BRAZIL?
video, 2022, 39 seconds, 4K resolution
"What is your idea of Brazil?"
That is the question Kika Nicolela asked on a social network. She then used all replies as prompts for an AI. She subsequently combined all the resulting output images on a larger digital canvas through the use of outpainting AI tools, and finally animated the work.
The resulting piece is an ambiguous and enigmatic portrait of a fantasied country. Imperfect as every portrait. Imperfect because there is no way to make sense of a country with so many contradictions. Beautiful and sad, warm and violent, generous and implacable, abundant and miserable.
The piece is also an homage to Brazilian modernism: within her prompts, Nicolela integrated references to various Brazilian modernist painters, as way to decolonize prompting – most AI art uses European art as reference.
'Brazil' was finished on the day of the 2022 Brazilian elections, which revealed the profound division the country finds itself at the moment. The political fate of this giant country concerns the whole planet: the Amazon rainforest has never been so devastated as during these past few months.