…before there can be art there must be memories and before there can be memories there must be experience.
Herbert Read
All art starts with inspiration. It may be a difficult conversation, an overwhelming emotion, a beautiful sunset, or events we don’t even consciously remember. And if done well, the art invites the viewer or reader or listener in, evoking remembrances of places and people and feelings.
But this isn’t easy, and the output we see is often only a small part of the effort. Tolkien spending over a decade on The Lord of the Rings, including appendices. Frank Herbert spent five years travelling and exploring a wide range of ideas before starting his epic novel Dune. J.K. Rowling went through years of difficulty between the idea for Harry Potter and publishing the first book.
Not only that, as participants, we long to know the story behind the art. Who was the love song for? What inspired the book? Why did they choose that movie ending?
I remember the days of buying an album, struggling to remove the plastic wrap, placing the CD in the player and then poring over the booklet. My favorite albums often had pictures, lyrics, and stories from the artist that enhanced the listening experience.
But now we have AI art, and it sucks. Not because it is obviously AI (though often it is) but because it was not created by a human. There was no inspiration, no experiences, no memories behind the work; just trillions of tokens of data with some hallucinations and boom, a song or story or video ready for you. I realize that AI generated art is inevitable, but I will do all I can to avoid it, and I hope you will too.
P.S. Here’s a cartoonist, The Oatmeal, describing their take on AI art (warning, some swears)
