With this series of ten episodes of approximately three minutes, Arte has given carte blanche to a visual artist to work directly with AI. Result ? A stroll through the twists and turns of images produced by Midjourney with a dose of humor and philosophy.
The artist Jocelyn Collages says he felt “dizzy” the day he realized the power of AI to create images. This is how he contacted his producer, Christella Huillard-Kann, and suggested that they embark on a unique experience, a series co-designed with artificial intelligence. At first surprised, she let herself get caught up in the game, also touched by this “vertigo”. Soon it will be the turn of Arte which will end up saying yes to broadcast the series called “Prompt” after the name of the text that we enter into the computer as instructions given to AI.
“At Arte, we have always had the desire to innovate in writing,” announces Gilles Freissinier, deputy editorial director of Arte. “For us, it was natural to confront this new technology. It’s important to understand it rather than being afraid of it. » he said again. Hence the creation of a making-off of the series which obviously worked very well with spectators eager to know how Jocelyn Collages went about creating these images. In a video, we see him explain how he works alone on his computer to produce new and crazy paintings born from the Midjourney software.
“Each episode required around 6/7 days of work and cost around 14,000 euros” explains Christella Huillard-Kann. “Our question at the center of each episode was ‘how can I make my friends laugh with someone asking very practical questions to AI?’ » » she explains. In fact, in one episode someone asks AI: “Where are the keys of my moto scooter? » or in another: “What time does my train leave?” » The answer then always oscillates between amusing fantasy and false historical testimony, enough to really question us about our relationship to the world and our past as much as our future.
By Jean-Baptiste Gauvin
