GM, world!
In a previous post, we talked about how we made Mary Shelley's Notebook, but we didn't tell you much about WHY we made it - the essense of the artwork.
That will be remedied here =)
"Mary Shelley's Notebook" draws parallels between the creation of life, as depicted in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," and the creation of art using artificial intelligence.
On the surface is the idea of a being brought to life through a combination of science and chance. The use of a generative process (Async's blueprint template) set in motion by the buyer upon clicking "mint" to create a unique creature of their own obviously echoes the main theme of the novel: Dr. Frankenstein creating his very own monster through science and experimentation.
On a deeper level, however, is the idea of using A.I. to create all the elements of our artwork. In much the same way as Dr. Frankenstein created a unique and frightening creature whose very existence presented challenging scientific and ethical questions, the use of A.I. in creating art is doing exactly the same thing in the world today:
Half of the artworld despise and revile A.I. being used to create art, and yes, perhaps understandably, fear it. The other half almost revere it. They welcome our A.I. overlords, so to speak. At the very least, like us (Alejandra and Mandelsage), they embrace it as a powerful creative tool to be used with responsibility, (similarly to one of our creatures in this work - powerful, but meant to serve and obey its human master.)
Through this artwork, we invite the viewer to face these questions..; The morality of using A.I. when it is trained by pre-existing artwork created by humans, the consequences of bridging the gap between human and machine, and the implications of our increasing reliance on technology, including artificial intelligence, in all aspects of life...
Just as Dr. Frankenstein was forced to confront the moral and ethical consequences of his actions, the use of AI in the creation of art also invites us to ponder the responsibility we bear as creators..:
How much of the art is really our art? If a prompt of three words, or even just one word, produces something spectacularly beautiful, is it right to call it your art without doing anything else with the A.I. generated image? We certainly wouldn't feel good about ourselves if we took a prompt like that and sold it, esp. if we don't reveal the process. But how we feel is not necessarily how others feel, and also, how we feel might change. We were extremely wary of using A.I. in any way at first.
And all this might actually become a mute point: As the use of A.I. proliferates and everyone is able to produce amazing one-word-prompt images, the bar will be lifted everywhere, and so everyone will have to up their game in order to even be noticed. We see this already happening amongst A.I. artists.
In conclusion, this artwork is a thought-provoking and interactive exploration of the relationship between creation, artificial intelligence, and the human experience. By drawing upon the timeless themes explored in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," and by harnessing the latest technological advancements, we aim to spark a conversation about the consequences of our actions and the responsibility we bear as creators in a rapidly evolving world.
(That conclusion paragraph was written entirely by ChatpGPT - how does that make you feel? 😉)
