Irish creative agency, Connector by Granite, has used AI to bring back Van Gogh and William Butler Yeats to create their Christmas cards this year. The company trained neural networks to recognise patterns in the source data from Van Gogh’s starry night and transpose it to iconic Dublin Christmas scenes. The project also tasked the AI with learning all poems by Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, to produce a special new poem to lift spirits in celebration of Christmas.
Goodbye 2020,
Long live the Future.
The air grew still, and then
A murmurous laugh arose;
A starlight glimmered through,
A misty and hazy fire.
Together with kindred spirits
Every soul should seek,
For music that can burn
And love is all around
But no, farewell;
A starlight glimmering through, a misty and hazy fire.
– William Butler Yeats
According to Ivan Adriel, Creative Strategy Director: “Connector has always been an agency with creativity in our DNA and this year we were acquired by Granite Digital – Ireland’s biggest digital agency. We wanted to merge the power of technology and creativity to show that AI can open new realms of creative possibility, in contrast to dystopic headlines heralding technology as the death of creativity.”
In an effort to avoid waste, the company is not posting cards this year but is sending them to clients by email.