Lights, camera, create

I don’t love the idea that an obligatory video needs be my new signature on every piece of art I make.

Do you film yourself creating art? If you are on social media, and if you want to promote your work, I guess you kind of have to video yourself now. Seems like everything has to be moving now a days. First we had clip art and stock images, then came gifs and mov clips. Now we have reels and stories, and you aren’t legit unless you have a channel. Well, that is exaggerating, but, well, maybe it is not.

I have a hard time creating art with a camera over my shoulder. Knowing that every stroke is being recorded puts a weight on my creativity. I love need to sit in a quiet room, alone with my pen and paints and just work. That is how it is supposed to be. You creating your work. Why do I have to have a lens pointing at me at all times?

And I bring this up because this is the way it has been on social media for a while now. It is mesmerizing to view stories and reels, never ending moving posts, the faster the better. So a static photo on instagram is great but it just isn’t enough anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed watching other people working on their craft in video format. It is a great way to learn and is visually entertaining too. But seems like today it is a requirement.

Then we can address the changes with AI. The scary changes. Asking a computer to whip up an image of a horse, skiing in the Alps wearing a bikini has never been easier and faster. And a human can still create that image, with ingenuity and unique grace, but at what cost? If the cost isn’t a problem, then said artist will have to prove that indeed they did it with their own hands. And unless the artist did use the computer to create the image, the artist will need more that just their signature to prove that they did indeed conjure up this masterpiece. And here we have the need for filming ourselves creating art.

This AI business is definitely a concerning shift. On a pragmatic level we need to see this as a shift in the mediums of creation. Going all the way back to cave paintings, progressing through the printing press and photography, sculpting marble to 3D digital printing, there are a lot of mediums available to create art. I am trying to see AI as just another medium, try to use it to complement my art, or make me more productive or generate even more of my own ideas. I am an artist and want to create art and don’t want a computer to do it for me. However, I don’t love the idea that an obligatory video needs be my new signature on every piece of art I make.