The story behind the Helsinki Beneath artworks

In the summer of 2024, the Helsinki Beneath AI exhibition took place at Citycenter, where all the content—including the artist herself—was created using artificial intelligence. Now, some of the exhibition's works have been brought back on display on the first floor of Citycenter.

'Helsinki Beneath' presents different locations in the world's happiest capital from perspectives that challenge Western notions of well-being and its cost. Yet, there is always hope - one that the viewer must discover by looking beneath the surface.

Stories behind the artworks:

IDENTITY

Music shapes identity and keeps it in constant motion. The blue and white Finlandia of Sibelius plays in Finland's national identity, and the identity of an individual always sounds individual. Music is feeling and self-expression.

THE SHATTERING CIVILIZATION

The library Oodi is a symbol of civilization. The reading ability of Finns is falling apart and the ranking in international learning tests is dropping at a dizzying pace. How many books is needed to stop the destruction?

CLIMATE CHANGE

Palm trees as part of Helsinki's natural vegetation are the real future. How does it feel?

UNITY

Today's adventurer is a peace builder. Curiosity brings people together across nations. Bridges are built with respect for the unknown. The new unknown is not necessarily a threat, but an opportunity for new unity and peace – and adventure.

SWEDEN ALWAYS WINS

Finland is said to be Sweden's little sibling, and there is competition and respect between the pair. The competitive spirit is at its best when it is a driver for personal development.

 

Background of the Helsinki Beneath Exhibition

The concepts behind the Helsinki Beneath exhibition and the virtual artist Ana Bauer originated in the human mind. Of course, AI was also used to enrich ideas.

The artworks were created using a learning model that had to be developed first, enabling the generation of images through artificial intelligence. While pre-existing learning models are available online, creating unique, individualized artworks with them is extremely challenging. The exhibition’s pieces depict real locations in Helsinki, and each artwork was based on a series of photographs taken beforehand. These images served as reference material for generating the artworks using AI software. Once an initial image was created, an iterative process began to refine and align the story with the visual composition. This phase required extensive experimentation and testing to enhance the image in the desired direction, down to the finest details. The final image was generated in high resolution to ensure that every detail could be examined with ease. While AI can be remarkably creative in its own way, producing incredible results, themes, curation, and concepts ultimately come from human input.

Behind the Helsinki Beneath exhibition and the virtual artist Ana Bauer is Antti Karppinen, an internationally recognized AI expert. All the photographs used as the basis for the exhibition’s works were taken by Antti himself.

Read more about Antti Karppinen’s thoughts on the project:

"One of the biggest challenges was to create a unique concept and a sufficiently refined process that allowed us to produce art that not only looks good but also tells stories and evokes emotions. Training the AI required a lot of work and fine-tuning, but in the end, we succeeded in creating both an artist and a process that could meet expectations."

— Antti Karppinen, blog post, June 11, 2024