AI-Art: Anna von Hausswolff: "Stranger"

This video is a visual interpretation of “Stranger” by Anna von Hausswolff (2015), created in dialogue with the emotional and thematic world of Mascha Schilinski’s film "In die Sonne schauen / Sound of Falling" (2025).

Rather than illustrating the song literally, the images follow its inner movement: a journey into the unknown, the presence of fear and transformation, the sensation of being guided by something intimate yet unfamiliar. Like the film, the video is interested in what cannot be fully named — in inherited emotions, quiet shifts of identity, and the way inner states repeat and resonate across time.

"Stranger" speaks of walking “in a curved line,” of darkness and clarity, of losing and reshaping the self. "Sound of Falling" explores similar terrain through multiple generations, treating memory, trauma, and resilience not as linear narratives but as echoes carried by bodies, spaces, and silence. This video brings those sensibilities together, using images as traces rather than explanations.

The visuals were created using AI image generation as an artistic tool, not to replace authorship, but to explore uncertainty, suggestion, and transformation. AI was used deliberately for its capacity to produce images that feel partially unfamiliar — images that seem found rather than staged, hovering between intention and accident. In this context, the technology mirrors the themes of the song and film: the presence of a “stranger,” the loss of stable identity, and the emergence of meaning through repetition and variation.

This work is an experiment in listening — to music, to cinema, and to images — and in letting meaning arise without being fixed.

STRANGER

We're walking in a curved line into something new
The birds are watching every step I take
Beneath the stars, beneath the moon, there is a hole
It's covered up in darkness and fear

But then, there is something moving against me
It's not in line with the world I know
Changing the heart, changing the spirit
Changing my path, changing my soul

My sight is clear, the colors are expanding
I don't frown in the mirror, on the world
There is no time, there is no face, there is no me
I am following a shadow while I'm reaching for the sun

But then you tell me I shouldn't worry
You tell me to stay strong
You tell me I shouldn't worry
Why is the stranger in sync with my heart?

I tip toe here, I don't want you to see me
I'm listening, I'm stolen by every word you say
A dream is pulling out my heart and spirit
And I'm scared to fall, I'm scared of death
And I'm scared of all the lies

But then you tell me, oh, I shouldn't worry
Oh, you tell me to stay strong
You tell me I shouldn't worry
We're living now, let's live now
Let's live only for love