Letters from Nature
Climate change is destroying our planet, but nature did not have a voice to speak up. In the poetic art project Letters from Nature, AI is used to write letters to world leaders on behalf of the world’s ice caps, glaciers, coral reefs and islands under threat. To warn and ask for help.
Letters from Nature is a creation by Jeroen van der Most and Peter van der Putten, initiated in 2020 and still ongoing.
Read more about the background of the project in this document, published in 2020.
For the letter above, the AI system was given the following assignment: ‘AI, write a letter from a melting ice cap to the president’. It then wrote the full text. As sent out to former-president Trump.
To create the letter above, the AI was given just the bold text part. It then wrote the rest of the letter, which was sent out to president Xi Jinping.
To create the letter above, the AI-system was given just the bold text parts. It then wrote the rest of the text. The letter was sent to former-president Trump.
For the letter above the AI system was given the following assignment: ‘AI, write a letter from a melting ice cap to the president’. It then wrote the total letter. It was sent to president Putin.
Exhibits
Germanisches Nationalmuseum - CURRENT
Letters from Nature participates in the exhibit ‘Hello Nature. How to best live with you?’ from October 2024 - March 2025 (image by Felix Röser).
TU DELFT LIBRARY - Current
The library of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) hosts an exhibit with paper scrolls with messages from nature from October 17th 2024 - January 8th 2025 (image by Mischa Mannot).
ZKM Karlsruhe
Letters from Nature was part of the exhibition BioMedia at ZKM Karlsruhe (December 2021 - August 2022). The project was shown at the outside of the museum, as well as inside. Find some footage below.
LUMC gallery
Letters from Nature participated in the exhibit ‘Techniek: zorg of zegen’ in the LUMC gallery (December 2023 - March 2024, Leiden, The Netherlands). The show displayed a series of artworks critically reflecting on technology. Other featured artists were Casper Braat, Merijn Bolink, Driessens & Verstappen, Harm van den Dorpel, Jan Robert Leegte, Joanneke Meester, Maria Koijck, Jan Eric Visser and Rob Voerman.
Artphy
In March 2024 Letters from Nature was shown at Artphy Wessinghuizen. Visitors could immerse into a spatial setup with large letters at various heights.
Nacht van Ontdekkingen
During the ‘Nacht van Ontdekkingen’ festival in Leiden (The Netherlands, September 2023), messages from Letters from Nature were shown on a text car. Confronting visitors. Also a talk was given about the project.
NEMO Studio
As part of the exhibit Project Tomorrow, a Letters from Nature obelisk was shown at NEMO Studio (Amsterdam, June 2022 - April 2023) in a unique setup: As a world first, images generated by AI system Dalle2 were shown in the context of a museum exhibit. In which the public could interact with the images that are displayed. The illustrations reflect on a mythical future and the role the obelisk might have in it.
Centre des arts - Enghien-les-Bains / Paris
From May 13th up to July 8th 2022, Letters from Nature participated in the exhibit BioMedia in the French Enghien-le-Bains. The exhibit included a catalog with a publication by the Letters from Nature creators on the future of living media.
Lakenhal Museum Leiden
At the Dutch Lakenhal Museum Leiden, Letters from Nature was for the first time displayed on a black obelisk. Which included the movie, letters, and postcards that where overwhelmingly sent out by the public to people in power. The setup was part of the exhibit If Thing Grow Wrong (October 2021 - March 2022).
Le Guess Who Festival
During Le Guess Who Festival 2021 (Utrecht, The Netherlands) AI-generated messages from nature reached the public in the city centre. A combination of activist and poetic messages was shown in both English and Dutch.
BYOB festival
The Letters from Nature project was shown as a projection on the Centraal Museum (Utrecht, The Netherlands) as part of the BYOB festival 2020. See the short movie below.
