Project 4 – Tutorial 27.8.25
Overall comments
Good to see your work and to talk through progress today Alex
We discussed the AI imagery you are creating and the process of learning that AI is undergoing- you are verbalising instructions to support its learning. It would be interesting to capture this audio to use as part of the work- or develop the audio into text – we discussed the possibility of animating the AI imagery and using your verbal instructions as the sound track to the work
There is something really interesting about negotiating across and between your own languages and AI and then what results in the difficulty of communicating emotion
We discussed the ‘romanticised’ nature of the imagery and from my own cultural perspective it feels as though it mirrors Jehovah’s Witness illustrations from their pamphlets or possibly romantic fiction novel book covers
You reflected on Bansky and Warhol and touched on the irony in their work, this could be an interesting edge to the ‘romanticised imagery of the AI – It makes me think of Banksy’s Show me the Monet image where he inserts a traffic cone and shopping trolley into a painting of Monet’s waterlilies
How might you subvert the AI imagery to add elements which visually disrupt or add /collage in something that differently communicates your emotional content?
We talked about your poem from a previous project used as titles for the photographs you have taken. Interesting as when I view them I am trying to interpret them and bring together the story between the visual and text.
It will be useful to consider how you might present these? Are they a book? A series of images in which case how will the text and image be materialised/printed and presented?
In the next project as you develop this work you can make room to test some of these suggestions and continue to develop these ideas, considering how to bring image and text of different types together. How will these develop over the rest of the unit to become your creative presentation for assessment
It will be important to make sure you are researching and analysing the work of relevant creative practitioners. These can relate to poetry, writing, using AI, photography, image and text etc…
Please do use my suggestions from each project to spark your wider creative and contextual research to create blog posts to analyse existing creative practice that connects to, inspires, or contextualises your ongoing work
Suggested viewing reading
William Kentridge charcoal animations- process of animating using only one drawing and photographing changes- instead of the animation being built out of lots of singular drawings, the final drawing is seen in the last frame of the animation
His process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_UphwAfjhk
Scott Amoeba: MY BRUTAL LIFE FILM & ONSITE AV INSTALLATION
This is the film I mentioned using AI
AI works of art to spark wider research:https://medium.com/higher-neurons/the-ten-most-influential-works-of-ai-art-820c596b8840
Reflection – Project 4 Tutorial (27.8.25)
This tutorial has given me a lot to think about. What stood out is the idea that my work with AI is not only about the images I produce, but also about the dialogue I am having with the machine. The process of speaking instructions, negotiating across languages and emotion, is itself part of the work. I like the idea of recording my voice commands or turning them into text – this could add another layer, making visible the struggle of communication.
Another point was the romanticised feel of the imagery. My tutor compared this to Jehovah’s Witness illustrations or the covers of romantic novels. I can see what they mean – the images often come out idealised, soft, almost too perfect. The question now is whether I should lean into this or subvert it. We discussed Banksy and Warhol, and how irony can undercut sentimentality. Banksy’s “Show me the Monet” came up – a romantic landscape disrupted with shopping trolleys. This makes me think: what could I collage into my AI pieces that disrupts them, that speaks more honestly of longing, distance, or frustration?
I also want to keep developing the relationship between my poetry and photography. Using my poems as titles or alongside the images creates a tension – viewers are searching for the story that links word and picture. I now need to experiment with form: is this a book? A series of prints? A projection with sound?
Research is key. William Kentridge’s animations, where erasure and change are part of the drawing, connect with the idea of process being visible. Scott Amoeba’s AI installations show me how raw and brutal emotion can be channelled through digital tools. I will also look more broadly at AI art history, to see where my own work sits.
For now, my next step is to experiment with disruption. I want to take one of my more romantic AI images and insert something mundane or ironic – maybe an object from everyday life, maybe even something absurd – to see how the emotional tone shifts. I will also start experimenting with how to record my voice instructions and layer them into the work.
Ultimately, I need to decide: do I embrace the romance and beauty of these images, or do I undermine them with irony? That tension is at the heart of what comes next.
Alexander's blog 