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.

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

LUMC gallery (current)

Letters from Nature is currently part of the exhibit “Techniek: zorg of zegen” in the LUMC gallery (Leiden, The Netherlands). The show displays a series of artworks critically reflecting on technology. Other featured artists are Casper Braat, Merijn Bolink, Driessens & Verstappen, Harm van den Dorpel, Jan Robert Leegte, Joanneke Meester, Maria Koijck, Jan Eric Visser and Rob Voerman.

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.

Letters from Nature at ZKM Karslruhe

Nacht van Ontdekkingen

During the ‘Nacht van Ontdekkingen’ festival in Leiden (The Netherlands, sept 23), 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 22 - april 23) 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

  • 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

  • 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