Why AI will not be a part of my creative process
AI seems to be making its way in to lives whether we want it to or not. Our latest phone updates feature AI, it presents itself in google responses and no doubt it’s a part of the processing of many products we consume on a regular basis. I have no doubt that AI will be making progress in a lot of areas, benefiting populations and even maximising people’s work to be more efficient. In this light I must emphasise that by no means am I fully opposed to AI nor believe my thoughts should apply to others or in other contexts. I feel like the reality is that AI is neither black nor white, its grey. This means that no matter our circumstances we should exercise wisdom in using it.
I believe that ‘art’ involves not just a finished product but encompasses the human behind it; their thoughts, their processes and they’re unique expression. It begins through the formation of ideas right through until the connecting of its unique buyer. In regards to my story - it involves being an ex nurse, wife and home schooling three daughters. Our days involve a lot of time spent outdoors, in community, creating, exploring, growing vegetables, cooking, baking, organising flowers and crafts. I fundamentally believe that while our world has seemingly ‘progressed’ our health continues to deteriorate- both physically and mentally. For this reason I believe in good food for nourishment and restoration. I believe in growing and harvesting, natural vitamin D from the sun and movement through our natural daily motions. I believe in fighting for the quiet and the slow rhythms. These are the things that fill our cups and restore our souls.
In regards to my creative process, before paint even hits the canvas I am outside noticing. I go for walks with my children and take photos. The way the sunlight hits the water, it’s light filtering grey clouds. A bee landing on a cosmos. Dahlia’s as they overlap and stretch up towards the sky. A daughter laughing, running through a field. The spectrum of pigments - intense pinks, soft blues, warm and cool greens. My dog lying in the grass, dandelions stretching over his nose. The photographs evoke warm memories, feelings, wonder and awe and thus a concept is born. From here I use both my own photographs and sourced to crop, collate and create a collage of images to use as a reference.
Where I can see that AI would be both useful and efficient in this, is to create reference images for me. A matter of typing in key words. A collage done with the world as a resource.
Though, I’m left with a load of empty spaces.
Instead of using art as a means to express my world view, it has created a world view of others. How could I stand on the integrity of my work as beings a means to prompt others to ‘explore’ and ‘notice the joy in the day -to-day’ when the noticing has been removed? The warmth, the light, the laughter, the joy, the wind and the nourishing of our souls. The human has been removed. Somewhere along the line of my unique process there becomes a gap where the artist once was, a lived in, experiential gap.
Using AI may or may not affect the end product (although I am fully convinced it would). The consumer may not know fully know what the creative process was, or whether there was AI used. For them it may be insignificant and irrelevant to their desire for the artistic piece. Perhaps my art would still continue to be bright, bold and a joy to the viewer. But I would know. Art continues to be one of my biggest prompts to remind me again and again to pause, engage, notice and be still. In this context I won’t allow AI to rob me of something so fundamental to my human experience.