Be Glad

THE COMMISSION

I had the truly great pleasure of working on a project with @amandapalmer which involved a little flipping the bird to AI art, by creating a real artwork from an AI-generated image, bringing some human to machine-misunderstanding and hopefully improving on it. Not to mention, the subject matter KICKS ASS!

I was made aware when the picture went live that the words on the poster were spoken by Kimberley Jones, in 2010 in the context of Black Lives Matter. I was unaware of this until today. Coming from a country where racial inequality is still rife, I acknowledge and respect Kimberly for her words, which have power in many contexts. As a victim, I will say with passion that they apply very appropriately to victims of domestic violence as well. They are the rallying cry and spark of rage of the abused and downtrodden and I thank those with voices like Kimberley’s, unafraid to speak out.

Amanda participated in a discussion about this and more upcoming “AI WTF” projects on 16 Oct at Harvard @ 7-8:30 with @thatevangreer and “The Social Machine” author @judithd.photo.

The whole talk is free to the public on Amanda’s Patreon. Read more about our collaboration in her post here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114120608

NOTE: I do not object to AI in principle, except the way (I understand) in which it gathers data (indiscriminately) and the fact that there are a bunch of people I know, straight-up selling AI art as their own work. That’s a no-no. As I see it, it can be a useful tool for artists as it was with this project. It will never replace them.

THE PROCESS