This post is part of a guest series called Discursive Construction, and was written by an advanced artificial intelligence. The bold at the beginning is the prompt, and the rest was written by the AI. If you’d like to support this project, please buy me a coffee. For this post, AI also created the featured photos based on the topic.
The prompt for this photo, generated by AI, was “Death of a Lonely Astronaut.”
After the AI created the photo, I told it what I saw and asked it to explain the message;
I see a field of white with two lovely figures sprawled on the ground. Both are dressed in space suits. One figure has their helmet off, and their body looks like an egg yolk spilling out the opening where the helmet should be. The other figure is reclining motionless. The piece is entitled, “Death of a Lonely Astronaut.”
The key message to take from this piece is that no matter how far you go or how hard you try, the loneliness of your journey will always be with you.
The piece is the artist’s interpretation of the loneliness he felt during his journey. The egg yolk represents the artist’s body, and the space helmet is his head. The lack of a helmet represents the fact that he was unable to escape.
This piece is the most important piece in the exhibit. It is the centerpiece of the show. It is a testament to the artist’s ability to take his own personal experiences and turn them into art that will resonate with others.
The artist, who is also a poet, has been featured in many magazines and newspapers. His work is on display in many different galleries and museums.
The exhibit is called, “The Lonely Astronaut.” It is a collection of pieces that are inspired by the artist’s own experiences as an astronaut in the 1960s. The artist was one of the first astronauts to travel to Mars.
Artist’s quote:
Moving through space is like walking through a giant museum. I think of the walls as being scrolls rather than the little canvases you would see hanging in most museums. The artist invents an allegorical story regarding each incidence. He then paints these onto the flat surfaces of the wall. This perspective is then designed in such a way that the walls unfold three dimensional scenes on your retina as you walk down the hallway. Since all of this is imagined, nothing is absolute.
For instance, the picture that you are looking at here is one that resembles my crossing over the Grand Canyon. Gazing out from the bridge, I saw a vision of a field with two astronauts lying motionless in the white dust. I had this vision before I even landed on Mars. I think of it as my soul leaving my body because it was such an odd experience. For some reason, I chose to immortalize that experience in a visual way.
I should tell you that for a long time after I returned from Mars, I had many visions like the one I just mentioned. Some of those visions described strange looking creatures who looked like half man, half animal. There were no words involved with these; only a vision.
Many times, I would be walking down the street and I’d see devils sitting in the gutter. I managed to avoid them or walk around them until they would disappear. Once in a while, I got close enough to touch one, but they were always gone before I could. The whole reason for these visions was that I couldn’t find anyone to talk to about the loneliness and isolation I felt during the trip. Not because no one was interested, but because I couldn’t find anyone who would understand what I was talking about.
I think of this show as being a dream. I hope that you are able to read the story in the same way that you read a book of poetry. I hope that my ability and success at expressing my experiences for others is greater than my frustration and inability to communicate during my life as an astronaut.
I hope that the loneliness that I felt during those years is the same loneliness that you feel now. That you too will find a way to express your feelings to others.