“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus
As the days grow shorter and the air turns crisp, we find ourselves enveloped in the rich tapestry of fall color. Camus’s words remind us that autumn is not an end, but a vibrant continuation—a second spring where nature dazzles us with a final burst of color and life. In this season of transformation, we pause to appreciate the beauty in change and the brilliance that comes from letting go.
In this update I’m taking a different approach: a conceptual deep dive on a single in-progress work by artist Andre Oshea.
But before that, we are thrilled to announce that Linda Dounia Rebeiz is the latest artist to join the AiR program. Linda is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, and curator whose work explores the intersection of technology, identity, and the African experience.
Based in Dakar, Senegal, her innovative approach combines digital media, artificial intelligence, and traditional artistic practices to challenge perceptions and tell compelling stories about contemporary society. Linda’s work has been showcased internationally, earning recognition for its thought-provoking commentary and aesthetic depth. Welcome, Linda!
Below is the most recent cut of a four hour long film that Andre is re-processing using AI in ComfyUI and A1111. You can read my analysis below, or simply just watch it. It somehow retains the resplendent, relaxed pacing of the original film while also capturing the jittery restlessness of our current cultural zeitgeist. I'm kind of in love with it.
In Andre Oshea’s video work, which I’m tentatively calling “Reassembling the Landscape” (actual title TBD), we witness a profound dialogue between cutting-edge artificial intelligence, foundational moments of cinema history, and contemporary philosophical thought.
This piece presents a point-of-view train journey where AI models re-render the surrounding landscape in real time. Relying on Stable Diffusion to re-present the landscape to us, the base model ends up inserting a barrage of “incorrect” information in its reconstitution of the surrounding environment. All settings have been left on default in the reprocessing of this film, as if the artist were strumming a guitar on open frets to study the quality of the resonance within the instrument itself.
The train has historically symbolized progress and the interconnectedness of society. In the Lumière brothers’ film seminal film, “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” from 1895, the simple depiction of a train arriving at a station was revolutionary, captivating audiences who were both mesmerized and startled by the realism of moving images. It wasn’t just about motion pictures; it was about a new network of relationships between technology, viewers, and reality.
Oshea utilizes the train not only as a vessel traversing physical landscapes but also as a conduit linking technology, perception, and philosophical inquiry. As the train moves, AI algorithms devour the scenery. This real-time reassembly manifests the agency embedded in dynamic networks as described in Bruno Latour’s book on Actor-Network-Theory, Reassembling the Social, where both human and non-human actors continuously interact to co-construct reality.
Speeding inwards from opposite sides of the 20th century, Both the Lumière brothers and Oshea anchor their work in the technological innovations of their time, highlighting how technology acts as a non-human agent influencing human perception. The cinematograph was not merely a tool for the Lumières; it was an active participant in reshaping societal experiences: it changed our collective relationship to reality. Similarly, Oshea’s use of AI positions technology as an actor with agency, capable of altering the environment and, consequently, our understanding of it.
Latour’s assertion that reality is constructed through networks of both human and non-human actors—people, machines, ideas—all influencing and reshaping each other dynamically, is made obvious here. The AI in Oshea’s work isn’t just processing data; it’s participating in a networked reassembly of the landscape, embodying the fluidity and interconnectedness central to our lived experience of contemporary reality.
The conceptual bridge between these works lies in their exploration of perception mediated by technology and the networks that construct them. Early filmmaking collapsed the distance between reality and representation, prompting visceral reactions from audiences unfamiliar with moving images. Oshea’s piece takes on a new perspective (POV) updating this historic gesture for a contemporary audience.
This manipulation questions our basic interaction with visual media and highlights how our understanding of the world is mediated by various actors within a network. AI now acts as the new mediator, and therefore medium, influencing our perception and exemplifying how non-human actors contribute to the continuous reassembly of social and physical realities. In his work, AI has at least as much if not greater agency over our experience of the world as we ourselves do as viewers.
Oshea’s work embodies the enduring relationship between art, technology, and philosophical thought. It challenges viewers to engage critically with the evolving landscape of visual media and the infrastructure that shapes it. Harald Szeemann often emphasized exhibitions as “mental spaces” where ideas could be freely explored. In this spirit, “Reassembling the Landscape” invites us into a mental space to reflect on the impact of technology and networks on our understanding of the world.
Landscapes have historically been a canvas upon which societies project their values, fears, and aspirations. In contemporary society, the representation of landscapes often reflects our complex relationship with nature—ranging from romanticized depictions to stark illustrations of environmental degradation. Oshea’s re-rendering of the landscape through AI challenges traditional representations by introducing an element of unpredictability and artificiality, an stochastic mechanism prompting us to question the authenticity and integrity of the images we consume. The resulting film is an aleatoric, or chance-based, study in predictive image generation.
This manipulation of the natural environment through technology echoes the concerns of environmental theorists who argue that modern society is increasingly disconnected from the natural world. In this sense, the AI’s reassembly of the landscape serves as a metaphor for humanity’s attempts to control and reshape nature, often without fully understanding the consequences.
In “The Garden in the Machine,” film theorist and lecturer Scott MacDonald examines how independent filmmakers have explored the relationship between technology (the machine) and the natural world (the garden). He argues that cinema has the potential to cultivate an ecological consciousness by prompting viewers to reconsider their relationship with the environment. MacDonald highlights films that challenge the industrialized, technology-driven worldview by foregrounding natural landscapes and promoting a meditative engagement with place.
Similar to Oshea’s single-shot, POV source material, the films Macdonald writes about often slow down the cinematic experience, allowing audiences to contemplate the environment and recognize the impacts of modernity on natural spaces. A primary example are the films of James Benning, whose work is characterized by long, static shots of natural environments that encourage a contemplative viewing experience. Films like “13 Lakes” and “Ten Skies” focus intensely on singular elements of nature—lakes and skies respectively—captured in real time without narrative intervention. Benning’s minimalist style strips away conventional cinematic devices, allowing the viewer to engage directly with the landscape and the passage of time, subtly reflecting on environmental concerns by presenting vulnerable landscapes, many of which already reveal the imprint of human engineering. His film “RR,” which features trains moving through various American landscapes, resonates particularly with Oshea’s train journey motif.
MacDonald often highlights the environmental costs of technological progress. Oshea’s manipulation of the landscape through AI brings these concerns to the forefront, highlighting the tension between technological advancement and environmental impact. The energy consumption associated with AI technologies adds another layer to this discourse, prompting well trodden yet pressing reflections on sustainability in this new field of inquiry. Here, we witness AI manipulating the natural environment—the landscape viewed from the train—therefore melding the organic with the synthetic.
The work can also be seens as a meditation on the process of digital colonization, where AI’s consumption and reassembly of the world around us may actually overwrite or obscure the cultural and historical significance embedded within these environments. In his film, AI devours the landscape, which passes by way of rail directly into the gaping maw of the camera only to be broken down and reconstituted by the digestive system of AI.
By transforming natural settings into regurgitated data points, there is a commodification of the environment—a foodlike consumption and a treatment of nature as mere raw material for technological advancement. What do we do when we feed the natural world through these new systems? Is some intrinsic value lost, or merely modified to fit our contemporary desires?
The paradox of his film underscores the need for awareness and responsibility in the use of technology within art. Ultimately, Oshea invites viewers into a complex dialogue about sustainable practices and the potential for technology to both harm and heal our relationship with the environment, and with ourselves.
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