Out of the 9 participants, 7 responded by posting a cherished memory of theirs. Below are the memories shared.
Below is the wall, before and after the generation of images to depict these memories.
Following this process, I have sent out a questionnaire (feedback form) to the participants. The participants will be sent the before and after and have to answer a few questions on the process. The questions I have posed are:
1. How did you feel having to share an old cherished memory?
2. Does seeing the generated images, alter or affect how you remember the event?
3. How does it feel to see your image amongst many who have shared fond memories?
4. Do you feel any difference when seeing the before and after of the wall?
5. Do the images make you curious to read other people’s shared memories?
6. How do you feel about AI being used as a tool to create moments from your past?
7. Is your opinion on generative AI changed in anyway through this process?
I came across this article through Marta. I felt the need to analyse this article because of it’s proximity to my European press prize submission. The author discusses the new google pixel 9 and it’s AI enabled editing features. The article also touches on the larger cultural context of photography and the cultural impact of AI technologies being integrated into it. While the article is a good example of some the concerns we may have around the emergence of generative AI, it makes some bold assumptions. I’d like to discuss some of the merits and concerns I have with this.
Photographs, like text and ideas are and have always been subjective accounts produced by humans. Photography, since it’s invention has indeed been heralded as an account of “the truth”, however as I discussed in my EPP presentation, it has always been subject to context and framing. What a photograph, even from the early 20th century depicts, can be subject to propagandist intentions. The way it is framed, what is included and what is left out and the social context in which it is published, all affect the reception and interpretation of the image. The use of photography as a propaganda tool to promote colonialism and racism within the home countries has ample evidence. In their article, “Photography as a Tool of Power and Subjugation: How the Camera was Used to Justify Black Racial Inferiority”, Zaha Chouddhary explores the many facets of the early use of photography for generating and reinforcing racial superiority by European powers.
The biases in early photography aren’t simply due to the user, in fact the very technology behind the camera film can be seen to have racial bias. It wasn’t till the 1990’s that the film technology was corrected to more accurately capture skin tones other than white. An in-depth exploration of this is done in the article “Color film was built for white people. Here’s what it did to dark skin.” By Estelle Caswell for Vox. In some sense, the assumption that, for any moment in history photography had been a standard for objective truth, is wrong. Such notions largely depend on who is being asked the question. A good example of this subjectivity lies in the topic of police brutality in the US, used in the original Verge article to demonstrate the use of film and photography to challenge the official/dominant view of the state. But this too, is entirely subjective. For most privileged communities in America, the idea that personal recordings disprove what the police are saying is understandable. However, given the long history of racial tension and police brutality in the US, most working class and coloured individual would navigate the world in a less naive way. Photos are not required to prove that the police are lying. As individuals in society, we navigate the world in a complex and multi faceted way, photo evidence being only one part of it. Social expectations, urban legends, neighbours, word of mouth and community history all play a part in how we see reality.
In the coming age, photography and videography may be seen with greater suspicion, however we have been on this journey for some time now. Before we had “fake images” we have had “fake news articles”. In fact, this idea of fake information may go as far back as we can information itself. We are lucky that we are more aware now than ever before, about not directly trusting what we see online. If our growing concern around manipulated images and videos is founded on being able to distinguish them, it would be more productive to educate the public on how to verify images based on metadata. Even so, the legitimacy of any media can and has never been a 100% reliable.
Photography as a Tool of Power and Subjugation: How the Camera was Used to Justify Black Racial Inferiority, by Zara Choudhary:
On August 6th, I was introduced to Marta Abba, an Italian researcher and journalist. She is an environmental physicist investigating how scientific research, technologies and human decisions impact biodiversity and human rights. She has written articles for publications such as Wired Italia, Soiel International and Seed science amongst many more.
This meeting came about through my project on “The future of Memory” proposal for the European Press Prize. Following a week long correspondence, we decided to have a video meeting on the 16th of august and I was offered an opportunity to incorporate my research into AI as a tool for visual artists, used to curate their personal identity and recreate images from their past and future into a larger project; AI photos and people: past and future. We have begun to share noted and ideas on the subject. I shared my blog and my approach towards the subject through action research. Moving forward, we will be setting up a system to collaborate overseas and incorporate other experts and creatives working on the subject. This includes AI photographers who are looking at the future of image, new art styles developed through the use of machine learning technologies and those who are participating in my intervention. Our hope is that this research culminates in some form of publishing to add new knowledge to the world of creativity, human experience and technology.
For this intervention, I was able to engage 9 individuals that practice visual arts in some capacity.
These individuals range in age from 22 years to 39 years.
2 participants identify as Female,
3 as Non-Binary and
4 participants identify as some degree of Gender non-conforming.
2 participants are engaged in full time employment in visual arts ,
3 make supplementary income through visual arts, and
4 participants engage in it as a hobby.
