I’ve had very mixed thoughts on ‘AI art’ for a while now. During my time at university, my tutor introduced me to an image generator called ‘Artbreeder’. I spent hours of fun creating fantasy environments, ethereal creatures, and other strange, incomprehensible things. A part of my morning ritual would be to create a bunch of AI generated images, to spark my creativity which would often push me out of an ‘art block’ as well as taking a welcome break from intense coursework. At this time, these AI image generators were in their infancy, compared to what they can do now. So far, I haven’t ventured very far into many other generators, only Artbreeder, Dall-E, Stable Diffusion and Dream.
So I have been using Artbreeder for a few years, and watched how it developed over time. I even recommended it to my own students when I was teaching, to help with their ‘creative block’ and to inspire images for mood boards. My brother-in-law then introduced me to other generators, which I experimented with a couple of times. I then came across Wombo’s Dream app, which for me was one of the most user-friendly generators I had used. I used it in a similar way to Artbreeder to create fantasy outputs, while the app released new styles to try. Even as it progressed, I never considered using it as an inspirational tool for my own artwork.
Context in Art
A few months ago, I came across this image, 'Spiral Town' by Ugluh on reddit.
All of a sudden, this disturbed my view on AI art. When I first saw this image, I was blown away. It was shared on a Facebook page called ‘Surreal Universal -Art-‘, with the short description of “Source: Ugleh on Reddit”. (This wasn’t shared on Facebook by the original creator) So I was very impressed until I discovered it was created with AI. I read the original Reddit post to find out the creator was very transparent about the entire process, which I highly respect. There are far too many people online claiming AI art as their own traditionally produced piece using ‘x, y, z’ mediums, which doesn’t sit right with me. It’s unfortunate to see that this is believable to most viewers, usually non-artists, until further research is conducted in order to understand how to spot an AI-generated image. So, as much as I really like this image, knowing that this was created with AI, has taken away almost all of its value to me. If this was created by a human, not only is the concept impressive, but also the technical output. To have the vision for something like this is something I could truly admire, especially being a huge fan of surrealism. I could totally believe there’s an artist out there who could create this, but unfortunately, not this particular piece. I still admire the intelligence behind this work, even if it is artificial, but I wouldn’t buy it as an artwork to hang on the wall.
This led me to feel very confused, anxious, and lost in a creative world that is already very daunting. I would be lying if I didn’t experience some kind of existential crisis before doing my research… I asked for other people’s opinions on what I’d just found, many of which were against the subject. AI can affect all creative industries and makes it very challenging to compete with. On the other hand, I had a very insightful opinion from another tattoo artist who uses AI art regularly in their work and made some valid points that I hadn’t considered before. I agree with this artist that AI image generation could be great for realism. Instead of artists (usually stealing) images from the internet of random stock images of people or animals, AI could generate a realistic image of someone/something, which would create an entirely custom piece for a client. I mulled over other points made, while also doing more research. I was still very torn.
I then decided to use Dream in a way that might be able to create tattoo-ready designs. Once again, I fell down the rabbit hole of the dopamine-rich, speedy results that Dream churned out, then all of a sudden, realising the potential of what this could mean for my career. So I saved an endless amount of inspiration images, revising all the possible designs I could use. At this point, it didn’t sit right with me to simply offer up these AI images as tattoo designs. My whole art career has been spent honing my creativity, technical skills and motivation to create art. Incoming - round two of existential crisis, so I asked myself the question….
Why am I threatened by ‘AI art’?
I decided that I didn’t want to use the raw images from any AI generators, because it took away everything I loved about my job. It’s likely that these designs would be very popular, but the reason I got into drawing, was that the entire process gave me such a great sense of fulfillment. During the planning/concept stage, I can let my creativity go wild, excited about the endless possibilities. While producing the artwork, this puts me into a state of flow, experiencing deep immersion, focus, and intrinsic motivation for my work. When I take a break from my work, whether that’s for lunch or coming back to it in a few days, I feel excited to get back into that flow state, watching my creation unfold. When the piece is finished, I have an overwhelming sense of pride and fulfillment. The entire process is incredibly therapeutic for me. AI image generation may be exciting in small bursts, but it’s nothing compared to the wealth of emotions I experience when creating something myself.
I have always created artwork for myself, not for other people. I will produce a piece because it puts me in a healthy state of flow, and I am happiest when I’m living in the moment. Anticipation - Challenge - Reward. This compulsion loop of using creativity to anticipate a final piece, learning to draw something new or practising honed or new skills, grinding for hours to reveal the final outcome, is incredibly rewarding for me. If others enjoy my work, it brings me a lot of joy to see that I’ve been able to elicit some kind of emotion with my work. Of course when it comes to my job and creating custom commissions for clients, it is important to me that it is perfect for them, instead of myself.
Upon reflection…
I still empathize with a lot of artists in a way that it’s hard to compete with AI. Many generators have unfairly used artist’s work, but it’s a fairly new thing that the law just hasn’t caught up with yet. After many years of studying, practicing, failing, improving our traditionally produced art, AI really can take away from the wonder of being an artist. I really hope that AI image generation can eventually be integrated into society in an ethical way. It’s great to see an example like Adobe Firefly (Adobe Firefly - Generative AI for everyone) that uses its own stock images, openly licensed content and public domain where the copyright has expired.
I still believe that, like many things, AI image generation can be abused and people use it for the wrong reasons. I’m not writing this post to talk about all the pros and cons of AI art, but instead I’m giving my perspective as an artist, to clear my head, and hopefully give an insight to other artist’s who may be overwhelmed about the subject. For a long time I felt it was wrong, as an artist, to accept AI image generation as a good thing. But now, I’m choosing to embrace AI as a tool for my work. It will come in handy for creating realistic images, as well as concept images to take inspiration from. The difference between creating images with AI and human made art, is that my work is created by interpreting art through my own personal experiences, opinions and passions filtered through me, rather than arranging a bunch of 1’s and 0’s. I will always be open with my clients and anyone else who questions my work. I’m happy to reveal my process if it helps anyone understand the context of my work, but ultimately, I am creating art in a way that is ethical and rewarding for me. AI is likely to be a part of my process in the future for some artworks, either as a tool for inspiration or to create photo-realistic tattoo designs.
How do YOU define ‘art’?
Note that I have more often than not used the term ‘AI Image Generation’ over ‘AI art’. I personally don’t like to use the term ‘AI Art’ because I have my own meaning of art which doesn’t match the process of what AI does. I prefer to use the former term because to me, that’s exactly what it is.
How do you define art? How about the banana stuck to the wall with duct tape, which sold for $120,000?
Maurizio Cattelan created ‘The Comedian’ as a conceptual art sculpture. Although very controversial, the context of his work may force us to question how value is placed on material goods. It’s of no interest to me as a piece of ‘art’, but it certainly helped me question my understanding and interpretation of art. Art is purely subjective and means something different to everyone.
I would love to hear your thoughts, feel free to comment here or get in contact if you'd like to discuss your own thoughts on AI!