creative – SLAMFitzsimons

writers have had a long association with hell. when in ancient times orpheus descended hell to reclaim his love with poetry he knew what it was to write. he was famed for it and won back the soul of his love. but like many writers wasnt careful of the small print.

writers even today embark on a journey to hell. we willingly undertake writing a novel despite the hardships it may involve. the hours of loneliness in a room as you scribe away at your art. the lack of attention for your work from friends and family. they just aren’t as committed to the project you have spent years on. they may buy a copy under duress and let you know they are being supportive but whether they actually read the book is open to question.

as well as the loneliness there is also the great possibility it will be rejected by the gate keepers and you come to realise that the thing you have spent minutes, hours, years on has been a total waste of time. that it is destined for a drawer somewhere to be forgotten about. rejected and somewhat less than it used to be when you finished the work.

and even if you are lucky enough to get your work published there are the critics. the reviewers. who will happily with little thought give it three stars.which is worse in many ways. at least with one star they really were engaged and thoroughly hated your work and five they loved it to the hilt. but three? its the star equivalent of beige.

and there is nothing we can do but continue with our art. we can but continue to peer like orpheus into hell and think about what we have lost. what we could have had. if only.

let’s talk about art and the creation of art and what is art.
when people first wanted to record what they saw or happened they painted on the walls of caves with paints they created from things around them. it represented what they saw and did. then over time the technology improved. paper. canvases. but people continued to paint to show what they saw.

photography was invented and replaced painting as a technology for recording. painting became art. people used to record events on their cameras. people, places, things. until the rise of the movie camera which replaced the camera as a means to record events. so photography became art and movies became the way to record events. a new technology on the scene. this in its turn became superseded by computers. each new technology reducing the previous to art. the old technology became a means of expression. the representation of the idea.

and now we find ourselves with a new technology making redundant the old. AI. all before is reduced to art. obsolete technology the expression of art. text and image. but what of AI? some say that they create art using AI. they enter the commands and something is produced. they call it art. they claim creation. but is creation just merely the idea and the output?

when earlier artists created an artefact was it merely the output that was considered the art? the result of thought, experimentation, technique, the breaking of rules and the inventing of rules. does not the process also make the art. with AI there is no process. there is simply the input of the idea and the output. there is no experimentation with the materials, the developing of technique, the following of rules and the breaking of rules. that was all done by the artists whose work was scraped and stolen. there is no original technique and expression of process. the process is gone. bastardised. just idea and output.

am i being too hard on the AI creator? i think not. previous technologies that became art did not rely upon the stealing of the work of others. it is not an averaging of many different people’s thoughts, processes and ideas. and even when previous creators made art with dead technologies based on other creatives’ ideas they acknowledged the fact. they made reference to it. they did not claim it was solely their creation. they owned up to the great artists they were inspired by. AI artefacts make no such reference or admittance. they lie that they are original, something new. rather than an amalgamation of many creatives’ ideas.

if you want to be seen as a creator of art then engage with the process of art. take time to develop your skills. find your own voice. develop your own techniques. break the rules your way. develop your own new rules. don’t short cut and steal another’s work and claim it yours. you did not own the process. the work is not yours.