Mythologies of AI Consent: A Review of “A Third Act” at Sulk Chicago
What Pierce and Apple have accomplished is nothing short of a watershed moment in our understanding of AI usage in art. A review of AI-generated art by Mac Pierce and Justice Apple at Sulk Chicago has highlighted the misconception that AI is just a tool that can be used for an end, rather than a means to convey a message. The author points out that most AI artworks use technology for their purposes are often misunderstood. This article discusses the misconceptions about AI's ability to create non-consensual deepfakes, which were distributed through 4chan and Twitter in January 2024 and viewed more than fifty million times. While the work in “A Third Act” is partially AI-created, it is still a labor-intensive process to create these images. The review concludes that while the work on display is technically ahead of its time but technologically rooted in our contemporary reality.
Publicados : 10 meses atrás por Frank Geiser no Tech
My biggest issue with most AI-generated art being created in 2024 is the common misconception that simply using AI amounts to any sort of understanding about what it is and how it functions. Maybe this is a hot take, but I don’t care if you use AI in your artwork. I do care about how you might use it to say something. AI, like graphic design, painting or photography, is a good tool when used as a means to an end; artworks using AI because it’s tech-y or trendy is, to borrow some Gen Z lexicon, cringe.
All of this would just be me shaking my fist at the newest technological gizmo if it weren’t for the promises that seem to be attached to each new generation of AI capabilities. Every day, more and more companies race to make the experience of using computers more unpredictable by implementing half-baked AI features into their apps, widgets and whatnot. I am part of a subset of people who believe AI is going to change everything about our digital lives, but I am also certain that most of these changes are things we are culturally unprepared for.
In late January 2024, AI-generated “deepfakes” of Taylor Swift were distributed through 4chan and Twitter (sorry, “X”). These sexually explicit, often violent images were purportedly viewed more than fifty million times before being pulled from most online platforms. Perhaps much of this review’s audience would find the idea that the entire AI libraries have already been created for the explicit purpose of making porn from clothed or otherwise non-consenting individuals shocking, but I am reminded of a recent conversation I had with Newcity 2024 Breakout Artist Ava Wanbli, who correctly pointed out that porn has been a driving force behind so many historical media innovations.
The craziest thing about viral, non-consensual deepfakes of Taylor Swift is that the ability to create them is actually not new at all. AI wasn’t used to do some sort of crazy technological wizardry that made impossibly real deepfakes. For reference, photoshopping a head onto a different person’s body is almost trivially easy after learning the basics of how Photoshop works. This is the crux of the matter: It is incredibly difficult to use AI for things that can’t be done manually. Most of the time AI is simply a way to automate that labor into a quickly generated, statistically average result. I think the world is already poorly prepared to address photorealistic deepfakes and other falsified imagery, but I think it is wholly unprepared for technologies that allow anyone to create them instantly without effort.
Long-winded introductory remarks aside, “A Third Act” by Mac Pierce and Justice Apple at Sulk Chicago is conceptually ahead of its time but technologically rooted in our contemporary reality. By using an open-source AI library created for mapping nude bodies onto clothed individuals, Pierce and Apple manipulated images of themselves wearing full-body morphsuits in elaborately constructed sets, creating convincing but ultimately fake pornographic images. In a discussion with Pierce about the work, he says, “We wanted to show the state of technology today, and ask people what happens when AI gets it right.” While the images in “A Third Act” are partially AI-generated, it is still a very labor-intensive process to create them. Pierce and Apple took 300-800 images in each hand-constructed set, and the AI goes through 2000-5000 iterations for each selected image. Pierce and Apple spent serious time and effort developing what these images should look like instead of being content with easy methods to create them. Their work is a testament to the power of AI tools that won’t require as much setup in the not-so-distant future.
The images in “A Third Act” are uncanny in ways that take time to fully realize, as the show pretends to be many things that it is not. Everything in each of the five photographs on display is real, meaning it actually existed on set and was captured by a camera, except for the bodies populating the scene. Each of the photographs was taken in the same location, but printed backdrops and detailed ornamentation in each scene create the illusion that these photographs were taken in several different bedrooms. The AI-generated bodies in “A Third Act” are as diverse and varied as the multitude of kitschy, ornate props placed throughout these sets, but prior to being “nudified” each of these photographs is populated by the same two people. The most obvious way that the visual surface of these photographs begins to break down is reflections from carefully placed mirrors in several of the scenes. Instead of reflecting the AI-generated bodies, we see contorted figures in morphsuits and tacky wigs.
“A Third Act” is a deeply unsettling, critically important look at AI capabilities in the here and now, wrapped up in a playful, gaudy pastiche. The AI-generated bodies feel like particularly risqué characters in a Rococo painting whose blissful hedonism prevents them from noticing the revolution brewing in their midst. Don’t let the glossy surface fool you; the photographs in “A Third Act” are urgent warnings made palatable by Pierce and Apple’s high-effort, nuanced approach.
The scenes also contain a multitude of references to artworks in the classical Western canon, calling attention to the ways that our relationship to all past images is being actively developed by generative technologies. In many ways, the photographs in “A Third Act” function in the opposite way in which many classical scenes do: instead of using the guise of academic disinterestedness to hide one’s horny intent, “A Third Act” uses a guise of horny-ness to obfuscate an intensely critical examination of the cultural consequences accompanying technological progress. There is a lot to unpack here, but it is remarkably apparent that most platforms aren’t built to handle nuanced conversations on AI and digital consent. Audiences that wish to share images from the exhibition on social media can hold up little black rectangular showcards to censor any AI-generated nipples in their posts, which I find equally amusing and depressing.
What Pierce and Apple have accomplished is nothing short of a watershed moment in our understanding of AI usage in art. Pushing an emergent technology to its contemporary limits, doing so in a way that transcends many of the problematic aspects of that technology, and making a real statement about its capabilities in the process of doing so is incredible. The artworks in “A Third Act” are also genuinely interesting; I appreciate the conceptual meta-commentary in the photographs on display, but I was also continuously noticing new visual details in the artworks as I spent time with them.
I think this exhibition is a must-see on its own merit, but, as an additional incentive, it will also be the final show in Sulk Chicago’s current space on South Dearborn. The legacy that Taylor Payton has created in this tiny space is unparalleled, even within Chicago’s vibrant art scene. It feels appropriate to wrap up Sulk’s run in this space with such a strong, boundary-pushing show, and I look forward to whatever Payton chooses to do next. I know Sulk will be dearly missed, yet the reverberations of its cultural impact will still be felt for some time.
“Justice Apple and Mac Pierce: A Third Act” will be on view at Sulk Chicago, 525 South Dearborn, through June 30.
Tópicos: AI