Mohammad Qasim Iqbal: In this Midjourney exploration I wanted to use AI to create a space that had ethereal, calm, and sacred sensibilities. This exploration was inspired by various Louis Kahn projects where he brings this everlasting feel of the spiritual and sacred. His ability to elevate the modest brick, a material that has been overlooked for its beauty in contemporary society, but Kahn understood that there is a potential softness and warmth that the brick holds, and it can only be unlocked when it is consciously crafted through the play and use of light. Therefore, this exploration had two elements: light and brick.
The idea of the sacred introduced the third main element which is geometry. Again, in Kahn’s works we see a strong use of geometry; he doesn't shy away from the perfect or ideal forms instead he embraces them. I would like to believe that his understanding and ability to use these ideal forms helps craft his ethereal sacred space and that is how the third element was added to this AI prompt mixture. The final part is the tensile structure, now this didn’t come from Louis Kahn, instead it was part of the natural development process of prompt crafting and image curation that comes with AI image development.
I quickly realised that the word ‘brick’ was not being translated in a deep layered way by the AI this is when I decided to combine it with a strong grid tensile structure, the reasoning for this was to intertwine the brick textures with a stronger deeper texture of the tensile structure allowing there to be deeper shadows and a juxtaposition of structure and aesthetic. The tensile structure works well and lifts the brick from its earlier flatness, it also adds a much-needed complexity to the images bringing in interesting connection points and an intriguing dialogue between the two structures.
