AI: Artificial Intimacy

2025
Duration 2 minutes 42 seconds

Animation by Yuliya Lanina and AI Video Generator
Music and sound design by Yevgeniy Sharlat

AI: Artificial Intimacy is a whimsical animated short that reimagines a traditional portrait gallery as a lively social space, where painted portraits come to life through AI-assisted animation. Each portrait—based on Lanina’s paintings—has its own personality, voice, and attitude. Brought to life using AI-generated facial animation, these painted characters engage in witty, flirtatious banter.

The animation is set to an original score by Yevgeniy Sharlat, who uses harpsichord and modified human voices to create an atmosphere that is both elegant and uncanny. His sound world evokes the past while bending it through a surreal, digital filter—mirroring the way AI reshapes historical art forms.

At its core, AI: Artificial Intimacy is more than a playful reimagining of portraiture. It is a performative meditation on authorship, agency, and performance in the age of generative media. When AI gives voice and movement to painted characters, it doesn’t just animate them—it stages a curious hall of mirrors. As the portraits flirt and perform, we’re left to wonder: What happens when AI isn’t just animating art—but begins to comment on itself through the personas it creates?

Title borrowed from Esther Perel.