#AI Art for (Re)connection
This blog post is an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation, “‘What makes a great story?’: Multidisciplinary and international perspectives on digital stories created by youth formerly in foster care in Canada” (York University, 11 Apr. 2022)
The debate about whether or not to work with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies because they are “good,” or “bad” is overly simplistic and lacks a critical lens. As history conveys, one can infer that artists and technologists are going to try working with AI despite, or because of these challenges. AI systems like “Dall:E” that translate words and sentences into images, have solidified concerns about representation, specifically of gender and race raised early in the advent of AI-based data visualization (Nicholas, 2022). Nevertheless, I believe that it is necessary for women and non-binary people — especially racialized women — to begin to explore these technologies as a way of claiming this space and defining the ethical implications of AI.
This painting was created in the spring of 2009, and the AI-generated graphic was produced in 2022. In 2009, the painting was called, “Abandonné,” (French) which translates as “Abandonment.” The painting is a depiction of my immediate caregivers and of myself as I was beginning to understand and acknowledge my identity as an adoptee of African Canadian heritage.
“It takes a village to raise a child” is an ancient African/Indigenous proverb that emphasizes the fact that when a child is born, the village or community that they are born into will contribute to their well-being and help to raise the child (Byrne, 2019). Indeed, an assumption of when a child is born is that the child’s parent(s) and immediate family will raise the child. However, the meaning of this proverb emphasizes that the standard notion of a family is not inclusive for everyone. Many children grow up with little to no connection to their biological family caregivers and will need the support of a village or community, such as an adoptive family. Even with a standard dual-parent family, it takes a village to raise a child is a common phrase used to emphasize that raising a child is a great responsibility requiring a community of caregivers and that no single family raises a child entirely on their own. Byrne (2019) highlights that many people shorten the sentence to, “It takes a village…” which deemphasizes the point that it is the responsibility of a community to look after the community members. So, the title of this painting attempts to signal the reason for the separate areas and stories within the painting that depict the individual and collective community collaboration that is necessary for raising a child, the issues and barriers that may prevent or get in the way of caring for a child within the child’s biological family, along with the child’s understanding and reckoning with their personhood.
The merging of Abandonné with the AI-generated artwork represents my initial attempt to “…understand the organization of the social so as to make visible (the) collaboration with systematic racialized gender violence, so as to come to an inevitable recognition of it in our maps of reality” (Lugones, 2007, p. 207). The foundational AI-generated graphic was added to the base of “Abandonné” to ground it, and to give back my sense of self and heritage that I never experienced authentically due to the concealment of my South African heritage on my adoption record. I included this graphic with the painting after seeing Anishinaabe Saulteaux contemporary artist, curator, writer, critic, and educator, Robert Houle’s exhibition, “Red is Beautiful” at the Art Gallery of Ontario in March 2022. In Houle’s exhibit, there were a series of paintings showing detailed portraits and landscapes, and a band of stripes representing colours from his heritage (Penney, 2022). I felt a connection with Houle’s method of combining recognizable imagery with unrecognizable, abstract, yet bold geometric shapes, and I wanted to try a similar application in my own work.
At the time, I was exploring collage-making with textiles from my cultural heritage, which I read about on my Ancestry DNA report. To create the collage, I merged found images of textiles from a Google image search onto an Instagram story, then I saved the story as an image and imported the collages into Adobe Photoshop. From there, I rearranged the collages and mixed the patterns together in a visually-pleasing way. Following this, I imported a square JPEG image to the Adobe Capture application on my iPhone and created a kaleidoscopic pattern with the setting in the application called “Pattern.” The application automatically confines the design to a square, so if there is important graphical information outside of the square it will not be included in the pattern. Within seconds, the final pattern is produced.
For my convocation ceremony, I created a stole, scarf, and thin tie that connects to my mixed ancestral heritage. There are many stole patterns available to purchase online, and I was interested in a design that I could feel connected to, not only through a national flag, for example. To transfer the pattern onto the fabric, it was printed directly onto heat-sensitive paper with a sublimation printer at George Brown College’s Fashion Exchange Studio and transferred onto fabric using an industry-grade iron. Then, the stole, scarf, and thin tie were sewn and finished, and I wore the stole at convocation in October 2022.
It was an amazing experience to learn about the process of sublimation printing from the technical design team at the George Brown College FX Studio in downtown Toronto, and I encourage anyone interested in collaborating on a sublimation printing project to connect with them, too.
References
Byrne, C. (2019). What We’re Missing When We Repeat “It Takes A Village”. The Chirping Moms [Blog]. https://thechirpingmoms.com/what-were-missing-when-we-repeat-it-takes-a-village/
Ludlow, B. A. (2022). “‘What makes a great story?’: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives On Digital Stories By Youth Formerly In Foster Care In Canada.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Toronto, ON: York University. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/40688
Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–219.
Nicholas, J. (2022). Dall-E 2 mini: what exactly is ‘AI-generated art’? How does it work? Will it replace human visual artists? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jun/09/what-exactly-is-ai-generated-art-howdoes-it-work-will-it-replace-human-visual-artists
Penney, D. (2022). Analogues of Indigenous Materiality, In W. Nanibush, R. Houle & M. Bell, Red is beautiful. DelMonico/Art Gallery of Ontario.
