“La Maison de l’imaginaire” is a series that finds its conceptual roots in the earlier phases of Ali Ettehad’s work. The depiction of nonexistent cities with practically impossible characteristics has gradually manifested itself in his plays, novels, visual works, performances, and films. The insistence on the idea of ‘imaginary’ has led his new collection to take shape as a collaboration with artificial intelligence. Ettehad, who always begins his work with writing, and whose works are consistently intertwined with text, has now also prioritized text in his visual creations. All the pieces in this collection have been crafted using prompt-writing on the AI platform “Bing.” Instead of attempting to create a visual piece, the artist now writes it as if it were a fragment of a nov- el, and the AI tools then visualize this written fragment.

Isn’t this the very mechanism upon which the painting ateliers of historical Iran were based?

This work consists of 119 digital paintings arranged in a large grid format. Each image is smaller than 10 by 10 centimeters.

The main grid structure is built into a pyramid with a height of 18 centimeters. The rows forming the pyramid are both stepped and sloped.

The grid presenting the work is constructed as a square measuring 120 by 120 centimeters.

The grid has a wooden frame, painted black.
Each cell of this grid contains one image.
Each image is placed at a different depth within the cells.

– The layout of the cities is based on Kufic calligraphy in- scriptions, and the painting style of the cities is a blend of the Herat, Tabriz, and Isfahan schools.
– The buildings are combinations of everything that, from North Africa to Transoxiana, represents the common herit- age of our ancient world.

– Everywhere, the people are celebrating their conquests, with colors upon colors, dancing, cheering, and singing as long as the sun shines in the sky.
– If one rotates the work, the prompt text can be read on the back of the piece.