Human-made

I originally thought that AI art was harmless. This was before I understood how AI was trained. It was before I understood that the appropriation of creator’s self-expression was not a result of tech companies that hadn’t thought far ahead enough; that is, it wasn’t about tech companies that didn’t understand the value of a creative artifacts. Rather, it was was the exact opposite of that. These companies absolutely understood the value of human creativity, so much so that they knew they would have to steel it. They knew that they couldn’t afford [at that time] to appropriately compensate artists and writers and thinkers more generally, for the value of their work. So rather than rethink their approach, or come to some agreement in copyright or licensing they decided to go on consuming, or better said, subsuming, the other’s creativity, with no intention of compensation or credit. In early 2022, I began using AI-generated backgrounds to illustrate field note photographs and larger scenes. I have examples of this in the ‘imagination’ creature that is listed in the previous section. At that time, I was experimenting with general AI-generated backgrounds and placing them behind photos from my field notes as a way for ullustrating the imaginary worlds of children. At the time (and still) it was unclear what might happen to photographs fed into these systems so for ethical reasons I separately edited in field note photos of the children on my encrypted iPad with all photos stored locally. At the time it felt like a collaboration, I would sit with the photo for a bit, then feed some ideas into the AI generator and receive 1-3 options to choose from. They were often weird outcomes, with things put in there that I didn’t ask for, or shapes that contorted into objects that were almost but not quite real-world objects. Because of this, I took out and added some things to the backgrounds. Some looked completely different from their original while others ended up not so different. For instance, on one piece I erased the entire top portion of an image to draw a night sky with a moon, or add water in place of an indistinguishable ground-sky-like substance. Now years into it AI generated art, and understanding the apparatus that is AI, I no longer use AI-generated art. Instead, I have moved on to illustrating many of my field notes by hand. I do this using the Procreate drawing application and iPencil. I begin with the original photo as a guide to hand-trace an outline the way one might use a projector or camera lucida. I then add shadows and color to this basic outline to bring it to life. While it takes more time, I am really starting to love how these pieces are turning out. It is not clear how or where these photos will be used, but over time, they have accumulated into a significant collection. I hold some of them here for the time being…