Below is a break down of the forms of art identified in their practice.
I further enquired if they had ever used or engaged with generative AI. Out of the 9 respondents, 5 had engaged in the use of generative AI in some capacity.
Further, I wanted to understand their views on the technology before I moved to the next stage of the intervention. As such, I think they were unaware that the intervention had already started.
Below are the responses to the question: Please tell us a bit about your current views on generative AI.
Outside of my research, I have volunteered to work on the MA Applied imagination Festival as part of the class committee. The festival will be taking place in the beginning of December 2024 and will showcase the work of our cohort. I am excited to participate and will have some of my time divided between the two projects.
I also attended my cousin’s wedding in India this July. This was the first marriage in my immediate family and it gave me to opportunity to travel to my state in India, which I had not visited since childhood. The trip was marked by celebration, but also took me back to where I come from. It was truly humbling as I recounted my journey from Bihar/Jharkhand to Delhi, Mumbai and now London. They seem like worlds apart, not only because of the physical distance between them, but also the stark difference between the development of a major global city in the west and a rural town in one of the poorest states of India. This has been a great opportunity for me to reflect on my journey so far, and my individual voice in the larger world. I found a great many visual and cultural artefacts that I realised have shaped my aesthetics and world view. These were perhaps locked away somewhere in my mind, till I saw them again and could make the connection.
Finally, my tenancy at the student accommodation at UAL halls is also coming to an end in august and I will have to find alternative accommodation. This will surely be time consuming, as it is my first time house hunting in London, but I am hoping it goes by smoothly.
Byung-Chul Han’s work “Hyperculture” is an eye opening piece of literature published in 2005. The book contains a series of short articles discussing ideas of globalisation, the internet and our existence as humans in a post modern and hyperconnected reality. The text, written at a time when the ideas of globalisation were popular and just before the 2008 financial crisis was to arrive, weaves a dream of society as an unbound and unrestricted space through which people navigate as a connected tribe. Some ideas that held great promise, such as, an open and free international marketplace, global citizens and a decentralised internet, have lost takers over the years. We have seen a very different reality emerge since the publishing of this book. The rise of nationalism, regional protectionism and fall of the World trade organisation by the same nations that once championed it, has lead to a very different economic reality. On the Internet as well, intimate and independently created spaces have shrunk in favour of large social media sites that have created cookie cutter profiles of individuals. But I do not believe these to be evidence of the failure of the global experiment.
Many aspects discussed, such as that of the global wanderer or hyper culture tourist, as discussed in the chapter ‘the eros of interconnectedness’ still hold true today. Han discusses how we live in an age where we are disconnected from the regional. The internet allows us to be global travellers and by interacting with other people’s lives, we become tourists looking at them. I would argue that this still largely hold true, it’s just different than what had been imagined. We are no longer truly venturing into the spaces and lives of other people from around the world, but are observing it through the lens of social media and its algorithms and layouts. In the later chapter “Hyperlogue”, there is an understanding of how this may come to pass. I wonder if Han knew how close to the truth he was stepping. The loss of the free internet in favour of a consumer driven model is recognised through the changing of language associated with it. Han points to the use of terminology and its changing nature over time. In the early days of the internet, we used the term ‘surfing the internet’ creating an image of nautical exploration and free movement. The more popular term now is ‘browsing the internet’, evoking images of a consumer act. He points throughout the book towards Microsoft, and its role in creating this language. Think ‘internet explorer’ and ‘windows’. Today however, most people do not have a digital footprint outside of social media.
The way we are interacting with AI today is also uncharted and exploratory. Outside of the boxed AI such as Chat GPT and Midjourney, there is a desire for more open source models. Humans, I believe will instinctually seek out the kind of freedom promised by hyperculturism and that is reflected in the novel users of AI technology. If my reading of this text tells me anything, it is that predictions and outcome are often very different. If history is a testament, the technology moving forward will be surrounded by those who desire to restrict or regionalise it.
I posted a shout out for visual artists to participate in the “Wall of Memories: Lost and found” intervention. I had initially planned to do a physical wall, but as I have been travelling and interest came from various parts of the world, I decided to replicate it as a digital wall instead.
The sign up sheet was a google form. [screen shots below] Sent out over the weekend of 12th July to 15th July, I wanted to give adequate time for participants to sign up.
Following the sign up, I sent out communication in the form of an email and followed up via the social media links provided. This included the explanation and instructions for participating in the intervention. [screenshot below]
As I am moving forward with my research, I would also like to see how it connects with the work I have done outside of it during my months at CSM. The main projects that come to mind are the ones I have posted on my blog.
Diary of Uncertainties: In my diary of uncertainties, I looked at 3 key uncertainties- play, cultural objects and viewership. I find that with such little information on my current research subject, I have no other way to investigate it outside of playing with it to see what outcomes are produced. There is also a sense that AI is a shared cultural phenomenon that people connect with, its relevance being a point of intrigue. Moving forward, my research is rather unpredictable and each step informs the next.
