Apocalypse alert! In a few years, Paris could well be abandoned and half destroyed ! Don’t panic, this is all just a figment of the imagination. two photographers, urbex experts. In the exhibition Ruins of Paris, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre present their photos designed with AI and depicting an end-of-the-world Paris atmosphere! This is to be seen at Polka Gallery !
Marchand and Meffre, the urbex photographer duo
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre are regulars at disused sitesof the ruined cityscapes which they have been exploring since the early 2000s with their camera in hand. There is something in their practice that is both meticulous work of the documentarians a you sensitive look of artists. Their search for sites led them in particular to Detroit, former automobile capitalwhere they photographed the faded remains of a once city so powerful or in Japan, on the Island of Gunkanjima, a old mining town unoccupied since the 1970s.
Everywhere they go, the two photographers are keen to immortalize, as if to keep a trace, this “past-present” which could disappear or be changed forever! With their latest project, the duo, on the contrary, explores another temporality and projects itself into a half-fictional, half-real future right in Paris!
Photos of Paris in ruins, the end of the reign for the capital
Have you ever wondered what it would look like? Paris in the aftermath of a disaster unprecedented? What would it look like without its inhabitants? Without its circulation, in short without any sign of human life on Earth?
This fantasy, worthy of dystopian film script or a video game, a apocalyptic futurethe two artists made it using AI to Paris in ruins. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre took hold of Midjourneyl’image generation toolto transpose their expertise in urbex to a whole new dimension!
The fruit of this collaboration between their imagination and AI is currently visible at the Polka Gallery in the exhibition Paris in ruins. A series of 80 photos depict this Paris emptiedabandoned and in the grip of nature and time.
With this project, the artists go to the end of their approach by diverting, dilapidating on purpose and with striking realism some symbols of the capital ! In this exhibition, you will see Paris in a different light, a Pompidou Center without luster and eaten away by rust, devastated cafes and restaurants or the deserted Arc de Triomphe roundabout. So many end-of-the-world scenes that can frighten you as much as captivate you with their realism and beauty!
Please note that this exhibition is also supplemented by the release of the work The Ruins of Paris — When artificial intelligenceshe predicts the future
???? Address: Polka Gallery
12, rue Saint-Gilles, 75003 Paris
???? Date: November 8, 2024 to January 18, 2025
????️ Entrance: free
More information on the Paris in Ruins exhibition
