KKAI

Description

Paradise Lost is a project inspired by the visual world of Persian Paradise Lost paintings. I draw from the sense of absurdity embedded in these works and use it as a starting point for my own reinterpretation. Rather than recreating the original pictorial imagery, I deconstruct it through the visual language of the contemporary, real world. By translating elements of absurdity from painting into everyday, recognizable environments, I allow them to reappear within reality itself. In this process, the imagined world of Paradise Lost is displaced into familiar settings, where it becomes subtly unsettling. This work is not a reproduction but a reconstruction. It operates in the space between the real and the unreal, the familiar and the strange, amplifying the absurdity present in the original imagery and reshaping it through contemporary modes of perception. Through this shift, the project aims to offer viewers a renewed visual experience—one that destabilizes expectations and invites a different way of seeing.

Process

Absurdity has long been central to my artistic interests. When I began exploring AI as a creative tool, Persian Paradise Lost paintings were among the first works that came to mind. Their dense compositions—filled with numerous figures, layered scenes, and the coexistence of heaven, earth, and hell—embody the artist’s expansive imagination. These works present a complete symbolic universe, where multiple realities unfold simultaneously. This richness strongly resonates with my own creative motivation: to explore complexity, contradiction, and the surreal within a single visual space. The paintings offered not only a visual reference, but also a conceptual structure that aligned naturally with the way I think and work. Using AI allowed me to re-engage with this imagined world from a contemporary perspective, translating its absurdity into a new visual language while preserving the spirit of imagination that originally inspired it.

Tools

I worked with a combination of AI-based image and video generation tools. I began by generating images using Midjourney, which served as the initial visual material. These images were then further edited and modified using Jimeng, allowing me to gradually adjust the visuals toward the scenes I had envisioned. After refining the images, I used Kling to generate video sequences, extending still imagery into motion. The final stage involved editing and assembling the generated material into a complete video work, shaping rhythm, continuity, and overall structure. Rather than relying on a single tool, my process moves across multiple systems, using each at a different stage to translate ideas into images, images into motion, and fragments into a coherent visual narrative.