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Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to progress. Earlier in the year, I highlighted some of its capacities to process photos. Some of the effects were nice. There were limitations, too.

With the advent of GPT-5.2, I tested a variation of this approach. Rather than using AI to process photos, I used it to create and then transform collages of photos. All photos were taken by me at the New York Botanical Garden, so there are no intellectual property issues.

Two collages:

But I didn’t stop there. Collages reflect images at a fixed point in time. What if I could make a series showing transformation that pushes the boundaries of creativity? Inspired by Van Gogh’s unsurpassed (even with AI) creativity, I started with a collage of three sunflower scenes.

Now, imagine if one put the image under the pull of an unseen black hole whose gravity began to warp the collage.

As the gravitational forces grow ever stronger, they tear the collage apart. It disintegrates.

Time passes. Not everything is consumed by the black hole. Remnants can still be seen.

What remains after cohesion gives way is not absence, but clarity. Fragments drift, dissolve, and scatter, yet one moment holds. The past summer persists not as season, but as color, structure, and memory carried forward. The final image from this transformation provides a reminder that memories endure long after time, events, and experiences have passed.

Needless to say, there appear to be few limits on how one can design collages, except when one hits rate limits that briefly suspend one’s ability to generate images.