Born in 1853. Made for the future

Having already won an award in 2022 for its collaboration with Maison Guerlain on the Reaverse project. Paris-based agency mnstr is launching a film produced in collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI) to mark the 170th anniversary of Guerlain's famed ‘Flacon aux Abeilles’. Almost 1,800 images generated by artificial intelligence are compiled in the film ‘Born in 1853. Made for the future’, which retraces the illustrious history of the bottle through the ages and artistic movements, before picturing it in a utopian future.

mnstr has explored the issues associated with artificial intelligence recently, during the mnstr 3030 conference series [https://www.myeventnetwork.com/agenda/mnstr-3030], in March 2023. On this occasion however, it has joined forces with digital studio Bonjour Lab to develop and train a bespoke AI model that is capable of recognizing and reproducing Maison Guerlain's ‘Flacon aux Abeilles’ where existing tools were unable to.

An in-depth study of art history and extensive research of the Guerlain archives enabled us to trace the ‘Flacon aux Abeilles’ to key moments in its history. Each of these moments, past and future, was then synthesized in the form of a prompt (a written request sent to the AI, containing all the key words needed to generate a faithful image) written by the mnstr team. This laborious but essential work underlines the importance of human input when working with AI.

At a time when concerns are being raised about the use of generative art tools for creative purposes - often to the detriment of artists - mnstr has decided to move away from a binary confrontation between man and machine, and instead consider AI as a creative ally. With this in mind, the agency has set out to establish clear guidelines for the use of generative art tools. It has drawn up three rules, paying homage to the three laws once decreed by Isaac Asimov, the famous Science Fiction writer and forerunner of artificial intelligence:

Every image generated should be the result of a collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence: AI is never the sole creative force.

Humans and AI should work together to elevate the artistic process to a level of creative excellence that they could not achieve on their own.

Imperfections and anomalies - characteristics of generative art - must not be erased. These are the hallmarks of original creative exploration.