As part of the renovation of the train station Meidling, the artist Christian Kosmas Mayer has designed over 300m² of wall space in the western passage in a complex process of exchange with artificial intelligence. His speculative depictions of a historical garden give travelers an insight into an almost forgotten history and invite them to reflect on the reality of the images.

In 1817, Baron Sigismund von Prónay purchased a sprawling private garden near today’s railroad station compound in Meidling. He had a large number of rare pelargoniums planted, transforming the property into one of Vienna’s most splendid Biedermeier parks. Students at the University of Vienna, who enjoyed exclusive access, went for long strolls in the “Prónaygarten”; so did Ludwig van Beethoven, who lived in the adjacent villa for several months in 1823. In 1839, the park was razed to make room for the Südbahn railroad, which passed by the new Meidling station.

No one remembers the garden today, and no original depictions survive. Christian Kosmas Mayer was inspired by this blank in the collective memory to explore the potentials of artificial intelligence (AI). For the station building in Meidling, the artist has developed a speculative reconstruction of the garden based on extensive historical research: he “trained” AI image generators on a large archive of visual material from the Biedermeier and the available historical sources before letting it rework his own sketches.

The creative collaboration between artist and artificial intelligence has yielded representations between reality and fiction: imaginations of the lost pictures of the garden. They prompt reflections on novel imaging technologies and the power of the visuals they generate – while bringing a forgotten piece of history back to its origin.