To the Lighthouse (Again)，5:00, 2025
This 5-minute video is composed of 13 clips generated from 10 images of lighthouses and foghorns, interwoven with smartphone footage, hand-drawn animations, and sketches. The visuals were created using AI tools including Runway Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, Vivago, Vidu 1.5, and LTX Studio. The narration is voice-cloned with "Resemble AI." Text rewritten by Tingwei Li, based on a 1951 science fiction short story ”Foghorn“ by American writer Ray Bradbury.
In an era where artificial intelligence infiltrates every layer of perception, ”To the Lighthouse (Again)” enters the invisible space between machine logic and human feeling. Fog is not just weather—it is confusion, longing, and the strange quietness between decisions. It creeps into thought, blurs landmarks, softens edges, and makes the familiar unknowable.
By layering AI-generated visuals with personal sketches and fragments of memory, the video conjures a world that feels suspended—between clarity and loss, presence and absence. The experience of sailing in fog forms a meditation on uncertainty—where old systems of guidance falter, and the difference between movement and stasis becomes difficult to name. It invites viewers to drift within this ambiguity, to consider the strange logic of navigation when visibility disappears.
It is not simply a reflection on weather or technology—it is about the emotional topography of those moving through unknowns. It asks what it means to seek direction in a world where signals flicker and dissolve, and whether artificial intelligence helps us see more clearly—or only refracts the fog we already carry.
Five of the original lighthouse photos used in the video were taken by an artist in 2020 on Huaniao Island of Shengsi County, Zhoushan City. This lighthouse is the oldest modern rotating lighthouse still existing in China. Built in 1870 (the ninth year of Emperor Tongzhi’s reign in the Qing Dynasty), it was designed and constructed by British engineers. Made of granite, the lighthouse stands 16.5 meters tall and has a light range of 22 nautical miles. It was originally equipped with a rotating lens and kerosene lamp but was later electrified and remains in operation today. The foghorn images were sourced from the internet and had watermarks removed.
The sound used in the video was recorded from the foghorn activity at Sumburgh Head Lighthouse in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. Located at the southern tip of Mainland, the largest island in the Shetlands, this lighthouse and foghorn were designed by the renowned lighthouse engineer Robert Stevenson in 1821. The sound effects for the 2019 film The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers were also recorded here.
在人工智能渗透生活方方面面的时代，《再去灯塔》以雾为隐喻，探入科技、知觉与人类情感之间那些模糊而难以言明的缝隙。这部AI生成的短片通过多层次的影像与合成声音叙述，构建出一种既具质感又带有迷幻色彩的观看体验，召唤我们对当下数字时代的认知困惑与情感模糊进行反思。
影片以一系列唤起记忆的意象展开叙述：灯塔的绿光、雾角低沉的回响、四处弥漫的浓雾模糊了现实与幻觉的边界。传统的航行指引逐渐失效，方向与迷失之间的界线愈发模糊。
在AI生成影像与手绘素描、动画之间的交织中，观众进入一个近乎梦境般的空间——这也是影片试图描绘的心理地形：那些在浓雾中踟蹰前行的个体，那些同时在现实与内心世界中寻找坐标的我们。雾不再只是自然现象，它象征的是一种深层的、不确定的精神状态，一种在信息泛滥中无法清晰定位的情绪共振。
《再去灯塔》邀请观众质疑：AI究竟为我们照亮了世界，还是制造了另一层新的迷雾？在这个持续演变的世界中，我们又该如何重新理解
“前进”的意义？
