Vaster than Empires

Vaster than Empires is a digital artwork created by CROSSLUCID that rein­ter­prets Ursula K. Le Guin’s visionary short story, ​“Vaster than Empires and More Slow” (1971), through the prism of con­tem­po­rary artificial intelligence.

This immersive creation explores Le Guin’s prophetic story that imagines a planetary forest con­scious­ness operating simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at microscopic and global scales. CROSSLUCID translates this vision into visual experience through the innovative use of a custom Large Language Model, creating a fascinating recursive loop: artificial intel­li­gence interprets a story about non-human con­scious­ness, inviting us to reflect on the very nature of AI.

The work offers viewers an immersive experience of the forest-mind imagined by Le Guin, using dynamic visual patterns to evoke a con­scious­ness that transcends human temporal and spatial scales. The generated images evolve and transform, reflecting the themes of distributed intel­li­gence, inter-species com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and radical empathy that are at the heart of the original story.

What makes this work par­tic­u­lar­ly relevant today is how Le Guin’s vision anticipates con­tem­po­rary discussions about neural networks, distributed intel­li­gence, and the potential emergence of con­scious­ness in complex systems.

Com­mis­sioned by the Berggruen Institute in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ursula K. Le Guin’s estate, Vaster than Empires appears at a crucial moment in our rela­tion­ship with artificial intel­li­gence. As AI systems become increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed, this artwork offers us a valuable framework for exploring philo­soph­i­cal questions about con­scious­ness, time, and the possibility of com­mu­ni­ca­tion beyond radical differences in perception.

By making these abstract concepts tangible, CROSSLUCID demon­strates how digital tech­nolo­gies can serve not only as tools for artistic creation but also as means to explore the ethical and philo­soph­i­cal questions that will shape our shared technological future.

CROSSLUCID, Vaster than Empires is presented as part of the exhibition Hybrid Futures: Rhizomes, Meshworks & Alter-Ecologies, organised and produced by Elektron.
Curators: Vincent Crapon & Françoise Poos.

This pre­sen­ta­tion is also part of the programme for the European Month of Photography Luxembourg festival.

CROSSLUCID
Vaster than Empires 
single-channel AI-driven video, 5 min., Executed in 2023

Directed by CROSSLUCID
Custom Machine Learning Workflow by CROSSLUCID
Consulted by Theo Downes-Le Guin
Musical Composition: ​“Altruism” by Arswain & Anna Tskhovrebov
Narrative Voice: Theo Downes-Le Guin
Special thanks: Claire Isabel Webb, Alice Scope, Primavera de Filippi

“Vaster than Empires and More Slow” by Ursula K. Le Guin
Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Copyright © 1971
All Rights Reserved