Shadows of the Rain VR project

Shadows of the Rain is an immersive music experience, investigating the potential of artificial imagination to interpret human-created emotion. Built from original music and the text of the song, the project uses generative AI to construct visual narratives that respond to the expressive qualities of sound and the conceptual depth of language.

At its core, the work poses a question: can a machine not only mimic but also feel — translating the emotion from music into its own visual language, and linking abstract ideas to form, colour, and movement? These AI-generated interpretations are brought into a virtual world that shifts and reacts in real time to the sonic properties of the composition.

“Shadows of the Rain” is both an experiment and a reflection — on authorship, perception, and the evolving creative role of machines in the emotional landscape of art.

The application was showcased at the “Resonant Worlds” exhibition at the Backlit Gallery of Art in Nottingham and the Brewhouse Arts Centre in Burton-on-Trent, among others, as part of the EPSRC-funded project.

The application’s music is a piano cover of the song “Shadows of the Rain.” The lyrics are as follows:

I will stay all alone,
So, my soul could be reborn
And could ever fly
In the blue space of the sky.

I will draw every day
From shadows of the rain,
So, I could breathe again,
Free and released from pain.

I need to say “Goodbye”,
‘Cause you will not be mine.
I will save the light,
All memories inside.

I will draw every day
From shadows of the rain.
I’ll let my soul be reborn
From the energy of the storm.

I will draw every day
From shadows of the rain.
I will save the light,
All memories inside.

Composers: Valentyna Shvets, Anna Shvets
Lyrics: Anna Shvets Performer: Anna Shvets