Category: News

• Blinded by machine visions

  

  I threw around a quick response to this article on the socials this morning and, in particular, some of the reactions I was seeing. Here’s the money quote from photographer Annie Leibovitz, when asked about the effects of AI tools, generative AI technology, etc, on photography:

  “That doesn’t worry me at all,” she told AFP. “With each technological progress, there are hesitations and concerns. You just have to take the plunge and learn how to use it.”¹

  The paraphrased quotes continue on the following lines:

  She says AI-generated images are no less authentic than photography.

  “Photography itself is not really real… I like to use PhotoShop. I use all the tools available.”

  Even deciding how to frame a shot implies “editing and control on some level,” she added.²

  A great many folx were posting responses akin to ‘Annie doesn’t count because she’s in the 1%’ or ‘she doesn’t count because she’s successful’, ‘she doesn’t have to worry anymore’ etc etc.

  On the one hand it’s typical reactionary stuff with which the socials are often ablaze. On the other hand, it’s fair to fear the impact of a given innovation on your livelihood or your passion.

  As I hint in my own posts³, though, I think the temptation to leap on this as privilege is premature, and a little symptomatic of whatever The Culture and/or The Discourse is at the moment, and has been for the duration of the platformed web, if not much longer.

  Leibovitz is and has always been a jobbing artist. Sure, in later years she has been able to pick and choose a little more, but by all accounts she is a busy and determined professional, treating every job with just as much time, effort, dedication as she always has. The work, for Leibovitz, has value, just as much — if not more — than the product or the paycheck.

  I don’t mean to suddenly act my age, or appear much older and grumpier than I am, but I do wonder about how much time aspiring or current photographers spend online discussing and/or worrying and/or reacting to the latest update or the current fad-of-the-moment. I 100% understand the need for today’s artists and creators to engage in some way with the social web, if only to put their names out there to try and secure work. But if you’re living in the comments, whipping yourselves and others into a frenzy about AI or whatever it is, is that really the best use of your time?

  The irony of me asking such questions on a blog where I do nothing but post and react is not lost on me, but this blog for me is a scratchpad, a testing ground, a commonplace book; it’s a core part of my ‘process’, whatever that is, and whatever it’s for. This is practice for other writing, for future writing, for my identity, career, creative endeavours as a writer. It’s a safe space; I’m not getting angry (necessarily), or seeking out things to be angry about.

  But I digress. Leibovitz is not scared of AI. And as someone currently working in this space, I can’t disagree. Having even a rudimentary understanding of what these tools are actually doing will dispel some of the fear.

  Further, photography, like the cinema that it birthed, has already died a thousand deaths, and will die a thousand more.

  Brilliant⁴ photography lecturer and scholar Alison Bennett speaks to the legacy and persistence of photographic practice here:

  “Recent examples [of pivotal moments of change in photography] include the transition from analogue film to digital media in the late 20th century, then the introduction of the internet-connected smart phone from 2007,” they said.

  “These changes fundamentally redefined what was possible and how photography was used.

  “The AI tipping point is just another example of how photography is constantly being redefined.”⁵

  As ever, the tools are not the problem. The real enemies are the companies and people that are driving the tools into the mainstream at scale. The companies that train their models on unlicensed datasets, drawn from copyrighted material. The people that buy into their own bullshit about AI and AGI being some kind of evolutionary and/or quasi-biblical moment.

  For every post shitting on Annie Leibovitz, you must have at least twenty posts actively shitting on OpenAI and their ilk, pushing for ethically-sourced and maintained datasets, pushing for systemic change to the resource management of AI systems, including sustainable data centers.

  The larger conceptual questions are around authenticity and around hard work. If you use AI tools, are you still an authentic artist? Aren’t AI tools just a shortcut? Of course, the answers are ‘not necessarily’. If you’ve still done the hard yards to learn about your craft, to learn about how you work, to discover what kinds of stories and experiences you want to create, to find your voice, in whatever form it takes, then generative AI is a paintbrush. A weird-looking paintbrush, but a paintbrush nevertheless (or plasticine, or canvas, or glitter, or an app, etc. etc. ad infinitum).

  Do the work, and you too can be either as ambivalent as Leibovitz, or as surprised and delighted as you want to be. Either way, you’re still in control.

