A City, Remembered explores the relationship between memory, architecture, and authorship through Buffalo, New York.

0:00 Memory

0:40 Empathy

1:16 Channeling

1:39 Rapprochement

The film began with a simple question: when technology can generate almost anything, how do we decide what is actually worth carrying forward?

Through observation, photography, film, and an AI-assisted creative process, I used Buffalo as a place to think about what makes a city recognizable beyond its buildings alone — the atmosphere, people, scale, imperfections, and accumulated memories that give a place meaning.

AI became a way to expand possibility, but not a substitute for judgment. The more it could generate, the more important the act of choosing became.

A City, Remembered is ultimately about the things a tool cannot decide for us: what matters, what belongs, and what deserves to remain.

A film by Julian Arrington. Architecture / Film / Memory / AI / Buffalo