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The city would adapt to its natural environment and derive energy from available renewable resources.
In The Transcendent City, Hardy envisions a machine developed in
response to society’s inability to tackle environmental dangers.
The film’s aim was to explore the idea that artificial intelligence
is a necessity for the future of human evolution and supports his
10,000 word Masters thesis.
The animation was hand-drawn then digitally rendered, before being animated using techniques often found in Japanese anime.
Hardy is one-third of the We Are Om film collective.
The concept of a future sustainable city is developed for a society
that is currently not responding effectively to environmental dangers.
“Transcendence” in this case referring to a point when artificial
intelligence has reached or surpassed that of the human.
The Transcendent City is an autonomous artificial machine that
extends across the earth adapting to the natural eco-systems it
encounters while deriving its energy from the renewable resources
available at each particular site. The systems desire is to maintain
homeostasis within itself whilst maintaining homeostasis within the
greater system, Gaia. Its processes are engineered on the molecular
scale by nano technologies controlled by molecular computers that
monitor and analyse the environment.
The film produced for my final year Masters in Architecture
questions whether the conception of artificial intelligence has been a
necessity in human evolution and if we therefore should embrace
emergent technologies to engage with problems of sustainability and the
city.
