Hümme

Hümme by CeKo & Freunde

CeKo & Freunde, an Austropop formation from Vienna, describe themselves as follows: "The songs describe scenes from wishes and dreams, small impressions of the mondane, apparent trivialities, humor without background but with depth, and the wind blows through everything...". Two albums have been released since 2017: "A Ewigkeit" and "Es wird heit spät". In spring 2023 they started recording their third album "Hümme", which will be finished at the end of 2023. Freely translated from ceko.co.at. As stated; the album "Hümme" is the third release and will be available for Christmas 2023. We were commissioned to create a music video for the song "Hümme" - which is included on the album of the same name.

AI Video

The decision to create this video with AI image generators was made at a very early stage. We were particularly interested in the poetic potential that could emerge from the encounter between these two - aesthetically so different - worlds. The dark gray, melancholy "Wienerlied" meets the stimulus-flooded, super-colorful image generators.

The creative task was to moderate this confrontation towards mutual acceptance and appreciation. Both the traditional "Wienerlied" and the flashy image generators had to venture into areas outside their respective comfort zones, which culminated in productive compromises. The "Wienerlied" opened itself up to a new visual aesthetic and dreamy interpretations, while the generative AI was able to indulge in a completely new visual language.

Visual style

We tested a number of generative AI models and started with a variety of aesthetic experiments. After an initial phase, we decided on Stable Diffusion + Deforum and started with visual tryouts. A particular difficulty here was the tendency of the AI models towards certain image content such as people, animals and objects.

In addition, these models are unable to generate geometrically and/or artistically abstracted image content in concrete color schemes. However, since this was precisely our visual goal, we wanted to consciously circumvent these tendencies. We finally achieved this by using negative prompts, which we defined globally throughout the video.

The list of negative prompts grew steadily as the video progressed. The result was a page-long document - a kind of script - containing prompts, keyframe data and more information that served as input for the AI model. So instead of the role of creators, we took on the role of moderators and curators.

Credits

Song Hümme by Ceko & Freunde. Video by Max Kure and Leo Mühlfeld for Gemeindebau.