The Course of Empire

In this image I worked with two collaborators, both of them non-living.  The first is Nicholas Habbe, through his painting, “Britannia Rules the Waves” (1876), which is reproduced at the center of “The Course of Empire.”  The imagery surrounding this icon of imperialism is derived from the other collaborator, the Artificial Intelligence program DALL-E (sounds like Dali – get it?). DALL- E usually makes images based on descriptions given to it.  “Mona Lisa in the style of Picasso,” for example.  The software draws on a vast image corpus and a sophisticated modelling of artistic styles, with clever and sometimes beautiful results.  In making “The Course of Empire,” however, my approach was different.  The program also can use “generation frames,” which can extend a given image beyond its original boundaries, elaborating the background of a painting for example.  The software takes user prompts for style and theme (e.g. “slavery,” “oppression,” or “exploitation”), and presents several options for the image extension, from which I chose the most expressive, often after many tries and selective erasures/replacements.

Dan Lloyd is the Thomas C. Brownell Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Trinity College, Connecticut. He was also a Professor of Neuroscience. In addition to authoring more than 60 journal papers, he is the author/editor of  Subjective Time:  The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of temporality (co-edited with Valtteri Arstila, 2014). Other works include Radiant Cool: a novel theory of consciousness (2004),  and Simple Minds (1989).  He has presented his animations and sonifications of brain activity at conferences, galleries, festivals, and performances around the world.

(c) 2023 Dan Lloyd