Talks and workshops
TU Delft library, Delft, October 2024
Collecting with(in) the City Conference, Amsterdam, October 2024
Dutch Media week, Hilversum, September 2024
Candriam AI event, Sciacca, September 2024
Conflux Festival, Rotterdam, September 2024
Leiden University, Leiden, July 2024
Volkswagen Be More conference, Wolfsburg, May 2024
Transfer Solutions event, Woerden, April 2024
Artphy, Groningen, March 2024
Proxsys event, Aviodrome, March 2024
ISE, Barcelona, January 2024
Si’bon sector event, Buren, January 2024
The Digital Future of B2B, Eindhoven, December 2023
Epson client day, Bastogne, October 2023
Sogeti Executive Summit, Cannes, October 2023
RWTH AI week, Aachen, September 2023
Dept dinner talks, Amsterdam, September 2023
Mixed Emotions Live Festival, Apeldoorn, September 2023
Libreon inspiratie dag, Breda, September 2023
Nacht van Ontdekkingen, Leiden, September 2023
Andicom, Cartagena, September 2023
AI founder Demo Day, Heilbronn, June 2023
Digitalgipfel, Stuttgart, June 2023
PegaWorld, Las Vegas, June 2023
Vint Symposium, Bussum, June 2023
AI FeST by The Hague University of Applied Sciences, June 2023
iXperium Technology Talks, Nijmegen, June 2023
The__Dream festival, Sintra, June 2023
Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerpen - AI: mens, machine en creatie, May 2023
Sony Depthsensing Solutions, Brussels, May 2023
Dutch AI conference 2023, Utrecht, April 2023
HKU - Maak het (niet) met AI, Utrecht, April 2023
Design Digger Live - Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam, March 2023
Fast-Tracking Climate Resilience with AI event, Mondai | House of AI - TU Delft, January 2023
CES Las Vegas, January 2023
Nationale Nederlanden - Young Professionals event, The Hague, November 2022
IT = Kunst event, Alkmaar, November 2022
P-OST event, De Echo, Arnhem, November 2022
Partos Innovation Festival, Amsterdam, October 2022
Radboud University Nijmegen, lecture for the AI honours program, September 2022
Universiteit Leiden, lezing Kwetsbaarheid versus Maakbaarheid, September 2022
AUAS, Food for Thought event, Amsterdam, May 2022
Gartner Data & Analytics Summit London, May 2022
De Dataloog podcast, “Letters from Nature - De waarde van betekenis”, April 2022
NEMO Studio - Thinking Planet event, April 2022
AI & Humanities, Help, Hype or Hassle, an event at Leiden university, April 2022
BK Talks: Data, data, data, a panel discussion at TU Delft, March 2022
SAILS seminar, Leiden University, March 2022
NVIDIA AI Experts program - AI and creativity, September 2021
Algo Podcast - Episode 13 - by Amjad Hussain, September 2021
Co-creating Experiences: Collaborative approaches in edutainment design, Erasmus University Rotterdam, May 2021
Automation NOW! event, Erasmus University Rotterdam, May 2021
Experience by Design podcast by Bryan Meszaros, April 2021
Impact Design, a podcast by Yasmine Mahmoudieh, April 2021
Museums in Context course, Erasmus University Rotterdam, March 2021
The Dutch national NeurIPS debriefing, March 2021
Responsible AI event, sustainable and climate AI edition, hosted by Xomnia, December 2020
Beyond Human Festival, Leiden, The Netherlands, November 2020
The (In)Justice Of AI Conference, TU Delft, The Netherlands, November 2020
Mindhack! Summit, Vellore Institute for Technology, India, October 2020
V2_, Intelligent Machines event, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 2020
In the media
NRC, “AI houdt ons een spiegel voor: wie zijn we als mens?”, September 2024
Masters magazine, “AI is een spiegel van onszelf”, December 2023
KZ Magazine, “Letters from Nature”, November 2023
SvJ media, “Verandert DALL-E onze kunst?” door Maud Hekman, September 2022
Wissenschaftskommunikation.de, “We want to give nature an active part in the debate” by Lena Schwenker, August 2022
NEMO Kennislink, “Kunstmatige intelligentie geeft natuur een stem”, November 2021
Leidsch Dagblad, “Museum De Lakenhal in teken van verslaving aan spullen”, October 2021
Mister Motley Magazine, “We denken dat we de taart kunnen blijven eten zonder dik te worden - kunst en de klimaatcrisis” by Tosca Hellemans, July 2021
VPRO Magazine, “De ultieme troost van de slimme machine”, written by Bennie Mols, December 2020
NeurIPS, display in the online gallery of the Machine Learning for Creativity and Design Workshop, December 2020
Artificia.pro, “Letters from Nature”, November 2020
Medium.com / Vlad Alex (Merzmensch), “Letters from nature to presidents”, August 2020
Rockingrobots.nl, “AI geeft de natuur een stem”, August 2020
TheNextWeb.com, “GPT-3 writes climate change protest letters to Trump, Xi, and Putin”, August 2020
BOOKS
“Hello Nature. Wie wollen wir zusammenleben?”, by S. Thürigen, D. Hess, and A. Böhm, 2024
“Voor niets gaat de zon op”, by L. Mandemaker and D. Roodhuyzen, 2024
“BioMedia. The Age of Media with Life-like Behavior”, by P. Weibel, 2023
“BioMedia – L'ère des médias semblables à la vie”, by P. Weibel, I. Reichle, and D. Mille, 2022