The Weather Gallery at Cannes Lions 2023: Learnings from Working with Generative AI
This week at Cannes Lions, The Weather Company, an IBM Business, is partnering with George P. Johnson UK to launch ‘The Weather Gallery’ – an activation footprint showcasing AI art that explores weather’s boundless influence, from iconic moments in history through to modern culture and commerce. This powerful experience examines how weather affects every person and business on the planet, every day. What we try, what we buy, and how we feel.
Generative AI is having a moment. But, this experience is deeply rooted in The Weather Company’s story and the deep insights powered by Weather data which underpins its offering to the media and marketing industry.
How profoundly different would our world look today if catalytic moments in history, whose outcomes were famously influenced by weather, had faced a change in the weather? Could a change in the weather change everything? Using this thought provoking premise, we are seizing AI’s moment with help from a panel of international artists.
Our artists were briefed to explore significant moments in history. Using generative AI prompting, the artists have interpreted what they imagined. The experience at Cannes Lions integrates sight, sound and real weather effects, creating an immediate and immersive impact around each of the artworks.
With the rapid evolution of AI technology brings a challenge that is creatively liberating. Working without a rule book is daunting and exciting! Ensuring we carefully interpret cultural moments with our artists whilst exploring the power of generative AI is fascinating, a discovery for us and the audience.
Here are a few insights our team learnt along the way:
On working with artists in the AI field and curating the gallery
Crystal Park, head of B2B marketing at the Weather Company:
“Cannes Lions is where our industry’s top global leaders gather to celebrate creativity. Not only is it the 70th anniversary, it’s also the year we show up as The Weather Company, an IBM Business, since rebranding from IBM Watson Advertising back in April. Our homebase, The Weather Gallery, is an inventive oasis examining weather’s accelerative influence over the course of history, conjured from data and creativity, all brought to life through a fusion of art and generative AI. We always knew weather had influence but didn’t realize the magnitude it had until we explored and researched deep into the individual stories surrounding these historical and cultural events.”
Michael Powell, creative director at The Weather Company:
“It was amazing to see how the artists we had contribute to our Weather Gallery approached prompting as an art form within itself. Getting what you imagine with generative AI is not an exact science, so the way they were able to create what was in their minds was awesome to witness in the development of ideas and interpretations of catalytic moments in weather throughout history.”
Back in April
Rebecca Heredia, creative director at GPJ UK:
“We found artists that are using generative AI and matched their talent, skill and voice to the right story or moment in history. The outputs have been incredible. By asking how these catalytic moments in history might have been different, the artists had to consider this in their images - giving a really unique tension and narrative in the resulting artworks. An issue with AI is specificity…it’s not so great at it, so we really challenged our ‘prompt masters’ with this brief but I believe the pieces speak for themselves with such clarity.”
On using generative AI and the art of the prompt
Lotti Hill, creative technologist at GPJ UK:
“When I started working with generative AI for this project, I was blown away by the images it was generating. But sometimes even with a solid idea and well structured prompt, it can take quite some time of just iterating over the same prompt before it gets close to what you had in your head; giving the software more creative control by using shorter prompts and the ‘–chaos’ parameter was at times more effective.”
On generative AI in commercial creativity
Mallory Napolitano, senior producer at GPJ UK:
“AI is very black and white. Humans create the shades of grey in between - that's why real people are still needed in the creative process. On this project we’ve experimented, tried new approaches, but been mindful of the legal implications of using the technology commercially. It’s important to remain aware that generative AI takes existing data to create its output. We created parameters that ensured we weren’t infringing on ownership of assets, and having that clarified from the start helped the process, and allowed us to focus on the creativity.”
Above: an AI artwork from this activation - created by GPJ's SVP head of creative, EMEA, Jorge Narváez - on the front cover of Cannes Daily
Getting hands on and experimenting has helped us create some deeply thought provoking work. So, if you’re in Cannes this week, come down to the Weather Gallery and see for yourself.
We will remain open to the public on Thursday 22 June, 8-10 AM and 3-5 PM.
