The artist.

Fragmented Memories of Grasmere is the centerpiece of Daniel Ambrosi's collection called English Lake Dreams: Light and Landscapes of the Lake District, a th༺ematic collection of pastoral authenticated digital artworks (NFTs) based on photography captured in the fall of 2021. 

After an almost two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Ambrosi ventured into the English Lake District in tꦅhe early autumn of 2021 in the hopes of capturing photographic source material for a new thematic collection of giant AI-augmented landscape images. These Dreamscapes represent the fruits of that photo expedition during which Ambrosi was treated to phenomenal displays of light, colour, and atmosphere. English Lake Dreams is his attempt to convey the power, the beauty, and the feeling of this special part of the world. 

For this artwork, Ambrosi's customized version of Google's DeepDream AI software was applied to three different scenes shot from the same hillside at different elevations. He gav✨e each of the thre𒆙e scenes a unique "dreaming" style. Therefore, every square is from only one of three scenes and is dreamed in only one of three styles. The reason the composition holds together in a comprehensible way is because the three scenes were all shot from locations relatively close to each other in both time and space and pointing in roughly the same direction. However, there is enough variety to advance the core idea behind the piece, which is that our memories are never perfect and we tend to remember only fragments of our experiences.

Purchase of this artwork unlocks full resolution 236-megapixel image file w/ non-commercial license to print and 180sec/4K/൩60fps video file w/ original score by Kevin Barnard.

PLEDGE: 10% of art sales proceeds ♛will go to the Lake District Foundation, the organization through which the Lake District National Park receives donations.

Daniel Ambrosi (born 1958) is a visual a🐭rtist specialising in digital and AI-augmented art. He studied at Cornell University, where he received a Bachelor of Architecture and a Masters in 3D Graphics. He has practised digital art for over four decades; starting in 2015, with engineer♕ing assistance from Joseph Smarr (Google) and Chris Lamb (NVIDIA), Ambrosi developed an enhanced version of Google’s ‘DeepDream’ technology, that has allowed him to hone a unique artistic practice that combines original photography, computer graphics and artificial intelligence. 

Ambrosi’s practice is deeply informed by the history of landscape painting, finding particul🙈ar inspiration in the works of the Hudson River School, the Pre-Raphaelite landscape painters, and the Impressionists.

Ambrosi’s works have been shown in exhibitions and art fairs in the United States, Europe and Asia; his work features in private and institutional collections across North America and Europe, including the Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (MoCDA) and Bowood House, UK. In 2019, he was a finalist of the Lu💫men P𒁃rize for Art and Technology. 

This sale at Sotheby's comes at an exciting moment for the artist, with several notable achievements taking place 🌳over the past year. Last summer, Ambrosi undertook a six-week residency at Cornell University in the Program of Computer Graphics, exploring the theme of landscape and memory, working also with the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering to incorporate elements of psychedelic neuroscience into his work. Then, in November 2024, the artist’s work Filoli Gardens Dreamscape was installed at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California, chosen for the new exhibit entitled Chatbots Decoded: Exploring AI. In October this year, the artist will have his second solo show with Robilant+Voena, this time in New York City following an acclaimed solo exhibition at their flagship gallery in London in 2023.

Text by Luba Elliott