Department of Management

Center for Hybrid Intelligence

 Department of Management Center for Hybrid Intelligence Focus Areas Tech-Enhanced Participatory Democracy crea.visions crea.visions Venice 2022

crea.visions Venice 2022

CREA Visions Venice is a collaborative event series between the Center of Hybrid Intelligence (Aarhus, Denmark), and the ACM Creativity & Cognition 2022 conference. Our aim is that the AI-assisted activity that crea.visions allows for can help anyone visualize the future of Venice. We also wish to spark dialogues and foster community action around sustainable development and the future of the city of Venice. 

crea.visions  uses what is called a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), which is a type of machine learning framework. Since we wanted to create visions of Venice that resemble the city, we built a special version of the algorithm, which was trained on both images of building-like structures from Artbreeder’s website (the project that inspired the creation of crea.visions) and images taken in Venice by our local collaborators.

Further information

Janet Frances Rafner

AIAS-SHAPE Fellow Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies
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In May ’22, we held pop-up events at various locations in the city of Venice. We introduced ourselves and our project and asked people to play with our game for a bit. We talked with local clubs, students, and tourists. Over the course of one week, 4668 images were generated, 235 submitted, and 70 ranked. The top 10 images will be exhibited in Giudecca, owned by Insituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, from 22-25 June, as part of the ACM Creativity & Cognition 2022 Conference Exhibition.

Some pictures taken in Venice.

The images of Venetian buildings were then “translated” into a vector space that the GAN understands, which resulted in images like these.

The winning images

"More and more high water." - Antonia von Gebsattel
"Sunsets in Venice are my favourite sunsets in the world. In this picture, my building is a modern architecture different from the ancient Palazzi that you can find in the island, but with some connection to the amazing Venetian style. This future Venice is painted with the sunset colours, in order to make everybody realise how beautiful Venice is in that particular moment of the day, and to add a more romantic touch to it." - Giada Tasinato
"Waiting for the moon shining" - Anonymous
"Refractions, continuous movement and water play, expand in the architectures and materials that compose them, generating ideal places to encounter." - Debora Lo Russo
"Venice and its upcoming future: underwater." - Anonymous
"Fantasy Gothic on the Grand Canal." - Chris Wayman
"If you seek a place of isolation and complete disconnection. Find a fortress of solitude. By my lonesome up in the clouds." - Love Reynes
"Through this particular color scheme, that gives a nostalgic feeling, and a building that is inspired by traditional Venetian architecture, this image wants to represent the idea of Venice as a city incapable of change." - Anonymous
"A sustainable vision of Venice in synchronicity with nature." - Mark J.V. Olson
"Increased water will create a more natural, green city, and buildings will find a different way to dialogue with the land, extending vertically." - Anonima
"Venice 2.0: expansion in height not width to accommodate more and more tourists and citizens." - Eleonora Favaro
"Venice in sunset mode." - Kelly Jegers
"Get the plants out, show the world we live here. We are not just a city of facades." - Jutta Palmen
"Image of Venice in 60 years." - Louisa Vianello
"Still in the water, the city ́ takes different forms due to both climatic and temporal changes. Venice retains its uniqueness but approaches a more contemporary reality. The colors are those of the desert." - Lene Torricella and Thea Zamparo
Revised 12.03.2024
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Blanka Zana