Chris Kelly Immel

Calliope (2022-present)

"The cucumbers dance at dusk, beware their wrath."

For a few years, I've been building Calliope, an experimental AI-based system that dynamically creates stories (with text, images, and video) that are directly influenced by things it sees or hears in the viewer's environment. Virtual "storytellers", each with their own personality and style, collaborate with virtual "illustrators" to create stories, either from "thin air", or from snippets of life drawn from wherever the viewer is.

The current emphasis is on narrative voice and structure, but the system can in principle be recomposed and applied in the creation of a broad assortment of interactive art.

For technical details, see https://github.com/chrisimmel/calliope.

Below is a tiny sampling of things that have come out of Calliope so far. Click or tap on the stories to explore them directly in Calliope, or jump right in and create a story yourself!

And the words I speak, like ripples in water O life of dreams and courage are drowning in language.
Strands of golden light from the sun filtered through the cracked windows, casting fractured halos onto the observatory floor. The air was thick with the scent of dust and potential. Julien, Claire, and Tariq fanned out around the room, each drawn to different corners by the whispers of discovery. Julien stood before a fading star chart pinned to the wall, its edges curling with age. He traced the constellation routes with his fingers, weaving new stories through celestial myths. Claire, drawn to the massive clock at the observatory's heart, noticed that the gears moved in subtle sync with her star-shaped brooch.
Dear heart, I realize we must clean things up. You! Courtier, with his soft voice and his attitude, His feet that never touch the ground. He lives for the music and the dashing, Immovable poetry of his presence. But for his portrait lesson with the head of Anais Nin, Please stay as long as you wish. Working on your government? Locked yourself up in a room? Imagine the damp! The mice will waddle up here And the rats will come out and chew the rope of your dressing gown. Let us make a sequence of prison sketches, One after the other, which will be like some kind of music. I have them looking so good all of a sudden That I think I will tell them a story about intercourse With the electricians. Sometimes, I think hanging does not much matter. Darling Madam, You don't need to take a bottle of horses or...
apple tree, each morning plucking the juiciest fruit to stave off the surreal rhythms of the day." Tomas Moro sighed, as if the very air held secrets. "And the note?" Pessenham's eyes gleamed with a mischief that belied the gravity of the situation. "Ah, yes, the note. It simply read: 'The cucumbers dance at dusk, beware their wrath.'" Moro frowned, the enigma deepening with each passing moment. "And what do we make of that?" Pessenham shrugged, a gesture as fluid as water. "Perhaps it means nothing, or perhaps it means everything. In this world, Tomas, even the simplest actions carry the weight of universes.
The path meandered away from the observatory, weaving through the rolling fields that cocooned Coulommiers. As the four walked along the road the map suggested, the day began to whisper towards dusk. Fireflies, like little beacons, started appearing, dotting the landscape with ephemeral brilliance. Julien peered closely at the map again, its crimson lines now ignited by an internal glow. A new path had appeared, ink seeping slowly across the paper to reveal a connection between where they stood and an ancient limestone bridge deep within a nearby forest. Claire, her brooch softly pulsating with the rhythm of her heartbeat, considered the numbers that sang quietly in her mind.
Les étoiles perçaient la nuit dans un éclat dissimulé par la brume. L'ombre d'un chat errant se dessinait sur les pavés silencieux. Le bruissement des feuilles persistait, tissant une mélodie éthérée avec le souffle du vent, convoquant une danse imperceptible entre l'évidence et l'invisible. En cet instant suspendu, la Solitude se faisait une alliée secrète, brodant des fils d'argent au sein de l'obscurité.
As they ventured farther into the city's intricate mosaic, a faint glow appeared in the distance, casting a soft illumination through the softened fog that clung to the streets. An aged sign swung gently above a narrow doorway, its painted letters nearly eroded by time and weather: "Librairie des Esprits Perdus." Beneath it, an old clock ticked insistently, its hands stubbornly frozen at some unfathomable hour, echoing the sentiment that time was but a suggestion here. Intrigued, Cara and Jules exchanged a knowing glance, the unspoken understanding woven into the fibers of their shared experiences—this place, a nexus of past and present, might hold the answers they unknowingly sought. They approached the door, its surface worn smooth by generations of curious fingers. Inside, the soft rustle of pages turning greeted them, the scent of parchment and ink enveloping them like a phantom embrace.
"Every structure here has its secrets," Santiago replied, peering into the misty darkness where the modern buildings loomed, half-hidden by the fog. Meanwhile, Maxime Lefevre, ensconced in his makeshift command center behind an ancient window, watched as the city mirrored back the light of his scattered devices. The reflections danced in the pane, reminders of both the world he sought to influence and the one that eluded his grasp. His fingers hovered over wires and keys, each connected to the anomaly that everyone spoke of, yet no one could wholly understand. In the distance, a single tree stood, almost surreal against the backdrop of encroaching night, its silhouette both sentinel and mystery in its own right. Rain pattered softly against the glass, blurring the boundary between observation and reflection.
The room was sparsely furnished, its walls bare except for a faded map of Texas pinned near the corner. A ceiling fan hummed, slicing through the thick, stagnant air. Harper squinted at the searing noon sun outside, the heat shimmering off the pavement like a mirage. A half-empty glass of iced tea sweated profusely on the windowsill beside her. The neighborhood was ghostly quiet, save for the distant hum of cicadas droning a hypnotic pattern. On the table behind her, an old cassette recorder lay still, a relic of another era. "Play" was scribbled on a sticky note affixed to it, a cryptic invitation. She reached over, pressed the button. A voice crackled through, unfamiliar yet strangely comforting: "August 4th, 1986. If you’re hearing this, Harper, follow the map". A shiver cut through the swelter.
Jacques knelt by a patch of trampled grass, where he found a faded piece of cloth snagged on a thorny bush. The edge of the fabric bore an unfamiliar emblem, half-erased by time and weather. The midday heat pressed down, and the trees swayed gently, rustling in whispers Jacques could almost understand. He stood up, gripping the cloth tightly, his eyes tracing the path from the roots clinging to the cliff to the hawk now distant and disappearing into the azure. "Missing". The word grated against the silent landscape.
Millions of stars are above your head. And look, the moon is shining there too! A blue band encircles the sky and leads you to play classical music on a cello somewhere in Japan around nightfall. Perhaps such a chord-wise journey through this land at nightime eventually makes sense: midnight as envelope following after noon up until sunrise which then gives way for another day (or dies?). Life goes on with its persistence like the speed of sound that knows no time or even space but always continues into next moment without questioning itself what we mean by "day" - an unusually high speed perhaps allowing one single step regardless if everything else has passed or it was yesterday or because tomorrow might be today... Then perhaps everything changes once again when closing our eyes looking back over all times past and present simultaneously feeling helplessly both behind and ahead knowing all roads lead nowhere.
Create your own story in Calliope...