About the Exhibition

Dedicated to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, this new series by Obvious, first exclusively revealed at the British Museum on November 23, 2022, is the result of a long research work that led them to collaborate with historians in order to seek out and identify any references to the Seven Wonders in historical texts written by geographers, historians and writers. Today, it is a contemporary journey to the heart of the Ancient World that the young creatives are offering us.
Who has never heard of the Seven Wonders of the World? Even today, the mere mention of them is sufficient to arouse the imagination and bring back distant memories. And yet, few people manage to list them all or to describe them accurately. For good reason: even if their existence is attested by numerous testimonies and descriptions, their aspect remains a subject of debate. With the exception of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, none of them has survived the passing of time.
And this is not the least of the paradoxes: considered as the most extraordinary architectural achievements of the ancient world, these wonders continue to haunt our collective unconscious even though our level of knowledge is only partial and approximate. We are familiar with them without really knowing them. This is precisely what makes them all the more fascinating and a fertile ground that has fostered the imagination of many artists and illustrators.

Our Process

First, we worked with a historian to gather the written references to the seven wonders in ancient texts.

Then, we compiled those references and built prompts describing the 7 wonders in a language that the algorithms understand, in order to maximize the visual output while remaining true to the descriptions.

We used text-to-image algorithms to create the new representations of the 7 wonders, and worked with a copyist workshop in france to give them a physical form (oil paintings on canvas), displayed at @danyszgallery

Finally, we used outpainting algorithms to extend the images and give them a digital surrounding, once again using the ancient texts as a basis for the prompts. We animated the results and created 7 NFTs, available on @superrare.co

A Physical and Digital Exhibition

The exhibition is composed of 14 pieces. Seven of them are hanging on the walls, and 7 others are digital. By scanning the artworks on the walls, the viewer gets access to an augmented reality displaying the associated digital artwork. Each physical piece is a gateway to a digital environment which is an extension of the artwork, created using outpainting algorithms.

Discover the artworks