AI and Art: Staying Creative in This New Era of Technology

We are now entering a new era of technology.

Well, I say “new”, but it is not necessarily new. We have been using technology to

help us create art, or create anything we want, for many years. Technology has

always been part of the way we create, communicate, document, research, and express ourselves.

But with the coming of artificial intelligence, we now have a new and incredibly

powerful tool in our hands. And this is powerful because it gives us a world of possibilities that could take us a very long time to put together if we had to do everything by ourselves, alone.

And yes, there is joy in the process! There is joy in gathering information, taking notes, reading books, creating images, journaling, researching, observing, thinking and all those things that we love to do as human beings and as artists.

We don't have to stop doing any of that. Actually, I believe we need all of it.

We need real thoughts, real experiences, real information, real feelings and real

observations to put into an AI prompt in the first place. AI can help us process what

we give it, but what we give it still has to come from somewhere.

As an artist, I think we can benefit from all of this and still keep our humanity. We

can use AI as a tool while continuing to be creative as human beings. Because everything that we see, everything that we feel, everything that we touch, and

all the experiences that we have are what form the art that we create. Art is an expression of human feelings and experiences. It comes from our connections with nature, from our connections with other human beings, from our connections with our pets, from the thoughts we have with ourselves, and from the ways we experience spirituality, religion, or whatever else we experience in life.

These are things that no machine can experience for us.

AI as a beneficial tool

The first point I want to make is this:

Yes, we can use AI as a beneficial tool in our daily lives, and especially as artists. This is particularly relevant for artists who work as a one-man/woman show, as I do.

When you are doing everything yourself, you don't only create art. You have to deal

with social media, be active online, create content, advertise your work, communicate with people, organize things, and keep up with everything that comes with being an artist today. And we have been doing this for years.

In the past, we had magazines and newspapers. They were often separated by niche,

and you could pay to put an advertisement in one of them. Or you could be invited for an interview. Or you could simply have your work shown.

Today, we have social media. And social media requires an enormous amount of time

and effort and patience. Even though it is called “social media”, and we supposedly

enter it as a social medium, it is not necessarily really social anymore.

It has increasingly turned into a display platform: You can display yourself as an

object. You can display your wealth, your lifestyle, your possessions, your

achievements. Often as a matter of comparison with other people.

Or you can try to display good content: thoughts, intellectuality, art, culture, beautiful things, interesting ideas or the love for your next, animals and nature.

You can try.

But it is not always very easy these days.

And for a one-woman show, this costs a lot of time. It consumes us. Especially when we have to work double shifts just to keep ourselves going and pay our bills.

So, why shouldn't we think about AI as a beneficial tool?

AI can help us gather our ideas into one place, filter them, combine and organise them. It can help us create advertisements for social media for our work. It can help us put a video together. Yes, it can help us do these things.

And, at this very moment, I am using an AI tool to help me gather these ideas, loyally transcribe my whole speech into this blog text. Because, as I said, all of this takes time. It consumes time.

We can also use AI as artists to create referential compositions that help and guide us based on our primary ideas. Something that can help guide me through my creative process. The important thing for me is that this becomes only a reference.

I can then create the real artwork myself. I can change it, modify it, add things, take

things away, keep what I like and remove what I don't.

And now, let's talk about the danger!

For me, as an artist, my mind is like a beehive. There are so many ideas inside my

head. Everything is going crazy. All the bees are talking to each other at the same

time.

And it is a powerful thing! It is something that I truly admire in myself, and I like

having this beehive in my brain. This is where I think AI can be helpful: it can help me organise my bees a little bit.

But I shouldn't ever let AI create my honey!

My honey must be produced by my own bees, in my own beehive.

And this is where the danger starts too.

The danger starts when someone - an artist, or anyone - begins putting all the

responsibility onto the shoulders of a machine. And this is the point that I want to tell you:

Don't do that.

Don't let your own creativity shrink. Keep your soul as intact as possible.

Why? Because, at the end, what is art? Art is the expression of oneself. It is the way we have to express our feelings, our interactions, our experiences, as already said.

Art comes from your essence. So don't let a machine create for you, because the

essence of your art is within your own essence. It is part of you. Art is part of the artist. You cannot separate the two.

We don't even have to start talking here about communication theories, about who

sees what, how something is interpreted, how symbols and languages are decoded.

Let's just be true to ourselves: Our art, as human beings, is part of us.

And we are part of our creations. In some way, our creations will mirror what we see, what we feel and what we carry inside ourselves as the souls that we are.

So there is no other way to truly create art than by living.

By feeling.

By going into your consciousness.

By organising your own bees.

By listening to them. And by letting them work.

Let them make your best honey.

AI can be a helper. But that's already all that it should be.