Different dreams create different worlds.
Utopia could be the world that the Czech Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) imagined to celebrate the Slavic people (a mixture of mythology, history and religion).
‘The Oath of Omladina under the Slav linden tree’ (canvas no. 18 of the 20 large canvases in Alphonse Mucha’s ‘Slav Epic’). This painting depicts a sacred Slavic lime tree, a symbol of divination, with Mother Slavia sitting in its crotch while children are surrounded by members of patriotic and and beyond them sit figures dressed in folk costume representing the Czech people. (2024, Mucha Foundation)
New worlds come from different dreams.
Dystopia can be a simple prompt created by Midjourney AI art that depicts ‘A Slavic Village attacked by Nomads, Symbolic Desperation and Hope in Night Sky’ (2024, JourneyArt)
When two worlds collide
What represents utopia and dystopia for us? Can it be explained without raising one last doubt, one last word about the difference between these two worlds? Perhaps both are part of a more complex web of intertwined threads that cannot be seen separately. So I decided to explore and clash these two worlds: the dream ‘The Slavic Epic’ by the iconic Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha and the use and recreation of the utopia and dystopia of Art Nouveau in modern times through AI.
(ALPHONSE MUCHA e-MOTION. MakeAGif, 2023)
Will you find answers at the end of this journey or just doors, windows and paths between utopian and dystopian worlds from the past to the future? Perhaps Austrian filmmaker, director, screenwriter and producer Fritz Lang and writer Thea von Harbou, author of the Metropolis screenplay, were right: ‘Babel! Babel! Babel! – Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a mediator, and that mediator must be the heart.’ (1927, Metropolis film)
Epic journey
AI prompts and Epic Exibition poster
‘Ultra realistic illustration of an old man cyborg cyberpunk sci-fi fantasy dystopian Art Nouveau’ – by Prompt Hunt Inc. (used ‘Stable Diffusion’ AI art to create it).
Title: ‘Asian Odalisque with Ornamental Skull Face and Explosive Hair Style’.
‘skull asian odalisque, skull face, sexy smiling, chaos ornamental, short hair, darkness, explosive hairstyle, assymetrical, chinese poster, torn poster edge, alphonse mucha hiperdetailed, highcontrast, hippercolored, highcontrast dramatic tones, explosive dripping colors’- an AI Wallpaper prompt, by WallpaperBot.
Title: ‘Furious Geisha with Assymmetrical Skull Face in Alphonse Mucha Style’.
‘geisha , crazy furious skull face , assimetrical, alphonse mucha postar, comic book textured paper, hiperdetailed lineart , black,gray, red’ – an AI Wallpaper prompt, by WallpaperBot.
Poster for ‘The Slav Epic’ Exhibition in Brno, in the Czech Republic or Czechia (1930)
New worlds
Utopia and Dystopia
Art Nouveau Cyberpunk Traditional Japanese Fusion
Art Nouveau cyberpunk traditional Japanese fusion poster – by entwithanaxe (Redbubble, n.d.)
Dystopian City Art Nouveau Poster
Dystopian city Art Nouveau 1 poster by Rusticien (Etsy Inc., n.d.)
Future
What we must be aware!
‘In a future dystopian world individual freedoms have vanished under the shadow of technology people.’ – by GG Digital Arts using a Freepik image (Premium Vector, 2023).
“In every revolution, there are winners and losers. Every dystopia is a utopia for somebody else. It just depends where you are. Are you in the class that benefits, or are you in the class that’s not? ” (Liu, 2015)
Ken Liu is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, born in 1976 in Lanzhou, China. He has written a book entitled ‘The Grace of Kings’, an epic fantasy that reimagines the rise of the Han dynasty in China in a secondary world archipelago setting.
New dreams
Utopia and Dystopia
Street art murals, AI prompts, projection exhibits and multimedia musical shows
Alphonse Mucha mural project
It was painted by L.A.-based graffiti artist Mear One, in 2010. The mural took nine days to complete and remains in excellent condition after nearly seven years. (Unframed.LACMA, 2024)
iMucha – Immersive Exhibition
Alphonse Mucha Immersive experience with large scale digital projections at the Imucha exhibition in Prague. (The POP UP, 2023)
A cyborg depicted in the style of Art Nouveau
‘A cyborg depicted in the style of an Art Nouveau illustration but with sleek robotic enhancements flowing seamlessly into her organic form like blossoming vines of metal and light’ – by thewanderer2813 (starryai, n.d.)
iMucha – Multimedia Concert Show
iMucha is a unique international multimedia show about the battle between creativity and destruction. A young comic book artist from New York falls in love with a French girl who looks just like a girl from one of Mucha‘s posters. At the same time, he gains the superpower to enter paintings and move in their world. (Boho productions, 2024)
Massive Art-Nouveau inspired mural
Public murals by A’shop crew on the streets of Montreal. A’shop crew is an artist-run production company that creates graffiti murals, street art, and other public art displays. Most of their work is heavily influenced by graffiti but has also found inspiration elsewhere like their 2011 piece titled Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (top) that borrows from the art nouveau style of Alphonse Mucha. (Colossal, 2023)
What lays ahead?
Prompt: ‘Make the video with ‘The Slavic Epic’ from Alphonse Mucha mixed with the AI dystopia modern Art Nouveau world, with ‘Bolero’ by Maurice Ravel on the background.’ by Claudio Dixo (invideo, 2024)
