Verdelis & Mycos

In a distant future, plant-being Verdelis and fungal Mycos debate the necessity of human suffering. Their solution? Reshape time itself and create an art show featuring different timelines.

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Inspiration

This short film emerged from Mars College, an art experiment in the Sonoran Desert during the pandemic. Surrounded by AI conversations, I turned to ceramics—humanity's oldest technology. I needed beings who'd already navigated our existential anxieties about climate and technology. Reading Margulis on symbiosis and Moravec on consciousness showed me life's leaps happen through merging. So I imagined Little Martians: hybrid descendants of all Earth's lifeforms, reaching back through time with love.

What it does

This 10-minute animated short presents a philosophical debate between two future beings about humanity's suffering. Verdelis (plant-based) believes in preventing pain through timeline cultivation. Mycos (fungal) embraces chaos as evolution's engine. Unable to resolve their disagreement, they propose a Temporal Art Show where Little Martians present competing visions of optimal futures. The film is part of a transmedia project spanning physical sculptures, books, and interactive AI agents on Eden.art where audiences can create their own short films with these characters.

How we built it

Physical Foundation: Hand-sculpted ceramics → Custom LORA/Flux models trained on extensive photo sets → Frames → Animation → Lip sync → Compositing → Suno music → ElevenLabs sound improvement

Challenges we ran into

Cross-platform visual consistency. Preserving ceramic authenticity. Choreographing distinct rhythms. Biological motion translation

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Maintained character integrity across 4+ AI platforms in a cohesive film 10+ festival awards for predecessor film Dear Human, My Muse Successfully transmedia expansion: Nvidia AI Gallery, Christie's auctions, books, interactive Eden.art agents

What we learned

No single AI tool handles all motion types—platform-specific workflows essential

What's next for Verdelis & Mycos

Complete Temporal Art Show series with other Little Martians (Kalama, Kweku, Ada) Interactive installation where audiences vote on timelines using Eden.art agents English editions of books published in Brazil AR portals where murals become entrances to Little Martians' worlds Community protocol for creating canonical Little Martians Transform characters into persistent-memory AI agents for ongoing philosophical debates about collaborative future-making

Built With

  • api
  • eden.art
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