DESTROY THE MACHINES!?

“Your time overthinking about AI art and scrolling your feed is more likely to rob you of opportunities than AI art is.” - Father Bronques

I’ll admit it up front, at my core, at least in a theoretical sense, I’m a staunch Luddite, a radical techno-antagonist. Honestly, I think the trajectory of our techno-industrial society has and will continue to usher us toward nothing short of complete environmental and societal collapse catalyzing fantastical apocalyptic scenarios that no one should ever have to face or could ever be prepared for. Maybe, or maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually. On a contradictory yet practical note, within the context of my career I keep up with the latest technological advancements with a slight fervor that from the outside might be perceived as low-key technophilia. Give me the latest iPhone and iPad, a wireless tattoo pen and a multitude of cartridge needles, automated booking systems and digital consent forms. I want to use Photoshop and Procreate for my design work, automate my financial systems, market myself on all the socials (albeit poorly) and if there’s any other technological advancements out there that can streamline my work flow and make that part of my life easier, please do point me in the right direction.

One technology that seems to be all the rage these days is AI Art. This is art created by artificial intelligence. AI art is generated by entering prompts into data based machines that analyze thousands of pre-existing images in which algorithms comprehend particular creative processes, like styles or aesthetics, then generate forms, shapes, figures and patterns to produce new works of art. AI is already a major part of most of our daily lives, think of social media monitoring, manufacturing robots, spell check, unlocking your phone with Face ID, Google search, digital voice assistants like Alexa or Siri, banking security and your Netflix recommendations. AI generated art has been around since the 90’s but only recently has it become so widely available to the general public via apps and online services. Trending as I write this is the Lensa AI app which generates portrait art from your selfies and also has features to edit selfies in some pretty uncanny ways compared to conventional filters and photo editing tools. Admittedly, I jumped on the bandwagon to see what it was all about and I’m not even mad with the results.

As an artist shouldn’t I be condemning these new advancements creeping steadily into the art industry? I mean, why would anyone pay a living, breathing, creative human being to make art when a machine can do it instantly, decently accurate, relatively cheap or even free, and can produce with a proliferation I can only dream of? Great questions only lead to more questions, and I’m generally weary of those who hold the answers. What I do know is that value is determined by the consumer. If you’d rather buy a cheap mass produced item over an expensive quality handmade good, then that cheap mass produced item will have more value to you and vice versa. If you’d rather go to the tattoo artist with the lowest rates in town for their poorly executed tattoos than the traditionally trained world renowned fine art tattooer who charges top dollar for their high end quality artistry, by all means, please do, there’s always cover ups. If you’d rather obtain an AI generated digital image than a piece of original art created by a real life human being, that’s just simply where you’ve placed your value. It’s neither good, bad, right or wrong. It just simply is.

I personally operate on a spectrum when it comes to utilizing the tools at my disposal. I absolutely love the feeling of pencil to paper, that grit, those sounds, the dulling of the tip and the variations in the results of differing techniques, the messiness and smudges, the residual graphite dust and eraser crumbs, or how delicate and fragile the paper is with which a piece of art is being created on. Oil painting is my all time favorite medium but the digitized version of it has me feeling deeply unfulfilled as the ease of creating it leaves me with so much to be desired. Give me the smell of solvents, the grip of the canvas, the streaks of the brush, the textures of the layered paint and the happy little accidents. Yet most of the time you’ll see me hunched over a desk top, face glowing with the reflective light from my iPad as I work out tattoo designs on Procreate. The lifelessness of the Apple Pencil, the utter perfection of QuickShape, drawing large scale life size designs on an 8.5 x 11 inch surface area, the faux paper feeling of the screen protector as I generate forms, shapes, figures and patterns to produce new works of art that will be tattooed on living human beings forever. Work smart, not hard folks.

I’m fortunate enough to have come into tattooing when we still drew on paper with pencils to size (if you know you know), and I haven’t even been tattooing that long. I’m also fortunate enough to have been present when the entire industry was making its initial shift towards digitally produced tattoo designs. Do you even know how much time is saved due to this shift? Tattooing is already the most time consuming venture I’ve ever performed, my passion and obsession with it alone are what drives me to stay motivated and keep at it. Surely I could have chosen a career path with less stress and performance pressure, less demand on my time yet comparable in pay, but fuck that. I LOVE tattooing, though it’s the actual tattooing part that I love the most. If technology can make all the behind the scenes prep work easier, faster and more streamlined, I’m all in. AI generated art, in my opinion and experience, can do just that.

Thus far in some of my recent tattoo designs I’ve utilized AI art to conceptualize uncanny ideas, expand my consciousness of possibility and generate reference images that are otherwise impossible to find. Google Image search “raccoon face with purple reflective light” and show me what you come up with, go on, I’ll wait. The reference image that AI generated from that same prompt will only serve to make my design better for the client who will wear the tattoo for the rest of their lives. I control the input and the outcome of my own art, AI was just there for the assist. Sure, some consumers will now opt for AI generated art over graphic designer and illustrator created art, but those who won’t will place a higher value on human made art as this new alternative makes its way into the industry. Just as some clients would rather get the cheaper tattoo from the homie down the street than pay my rates, they simply aren’t my clients. The clients that are meant for me will find me and they will support me, the consumers who want to support living artists will keep paying graphic designers and illustrators for their work and good riddance to the rest. Fortunately, the machines have yet to enslave us and bend us to their will, we’re still in control.…. For now. It seems the real challenge isn’t to squash AI art before it destroys an entire industry and puts artists out of work but instead to reframe our relationship to the tools at our disposal. We adapt or we perish. AI art is here to stay whether we like it or not, might as well make it our bitch!