A Walled City is an interactive AI art installation that constructs a decentralized virtual settlement in real time, based on participants’ visual memories. The project draws inspiration from the demolished Kowloon Walled City (1950s–1993), a self-constructed, densely packed enclave that emerged from a unique historical and political anomaly in Hong Kong, China. In this unregulated landscape, residents built freely, disregarding conventional safety standards. The resulting environment was not just architecture, but a living organism—part megastructure, part vibrant community.
The Kowloon Walled City serves as a conceptual foundation and knowledge for the AI system, guiding the creation of a decentralized urban fabric in virtual space. Participants are invited to upload an image of a visual memory, which the system analyzes and transforms into a unique capsule / chamber. These chambers are placed within the virtual city, linking with others to form a dynamic, evolving community.
By integrating a customized multi-agent AI system, data-driven computer graphics, and interactive design strategies, A Walled City explores the systems humans create to build worlds and communities in decentralized, ungoverned scenarios, and how these frameworks shape our identities, experiences, and memories. The project reimagines societal paradoxes and examines complexity and diversity by drawing from the non-hierarchical historic urban fabric. It also investigates collective world-building, reflecting how our histories and memories can reaffirm human-machine collaboration, moving beyond mere idealism.
Special Thanks to:
AI Supervisor
Yi Wang, MidJourney
