The work is part of the Flash fictions on alternative networks – Unthinking Photography program by The Photographer’s Gallery – London, 2021.

(*) implemented as TextSynth by Fabrice Bellard