I upvoted this post to give it visibility, but I absolutely hated the article that spearheaded all of this “AI art is fascism” discourse (this one https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/). It makes a few worthwhile points but doesn’t really dig into them and the most of it is mired in “i just don’t like it okay :(” and name-dropping niche artists and writers to try and appear smarter than it is. It’s absolutely not proletarian but feels like an ivory tower wizard worried about the unwashed masses accessing his esoteric magic.
The chief criticism that this comic repeats is “soulless”. As materialists we don’t believe in the soul so that’s an insufficient argument, they have to find something stronger if they want to make it. And I think there’s something to be said about a comic redrawing AI generated videos even if to make a critical point. In the same way that no matter how critical a movie director wants to be about the mafia, depicting mafiosi on screen will inherently endear them to the viewer. Depicting something is necessary to make a point about it, but it’s still a contradiction.
Going further cinema was not considered an art form in its early years because prior artists considered that the act of filming was not art, but rather the subject being filmed was (e.g. a theater play). Then filmmakers invented the cutting room and the art was born. It was actually art before editing was invented (because even before that how you framed the shot and how you chose to capture it was important too and made it different from what your eyes captured in a live performance), it’s just that the people’s consciousness lagged behind their material reality.
In fact in terms of agitprop there is potential there and this is why I used the AI gen of Samuel Jackson as Lenin as the cover to the essay. People across the spectrum loved those pictures when they came out. It’s not about the tool but how you use it and this is what irks me with the “it’s fascist aesthetic so I won’t use it”. Fascists are known to coopt everything and it used to be that antifa punks (literally what they called themselves) chased them out violently. Now we are at the level of letting them coopt stuff as long as we can retain moral superiority over them.
Or that rap deepfake of Angela Rayner: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9604410. You can’t see this and tell me it’s fascist. Gaza youth posted their own AI video and song response to the Trump AI video that wanted to turn Gaza into a resort, you can’t look me in the eye and seriously tell me that’s “the aesthetic of fascism” too. Of course it can be critical, you can make it say anything! And I’m not making a point about art here, but just about the tool.
I feel what this comic artist really wants to say is fascists, i.e. “some people”, are soulless, depthless, and uncritical, not their art. But they can’t say that without sounding like a huge tool so instead they assign these values to what these soulless people create. What is the difference between fascist AI art and the fascist movie Triumph of the Will? Both were created by fascists and both are depthless and uncritical to power.
I upvoted this post to give it visibility, but I absolutely hated the article that spearheaded all of this “AI art is fascism” discourse (this one https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/). It makes a few worthwhile points but doesn’t really dig into them and the most of it is mired in “i just don’t like it okay :(” and name-dropping niche artists and writers to try and appear smarter than it is. It’s absolutely not proletarian but feels like an ivory tower wizard worried about the unwashed masses accessing his esoteric magic.
The chief criticism that this comic repeats is “soulless”. As materialists we don’t believe in the soul so that’s an insufficient argument, they have to find something stronger if they want to make it. And I think there’s something to be said about a comic redrawing AI generated videos even if to make a critical point. In the same way that no matter how critical a movie director wants to be about the mafia, depicting mafiosi on screen will inherently endear them to the viewer. Depicting something is necessary to make a point about it, but it’s still a contradiction.
Going further cinema was not considered an art form in its early years because prior artists considered that the act of filming was not art, but rather the subject being filmed was (e.g. a theater play). Then filmmakers invented the cutting room and the art was born. It was actually art before editing was invented (because even before that how you framed the shot and how you chose to capture it was important too and made it different from what your eyes captured in a live performance), it’s just that the people’s consciousness lagged behind their material reality.
I just published my own essay though it focuses more on AI and intellectual property/copyright: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Essay:Intellectual_property_in_the_times_of_AI. I purposely didn’t really go into what is or counts as art because I don’t even think that’s where the dialectic will emerge.
In fact in terms of agitprop there is potential there and this is why I used the AI gen of Samuel Jackson as Lenin as the cover to the essay. People across the spectrum loved those pictures when they came out. It’s not about the tool but how you use it and this is what irks me with the “it’s fascist aesthetic so I won’t use it”. Fascists are known to coopt everything and it used to be that antifa punks (literally what they called themselves) chased them out violently. Now we are at the level of letting them coopt stuff as long as we can retain moral superiority over them.
Or that rap deepfake of Angela Rayner: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9604410. You can’t see this and tell me it’s fascist. Gaza youth posted their own AI video and song response to the Trump AI video that wanted to turn Gaza into a resort, you can’t look me in the eye and seriously tell me that’s “the aesthetic of fascism” too. Of course it can be critical, you can make it say anything! And I’m not making a point about art here, but just about the tool.
I feel what this comic artist really wants to say is fascists, i.e. “some people”, are soulless, depthless, and uncritical, not their art. But they can’t say that without sounding like a huge tool so instead they assign these values to what these soulless people create. What is the difference between fascist AI art and the fascist movie Triumph of the Will? Both were created by fascists and both are depthless and uncritical to power.