The Third Atlas

The Third Atlas – Following on from Atlas of Forms, published in 2017, and the first 4 volumes of Atlas des Régions Naturelles, The Third Atlas forms a new Atlas trilogy, which focuses as much on architecture in the broadest sense as on images in their various modes of production and distribution. While the Atlas of Forms used the Internet as its main source, and ARN explores the local realities of contemporary France, The Third Atlas proposes experimenting with artificial intelligence as a tool for representing reality.

In the form of a dystopian fable describing the world after the advent of AIs, The Third Atlasgoes beyond the astonishment or rejection these new images arouse, and reflects on the way in which artificial intelligence challenges our vision and, beyond that, our perception of reality. It formulates the hypothesis that this modified vision will shape the future forms of architecture, design, sculpture and painting, perhaps even more than those of photography.

The 660 images contained in the 320 pages of this book – one of the first of its kind – are the result of a deep dive into the secrets of Midjourney, and over a thousand hours of work using artificial intelligence.