AI installation in Brazil prompts visitors to "imagine hopeful solutions"
New York-based design studio Visions2030 has created a trio of domes installed at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, where visitors fabricate a vision of the future via a series of AI prompts.
The Lumisphere Experience (The Lumisphere) is temporarily located in front of the Santiago Calatrava-designed Museum of Tomorrow and consists of three Buckminster Fuller-informed domes, which guide visitors through a meditative experience where they eventually create an ideal picture of a future environment using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
"In this audiovisual environment, where artificial intelligence technology and culture meet, the audience is encouraged to awaken creativity, expand collective awareness, and imagine innovative and hopeful solutions to urgent global challenges," said the team.
Created by Visions2030 and technical partners Minds Over Matter, the installation encourages visitors to "dream big" in the face of often-negative narratives around climate change.
"The point is to dream big and to get people to ask themselves – what do you want the future to look like?" Visions2030 founder Carey Lovelace told Dezeen.
Visitors first enter the Orientation dome, where they receive headphones and gather around a small half globe, or "digital campfire", which features colourful, shifting visuals projected onto its exterior.
An audio narration acknowledges that the earth is at risk due to climate change, but proposes human imagination as a partial antidote and prepares participants to take part in the remaining installation.
After the narration completes, visitors enter the second Immersion dome, which is filled with reclining seating. Similar colourful visuals play overhead, while a second, meditative narration encourages the expansion of consciousness.
Visitors then remove their headphones and enter the third and last Creation dome, which is lined with tablets and screens displaying images of different, AI-generated worlds.
On the tablets, prompts guide visitors to create their "dream world", asking questions such as "What types of landscapes do you envision in your dream world?" and "What kind of mood or vibe does it have?"
Another question asks, "What kind of solutions does it feature?" and participants select from a variety of answers such as "clean nuclear", "wind energy" and "solar power".
An image of a landscape is then generated, which the participant can download, while it's also displayed on public screens around the room.
Lovelace said she sees the use of AI in the installation as a "tool", despite its "downsides" – such as land usage of data centres and energy consumption.
"There's a lot of future shock around AI, there's a lot of fear," said Lovelace. "To me, AI [is like] a hammer – it's a tool. It's something that we can use the way we want to use it."
As part of its installation in Rio de Janeiro, the Lumisphere team partnered with research organisation The Institute for the Future (IFTF) to survey 14,000 participants on their experience and to examine the data gathered from the installation.
According to the team, among other results, the data showed that "the ideal world has a positive, sunny, peaceful, and natural atmosphere".
"Words such as 'natural', 'harmonious', and 'peaceful' stand out, reinforcing that the imagined setting is not only beautiful but also emotionally tranquil and healthy," said the team.
"Futuristic, sci-fi, cyber, or dystopian aesthetics were rarely mentioned, indicating that – even in a future with technology – respondents desire a human and natural environment."
The Lumisphere was first on view as part of several "solar punk" installations created for a festival at the California Institute of Art. It was installed in Rio de Janeiro to coincide with this year's Earthshot Prize awards and the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, which also took place in Brazil.
The exterior photography is by Leonardo Zielinsky, courtesy of Visions2030 and Minds Over Matter. All interior photography is courtesy of the Museum of Tomorrow.
The Lumisphere Experience is on view at the Museum of Tomorrow until 18 December. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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