“Ceci N’est Pas Un Nuage” (This Is Not A Cloud)
Art Review of “Everything Is A Fiction” by Erik López & Edgar Mondragón
In the middle of the bustling urban landscape of São Paulo, I find myself in a realm where reality blurs with the imaginative landscapes by Erik López and Edgar Mondragón, the artists behind “Everything Is A Fiction”. This audiovisual piece, crafted with Artificial Intelligence tools, evokes the sensation of being enveloped in digital clouds. This haunting accuracy sets the stage for a fast-paced experience that stands apart from the tangible world, where clouds smoothly traverse the heavens, granting us the luxury of contemplation.
Simultaneously with the slow white fluff I can see above me, “Everything is a Fiction” plays on my phone, a mix of audio and visual elements that mirror the frenetic speed of data-driven existence. The AI-generated clouds surge with transformative energy, mirroring the speed of their creator. It makes me ponder whether this accelerated pace is an inherent characteristic of the digital realm. The accompanying sounds from Mondragón, both disconcerting and ethereal, add a layer of complexity to the experience.
Diverging from the predictability of our natural silent and gentle clouds, those conceived by Edgar and Erik defy the linear constraints of time and sound. Unleashing chaos upon our expectations, these clouds disrupt the conventional sequence of a day — no gentle awakening to a sunny morning, no gradual descent into the twilight, and no quiet surrender to the darkness of the night. Instead, the viewer is caught off guard, oscillating between anticipation of repose and the sudden resurgence of a vivid blue sky and intensely bright clouds on the screen. The scene simultaneously makes me feel amazed and overwhelmed.
Contemplating this artificial reality prompts a deeper reflection on the nature of our existence. In a world already entwined with both physical and digital realms, a state of augmented reality prevails. Can the enjoyment of clouds be confined solely to the physical world? The contemporary landscape, marked by platforms like YouTube or Google Maps, offers tools to explore places without physical presence. Yet, in this era of mixed realities, can one not argue that virtual experiences are as genuine as physical ones?
“This piece is not about finding “reality” but rather about taking a moment to observe. Seeing is not the same as knowing what one is looking at.” — Doble E
According to the duo, the piece was created using Frame Interpolation on Runway ML, featuring a diverse array of cloud images, mainly generated by the DALL·E AI system, with just one being an actual sky photograph. In a similar vein, the audio component produced by Mondragón adopts an approach similar to the visual creation process: 15-second audio segments were crafted with the MusicGen AI tool, responding to requests like “Create music resembling the sound of a cloud” or “Generate a sound portraying cloud movement.” Then these AI-generated audio snippets were processed using samplers and effects, enhancing the result with additional melodic textures from synthesizers.
This piece definitely portrays the thin line between reality and fiction which is becoming increasingly blurred in our daily lives, where stories, articles, photos, and videos often diverge from factual accuracy. Perhaps this ambiguity has been an enduring facet of the human experience. Or, maybe, this is indeed a contemporary world’s problem. At least, of one thing I’m certain amidst my many uncertainties: if clouds were to materialize in the digital realm, they would undoubtedly mirror the ethereal and dynamic beauty depicted in “Everything Is A Fiction”.
Curious about this piece?
Watch “Everything Is A Fiction” right now 👇
