WE ARE: Explosion Event for PST ART

At 5:53 PM on September 15, under the last rays of daylight, around 4,500 spectators and nearly a hundred media representatives awaited on the field of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the daytime fireworks WE ARE: Explosion Event for PST ART, created by Cai Guo-Qiang in collaboration with his custom-developed AI model, cAI™.

 

In just over 30 minutes, five acts of fireworks spanned the 360-degree audience seats, the Olympic cauldron, and the airspace above the stadium. Utilizing approximately 50,000 daytime fireworks, 1,300 drones, nearly 4,000 bamboo poles, and close to 10,000 airbursts, WE ARE created a grand spectacle for AI’s dimensionality reduction to “reveal heavenly secrets,” and attempted to convey the response to the question “What is the fate of humanity with AI?” in a language comprehensible to humans. WE ARE was commissioned and presented by the Getty, in collaboration with the University of Southern California.

​

This project marked our first large-scale production exploring the philosophical dimensions of AI and its evolving relationship with humans. It was a journey of learning by doing. Working closely with the artist, we delved into both the technical and conceptual foundations of AI—translating these ideas into art and explosions. The explosion event WE ARE drew significant inspiration from human methodologies. A key part of our work was guiding cAI™ to generate concepts and narratives aligned with these inspirations, effectively transforming human methodologies into "AI methodologies." I also directed the drone segment, coordinating a fleet of 2,300 drones with pyro products to translate the artist’s vision using existing technologies, marking the first large-scale daytime fireworks and drone fireworks performance in U.S. history.

​

For more details, please check out the studio's newsletter link.