Deep Hallucination

In the final three months of my architectural education, my relationship with my computer entered an intriguing yet puzzling phase. Driven by a technical curiosity in artificial intelligence algorithms, I found myself in a unique workflow. Once a task was initiated, my computer would labor independently, sometimes for several days and occasionally just for a few hours. It was unprecedented in architecture. This autonomy gave me pockets of leisure—time to read, socialize with friends, or sip some tea. I configured my computer to alert me once a task was complete, keeping me tethered to my work even during these breaks. Upon receiving these updates, I would ponder the results, consult with my advisor, modify parameters, and set the machine to work again.

For my experiment, I took a standard Revit 2018 sample project and infused it with imagery from a 7th-century Chinese wood carving. This created a captivating blend—a clash between ancient Chinese cultural symbols and the more mundane, software-generated notions of what architecture ought to be.

As I neared the end of this project, I stumbled upon a poem through a Google search. Remarkably, the poem dated back 1,300 years, coinciding with the era of the Chinese wood carvings, thus elegantly tying together the threads of my multifaceted exploration.