An Afro-Futurist Midjourney is a large-scale projection mapping event exploring the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence, cultural memory, and speculative imagination. Rooted in the visual language of Afrofuturism, the project transforms architecture into a living canvas, merging sound, light, and motion to reimagine identity, community, and technological possibility.
Developed by Professor Andrew F. Scott and students from his summer graduate seminar on AI in artistic studio practice, the video works presented in this installation reflect a shared inquiry into the creative potential of generative technologies. AI-generated imagery serves not as a replacement for human creativity but as a collaborator, inviting audiences to see technology not as separate from culture but as deeply embedded in it.
Projected onto the Research Operations West building at the University of Texas at Dallas, this public installation activates the space with a series of short and long-form video works presented by an Avatar that visualizes futures informed by diasporic heritage, science fiction, and digital experimentation. The result is an immersive experience that is both speculative and grounded, honoring the past while imagining what comes next.
The evening’s program was guided by a specially designed Afrofuturist avatar, an AI-generated figure that served as both narrator and visual anchor throughout the experience. Embodying the spirit of ancestral memory and speculative futures, the avatar introduced each video sequence, offering poetic reflections and contextual cues that helped frame the work within a broader cultural and technological narrative. As a symbolic presence, the avatar bridged the virtual and physical realms, acting as a storyteller from an imagined future who guided the audience through a landscape shaped by algorithmic imagination, diasporic heritage, and digital possibility. Its presence reinforced the curatorial vision of the event: to explore how identity, technology, and creativity converge in the space of the Afro-Futurist imagination.
Presented as part of the ongoing work of the LightSquad—a student-led collective dedicated to public-facing digital art, An Afro-Futurist Midjourney continues the group’s mission to bring immersive, accessible media experiences to the community. Supported by the UT Dallas Office of Research and Innovation’s HeArts Grant and the City of Dallas’ Arts Activate Program, the event is not only an artwork but a platform for dialogue, encouraging the public to consider the role of AI in shaping contemporary art, cultural preservation, and collective imagination.
An Afro-Futurist Midjourney. Curated by Andrew F. Scott. An outdoor projection mapping event presenting my own work and selections chosen from a graduate level–AI course. Andrew F. Scott with graduate student contributors Shaghayegh Ashouri, Parul Bhatia, Rachel Finkelstein, Rebecca Han, Baotran Vo, Vajihe Zamaniderkani. UT Dallas Research Operations West, Dallas, TX, August 30, 2024.