Amsterdam is a completely different world. I wonder if there are sockets in the compartment at all? Or are they all connected to the laptop? How is it with Pushkin — in “The Countess with a Dog and a Jug”? Yep, here’s the string. This thing is like a rope ladder. I think it can go down. Try. Just don’t make noise and watch your step. And no books at the bottom. Careful. Yeah... Down, down. There is a special bolt on the wall.
The text above is generated by a neural network. In fact, Amsterdam is the capital and the largest city of the Netherlands, it attracts millions of visitors every year. The standing on stilts city is like an enclave state, covered from above with a crystal dome: a visitor from the outside world, once inside, is gradually immersed in an intricate, eccentric, often annoying and self-functioning ecosystem. In Amsterdam there is something dark, unfamiliar, alien, anxious, but there is also childish naivety, clumsiness, laughter. And the longer a person stays in the timeless liminal space of the city, the stronger the viscous surrounding unreality becomes, the deeper the Amsterdam limbo draws into itself.
After returning from Amsterdam, I decided to create an honest guide. All text and images in it are created by neural networks. I have no control over the content, and with each new sentence, the text loses all its meaning. Inexplicable visual solutions appear on the pages every now and then: fonts, composition and sizes of text blocks and pictures change. Like Amsterdam itself, the guide confuses the reader more and more, causing misunderstanding and discomfort.
Curator: Evgeny Grigoryev
Photography: Daria Shevlyagina
HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL
Saint Petersburg, 2022
This is a non-commercial study project. All content belongs to its owners.
