Laundry ECD/co-founder PJ Richardson takes a deep dive into AI art and animation in this visually opulent short film created for a digital art exhibition in Barcelona curated by OFFF founder Hector Ayuso.

PJ Richardson: “I’ve had mixed feelings about AI art until now. But like most of my favorite, most creatively satisfying projects, this one came about entirely because of friends and idols.

“I was at OFFF Mexico City and had an inspiring night out at the visual and music festival Mutek with Stefan Kostaras from Pelican Sound. We decided we had to collaborate. Not long after that, Barcelona artist Boldtron and I were DMing, and he pushed me to try Krea AI.

“I tried out some runway AI passes and posted a few, and Hector from OFFF hit me up about this show. When I saw Refik, Sixnfive, Baugasm, and a few others I look up to were doing pieces I got even more pumped.
 

“What surprised me was, that while complex prompts and weighting do have their benefits, often, the simpler the better would produce nice results.”

 
“Based on the today’s culture that has desensitized us from all the suffering and divisiveness out there, I was compelled to make a piece that celebrates everything that is suffering right now. Women, mothers, children, the earth and nature.

“Creatively and technically, I found AI rather restrictive – to be at the mercy of the randomness of prompt outputs. I also found the same ‘wait and see’ workflow outcomes in Runway equally challenging. I am so used to being able to tweak every little detail and isolate layers and parts I want to improve upon.

“Technically, it took me several goes in Runway to learn how to get nice results with the prompt controls, which also updated and changed midway through the process. What surprised me was, that while complex prompts and weighting do have their benefits, often, the simpler the better would produce nice results.

“The biggest challenge was figuring out how much was enough motion to be interesting, but not too little that it felt static, or too much to where it broke and got too weird. I found organic imagery does well in both Midjourney and Runway AI.”

The IV Edition International Circle of Modern and Contemporary Art Exhibition also featured digital artwork by Refik Anadol, Sixnfive, Baugasm, Vasava, Mereia Ruiz, Diotomic, and Birgit Palma.
 
 

 
Client: Offf Barcelona, Circulo Ecuestre Barcelona

Director: PJ Richardson
AI prompt engineering: PJ Richardson
Animator/compositor: PJ Richardson

Music/audio: Stefan Kostaras @ Pelican Sound

Toolkit: Midjourney, Runway AI