Dream Cities

I'm as worried about A.I. as anybody else, but I'll admit I've dabbled with it. Sometimes I've used it to generate pictures for this blog when I can't find anything suitable online.

Another thing I've used it for is to create visualizations of my dream cities.

For a long, long time (I can't remember how long) I've had dreams-- dreams in both a literal and figurative sense-- of marvellous, futuristic cities, cities which satisfy particular deep-seated yearnings of mine.

When the dreams are literal, they're often of the high-rise suburb where I grew up, Ballymun. But Ballymun transformed into something more like a science-fiction film.

My dream cities are never clearly imagined, because I have very little visual imagination or visual recall. But they have a few essential characteristics:

1) They are bustling. I love activity. I love the phrase "the city that never sleeps". I love the title of the Smiths song, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out". I love the word "public". Basically these cities are hotel lobbies (or airport concourses, or train stations, or conference centres) on a grand scale-- not quite, but close enough.

2) They are completely interior with no windows-- or, if there must be windows, high windows and/or skylights. The sky and the moon and the stars are beautiful, but...well, I don't know why, but I like indoors to be utterly indoors. I like the concentration of that. I especially like rooms within rooms within rooms.

3) They have balconies, flags, escalators, and fountains. Especially fountain. Is there any more moving symbol of life-- public, collective, intergenerational life-- than a fountain?

4) They have many levels.

The A.I. website I was using doesn't always follow one's instructions to the letter, though.

This one is my favourite and the closest to my ideal. I like mirrorballs, as well!

I'm rather afraid that everyone else will find these visions to be nauseating rather than beautiful! Sure, I can appreciate the poetry of a little village in the middle of nowhere which is in harmony with the sounds, sights, and cycles of nature. But in all honesty, I prefer these!