Algorithms of Beauty

A contemplative film about the boundaryies between natural and technological beauty. Can an AI-generated image recreate the beauty of a flower?

In 1772, artist Mary Delany imitated flowers through decoupage. By pasting together hundreds of paper cuttings, she managed to depict flowers with exquisite botanical precision. Centuries later, a programmer is working to invent an algorithm that can also replicate the patterns and radiance of fauna. With the help of an artificial intelligence, the beauty of plants is recreated down to the smallest detail. The technology is groundbreaking, even though reproducing nature is not new. ‘Algorithms of Beauty’ moves across science and beauty, technology and emotion in its examination of the AI inventions of our time, questioning the limits of our vision. Can we tell the difference between a computer-generated image of a flower and the real thing?

Can a picture contain all the beauty of a flower? This is what the narrator is looking for. To try to make it, she takes a revolutionary tool, an Artificial Intelligence. Through the film, she creates a link with Mary Delany. Indeed, the flowers created 300 years ago by the English botanist are strangely in resonance with those created by the algorithms. Between technology and emotions, Algorithms of Beauty questions the limits of our gaze when faced with AI images.