Carmen Perpetuum
Generative
Fiction
Transformation
Carmen Perpetuum is a 15-hour generative film based on Ovid's Metamorphoses. An algorithm transforms each line of the poem into a shot lasting just a few seconds, using an artificial intelligence model designed for moving images. The images materialize and make sensitive the intrinsic properties of the ideological project of artificial intelligence: a world of absolute fungibility, where all forms of data liquefy into each other in a statistical mush.
Watch Book I


“I was thrown forward from my chariot
and with the reins entwined about my legs.
My palpitating entrails could be seen
dragged on, my sinews fastened on a stump.
My torn legs followed, but a part
remained behind me, caught by various snags.
The breaking bones gave out a crackling noise,
my tortured spirit soon had fled away,
no part of the torn body could be known—
all that was left was only one crushed wound—
how can, how dare you, nymph, compare your ills
to my disaster? “


Copyright / Guillaume Menguy / 2024