Anastasia

"Anastasia" is an interactive digital art book inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. The project explores themes of desire and consumerism through AR-enhanced animations and visual storytelling, depicting the fictional city of Anastasia. Chapters progress from connection to alienation, emphasizing duality through contrasting visuals.

Team size: 6

Duration: 15 weeks

My role

Concept Development: Initiated design concepts inspired by "Invisible Cities" and engaged in brainstorming sessions with the team to finalize our design strategy.
Prompt Organization: Managed the organization and refinement of prompts following the confirmation of our design approach, ensuring alignment with project objectives.
Book Design: Responsible for the physical design and binding of the book, incorporating aesthetic elements that complement the thematic content.
Augmented Reality Creation: Utilized Spark AR to integrate animations created by teammates using diffusion techniques, developing bespoke virtual and augmented reality effects that enhanced the interactive experience of our project.

Conclusion

The design process began with a deep exploration of themes related to desire, illusion, and reality, inspired by Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities." We used AI-generated visuals, custom typography, and AR interactions to create a layered storytelling experience that immerses users in the dualities of the city. We brought Anastarsia to life, delivering a multi-sensory experience that exceeded expectations.

Our approach involved multiple design iterations, integrating AI to generate diverse artistic styles and user feedback to refine the visual and interactive elements. Extensive testing ensured a seamless blend of digital and physical interactions, enhancing user engagement at every step. This project showcases our dedication to crafting innovative digital experiences that push the boundaries of art and technology, providing a captivating journey through the enigmatic world of Anastarsia.

Project Details

Introduction

Invisible Cities is a travelogue to places that do not exist. It is a work that brushes aside conventions of form and narrative to ruminate on ideas of memory and place, touching on everything from trajectory of civilizations to the limits of communication.

Anastasia belongs to the collection "Cities and Desire". Calvino describes it as a place where valuable goods are produced, a city bathed by concentric canals and flown over by kites.

However, the beauty and abundance of the city leads its inhabitants to awaken all their desires and, in so doing, they become slaves.

Like Anastasia, consumerism also feeds on people's desire. Thus Anastasia's representation and interpretation becomes a reflection of current reality.

Concept

Chapters

Eight chapters

Chapter 1 - Beginning
Chapter 2 - Connection
Chapter 3 - Chaos
Chapter 4 - Trading
Chapter 5 - Ritual of delicacy
Chapter 6 - Temptation
Chapter 7 - Alienation
Chapter 8 - Destination

"At the end of three days, moving southward, you come upon Anastasia, a city with concentric canals watering it and kites flying over it. I should now list the wares that can profitably be bought here: agate, onyx, chrysoprase, and other varieties of chalcedony; I should praise the flesh of the golden pheasant cooked here over fires of seasoned cherry wood and sprinkled with much sweet marjoram; and tell of the women I have seen bathing in the pool of a garden and who sometimes—it is said—invite the stranger to disrobe with them and chase them in the water. But with all this, I would not be telling you the city's true essence; for while the description of Anastasia awakens desires one at a time only to force you to stifle them, when you are in the heart of Anastasia one morning your desires waken all at once and surround you. The city appears to you as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content. Such is the power, sometimes called malignant, sometimes benign, that Anastasia, the treacherous city, possesses; if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labour which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave."

Typeface

Luxurious Typeface, selected based on Adobe fonts filtering system

Prompt: handprinted, stenciled, brutalist, crafted, dripping, painted, textured, by christopher wool

Single characters made in Stable Diffusion local with the txt2Vector graphic script

All the letters were later made into a font by using FontSelf, an Illustrator plugin.

Videos

City showing the hidden part

16 different prompts, 1 seed, 4 different artists

8 different videos made with Colab Stable Diffusion, showcasing the elements of the city and duplicity of Anastasia

Post processing of the videos to make the transition black and white

golden city with canals, clean water, sun rays reflect on the water, beautiful blue sky, sunny day, golden, by edgar maxence, by john everett millais, distant, 8k, octane render

dark and evil city with canals, capitalism, slaves, hard work, dark, black smoke, storm clouds, chaotic, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render

boats floating through canals of a golden city, gold canals, clean water, sun rays reflect on the water, beautiful blue sky, sunny day, by edgar maxence, by john everett millais, distant, 8k, octane render

heat of dead grey fishes, rot, dark, dirty water, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render

multiple kites flying, shining gold with glisters, beautiful blue sky, sunny day, golden, white clouds, by edgar maxence, by john everett millais, distant, 8k, octane render

multiple bats flying, black smoke, dark, storm clouds, chaotic, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render

golden city with canals, clean water, sun rays reflect on the water, beautiful blue sky, sunny day, golden, by edgar maxence, by john everett millais, distant, 8k, octane render

dark and evil city with canals, capitalism, slaves, hard work, dark, black smoke, storm clouds, chaotic, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render

heat of dead grey fishes, rot, dark, dirty water, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render

multiple kites flying, shining gold with glisters, beautiful blue sky, sunny day, golden, white clouds, by edgar maxence, by john everett millais, distant, 8k, octane render

multiple bats flying, black smoke, dark, storm clouds, chaotic, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render

golden city with canals, clean water, sun rays reflect on the water, beautiful blue sky, sunny day, golden, by edgar maxence, by john everett millais, distant, 8k, octane render

dark and evil city with canals, capitalism, slaves, hard work, dark, black smoke, storm clouds, chaotic, by nicola samori, by zdzislaw beksinski, distant, 8k, octane render