European Press Prize: When I was investigating stories, the adoption of AI powered editing softwares was what I looked into. Initially when I was looking into the phenomenon, it was a cause of concern for me. Since then however, there is a growing sense of a more complex story. Does it matter that these images have been altered? And is it necessarily a negative from the perspective of the user? While the current technology is basic and informed by societal expectations, the future of this technology can be much wider than we imagine now. I feel any comment on this phenomenon without testing is unlikely to be helpful. It is also strongly connected to my current project based on curating one’s identity.
Tales from Gehenna: My multimedia art project that was selected for the Art Business society’s exhibition at UAL, was an exploration of expressing difficult emotions through painting and sculpture. I was also looking at aspects on imagining the afterlife or at least the impressions of one through form, colour and spaces. Perhaps AI tools can be used to create alternate realities in the future. Could other emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) be utilised alongside generative AI to create new and immersive worlds that reflect, free or even heal their visitors? Can AI create an afterlife or even make us immortal? These subjects are at the back of my mind even now, I hope I can create space to explore them.
As I look back at my research topic, I find much has changed from where I started. I have been reading ‘Hyperculture’ by Byung-Chul Han (originally published in 2005) and ‘Internet dreams: Archetypes, myths and metaphors’ by Mark Stefik (originally published in 1997). Both these books were published at the early stages of the Internet and globalisation and talk about the cultural impact it may have moving forward. Some of the text is dated and reflects on both the caution and optimism promised in the earlier years of the internet’s development. We have however since seen the world take a drastic and unexpected departure from the models we started out with. This is not to say that the underlying reality predicted has changed, rather manifested itself in unique and unexpected ways. I will be posting full reflections on these texts as I finish them in their entirety.
Moving back to where I come from, when I started researching this topic, my introduction was of the idea of technology corrupting and replacing human work and expression. Since then I have questioned how many people truly are being affected in this way. From what I can observe, the largest impact is on small digital artists, and while there is merit to their claims of large technology companies utilising their work without proper permissions, the argument has not stood legal ground. The current framework we see legally is that one cannot copyright images or text solely generated by AI. Different countries are still figuring out the limits of this argument. As for copyright infringement, copying someone’s style cannot be considered as theft as one cannot copyright “a style”. It has widely been accepted that AI is a tool and cannot generate art without the intervention of a human.
The AI craze has also been shown to be relatively hyped. Journalist and tech critic, Ed Zitron states some concerning points in his talk with Adam Conover on the rise of Gen AI. Some of the talking points they discuss in this podcast include, How will these systems be monetised? What, if any use is there beyond being interesting? How Intelligent really is AI? And How does the new technology differ from what we’ve seen before. There are some real questions on the viability and future of this “Silicon Valley” project. The ideas extend to discuss the point of diminishing returns on training models and how much improvement will we really be able to see in the future. Aside from the issues discussed, there is a general shared sense across the stakeholders – artists, scientists, investors and critics, that the technology is here to stay. It is also widely regarded more relevant compared to something like NFTs, which was essentially a speculative market based on blockchain technology. Though blockchain technology has been adopted in many aspects of digital security, its popularity with everyday users has fallen out of fashion. This scenario is unlikely as there are visible and tangible uses that seem obvious at first glance when it comes to generative AI.
Overall, there is merit to this technology but it’s future direction will be impossible to reliably predict at such an early stage, but that is what makes the subject so interesting to speculate and test.
Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin among thousands of British artists used to train AI software, Midjourney; by James Tapper for The Observer; Published on 21st January 2024; Accessed on 10th May 2024.
What is an “Author”? – Copyright Authorship of AI Art through a philosophical lens; by Mackenzie Caldwell for Houston Law Review; Vol. 61, Issue 2, 2023; Published on 11th December 2023; Accessed on 1st June 2024.
Are there memories for which people don’t have photographs?
Have there been moments in our lives that we wish we had captured but didn’t?
Or did evidence of those moments get lost to time?
Can we take the stories from our memories and recreate them?
Will this feel good or bad? Is this scary or pleasing?
Can we change the way we look at our past?
These are some of the questions I was asking when planning an intervention. How can emerging technologies in generative AI help us recreate and curate memories to help shape our outlook on the self?
To answer these questions, I have envisioned a Wall of Memories: Lost and Found.
The participants will be asked to write down a memory that they cherish but have no photographs of. Something from their past that is important to them. They will then place this memory randomly on a wall. The wall will then become a wall of lost memories. I will then replace these texts with AI generated images of their description and allow people to come back and see it.
Did they notice what was written around them before? Or will they notice it better in images. Will their image help them better connect with their memory? How will this affect their view on the past and on the future of technology?
