More Dream Cities

This post is going to be pure self-indulgence.

I've recently posted here about my imagining of futuristic dream cities. I've been doing this for a long time-- longer than I can remember-- but the development of artificial intelligence means I can actually generate pictures of them. On the artificial intelligence site I use, you have to type in a description and it generates an image. Sometimes it's close to what I imagine, sometimes it's nothing like it.

How long have I been imagining these futuristic dream cities? Well, that's a big question...

One of the formative experiences in my life was supermarket shopping with my mother when was a kid. I know it sounds indescribably banal, but Quinnsworth (later Tesco) in Ballymun Shopping Centre seized my imagination.

It was so bright, and it was always busy. There was a never-ending stream of people through it. And there were few windows; it seemed entirely self-contained. I loved all that.

That was when I was very young. When I was about twelve, my class in school took a trip to Ennis in county Clare. I can remember, in the train station in Dublin, there was a glowing advertisement with a picture of a woman wearing glamorous sunglasses and the caption: "All Through the Night". Figures in the background suggested a party.

Parties haven't featured very heavily in my life, but the idea of a party that goes on and on and on excited me very much. Actually, the idea of anything that goes on and on and on excites me. (As does the title of that Smiths song, "There is a Light That Never Goes Out".) Star Trek is also a big influence, as is the memory of Dublin's Ilac shopping centre in the eighties, especially its mirrored ceiling.

Anyway, perhaps that explains it enough.