A photo pertaining to show a magnificent art-nouveau villa has gone viral on social media. There are claims the villa can be found in the Romanian capital Bucharest, but in reality, this is a non-existent building. It’s the creation of Thierry Lechanteur, a Belgian artist employing AI (artificial intelligence) in his work.
Factcheckers: “No, this magnificent art-nouveau villa doesn’t exist. It’s the work of a Belgian AI artist”
You may have seen it yourself on social media. That photo of the magnificent art-nouveau villa that could have been designed by Belgian supremo Victor Horta. The large window that looks like it could have been lifted from a Lord of the Rings movie attracted a lot of attention.
Some people on Twitter are claiming that it’s a house in Bucharest, Romania. This tweet has been viewed at least 870,000 times and was shared over 2,000 times.
Look carefully and you will see the name of the photographer. Look further and you will discover the Liège-based AI artist Thierry Lechanteur. The tweet is MISLEADING!
The house doing the rounds on social media doesn’t exist in reality. It’s the work of the Liège-based AI artist Thierry Lechanteur . It forms part of a collection of non-existent art-nouveau houses that the artist generated using Midjourney AI. Midjourney-AI is a programme that using AI generates images on the basis of a textual description. It’s comparable to DALL-E that generates photos, pictures and collages on request. The artist says that he is “involved in a creative conversation with AI”.
“I feed all kinds of instructions and ideas into the programme that leads it to create an image. It can be a lengthy process. Sometimes I’m busy with one photo for days. I regularly return to old projects that I improve thanks to new insights. For me AI is a tool to help me discover my creative ideas and make them real”.
Twitter has meanwhile added a disclaimer to the image making it clear that the building doesn’t really exist.
Thierry Lechanteur says his work is a reaction to what he labels “mass production” and “the cold and inhuman standardisation of modern life”. He regrets that his work, inspired by Victor Horta, has gone viral thanks to fake news: “In principle I always provide the information that this is a digital creation and not a photo. It’s a shame some people drop this message and remove my work from its original context”.
Thierry Lechanteur’s AI works will go on show for the first time this year: at the Cuban embassy in Brussels in an art-nouveau building designed by Victor Horta in 1900 – a real building!!!
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