  Notes ↩︎

  1. Agence France-Presse 2024, ‘Photographer Annie Leibovitz: “AI doesn’t worry me at all”’, France 24, viewed 26 March 2024, <https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240320-photographer-annie-leibovitz-ai-doesn-t-worry-me-at-all>.
     ↩︎
  2. ibid. ↩︎
  3. See here, and with tiny edits for platform affordances here and here. What’s the opposite of POSSE? PEPOS? ↩︎
  4. I am somewhat biased as, at the time of writing, Dr. Bennett and I currently share a place of work. To look through their expanded (heh) works, go here. ↩︎
  5. Odell, T 2024, ‘New exhibition explores AI’s influence on the future of photography’, RMIT University, viewed 26 March 2024, <https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2024/mar/photo-2024>.
     ↩︎

• Push the button for a sweet treat

  I had grand plans of posting something about Godzilla today, but that will have to wait for these delightful rats. These tiny furry folx learned to associate pushing a little button with getting a sugar treat. As time progressed, though, they ended up just pushing the button for fun.

  The results are about as delightful as you’d expect.

  

  

  The project was led by French photographer Augustin Lignier, whose work explores the technography and performativity of photography. I came across the work due to the mighty Kottke, who quotes a New York Times piece where Lignier considers that the rats’ continued button-mashing as a neat analog for our addiction to social media.

  ---

  As platforms morph, shrink, converge, collapse all over the internet, one begins to wonder what the web of the imminent future might look like. While I did mention grassroots movements and community-run services like Neocities in my last post, the network effects that platforms like Substack, X, hell, even WordPress right here, can offer, are often more tempting than a cutesy throwback. That is to say nothing of the ease with which said platforms integrate with other services to maximise attention on their users.

  Substack and X are feeling the squeeze of the real world to greater and lesser degrees; the former as a safe space for Nazis, the latter as a haven for AI-generated deepfakes. But where one platform collapses, another will happily take its place, unless we all decide to opt out together.

  The internet of the future will be several interweaved different platforms, modes, nodes, devices, personalities, and communities. In a way it has always been so, but with its sheer ubiquity, the way it layers over and enfolds so many aspects of existence, thinking ‘the internet’ (or even ‘the Internet’, as autocorrect seemed to cling to forever) as a monolith is now a waste of time.

• Back on the (block)chain gang

  My current writing project is around blockchain and the entertainment industries, and mostly involves sorting hype from legitimate ideas. This is one of the first not-super-conceptual academic pieces I’ve written, so it’s interesting to sort through a whole bunch of reportage, blogs, videos, and just get a sense of what the current atmosphere around something is.

  In this case, that ‘something’ is blockchain, crypto, NFTs, and how, in the wake of That Sale, everyone wants one, is selling one, or is just trying to understand one.

  In much of my work — particularly around cinema — the films I’m writing about, or the technology of film itself, has been around long enough for a wide variety of opinions and theories to have circulated and settled. In this case, with web3, it does occasionally feel like it’s happening live.

  If you try to get above the arguments, rage, and gatekeeping (I see you, unnamed social media platform rhyming completely unironically with ‘bitter’), the kinds of questions being asked are legitimately interesting and important. And those contributing to the discussion are a unique mixture of techs/programmers/engineers, artists, philosophers, and media pundits.

  Soon, a favourable peer review pending, I guess I’ll be one of them.

• Interview with Intellect Books

  In the chaos of 2020 I didn’t post this, but here’s a chat I had with the lovely James from Intellect Books. Mostly we chat about war and cinema (my first book The Hollywood War Film was published by Intellect in 2017), but there’s a small nod at the end of the conversation to Material Media-Making.

  We also spent a little time talking about publishing your first book, writing the proposal etc.

  Part 1

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  Part 2

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• Ziggy played guitar

  

  I can’t remember precisely when I bought The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but I can definitely remember the first time I listed to it all the way through. I was catching the train from Sydney to Melbourne for a wedding in 2006. I’d been a Bowie fan throughout my teenage years; any Queen fan naturally transitions to the Thin White Duke at some point. But listening to and absorbing such a perfectly-crafted, wonderfully rich album was a life-changer.

  Musically, it’s diverse. From blues to rock to old-school R&B, the album has all of it in spades, each track with its unique Ziggy-ish twist. And it’s spacey and druggy and rocky and everything in between. More than that, though, if you let the words and the music roll over you for the album’s length, it becomes a transcendent experience. Think of Major Tom, now returned to Earth and suffering the worst kind of comedown/depression; or better still, having flown through a wormhole (a la 2001: A Space Odyssey) and met the Starman himself. What kind of stories would they tell each other? What prophecies would Ziggy pass on? 11 prophecies in all, ranging in length from two five minutes, and making use of some of the most iconic musicians and styles and motifs of the era.

  Do yourself a favour and track down the D.A. Pennebaker-directed concert film of the album. This was another of those revelatory high school moments. It’s a top film in and of itself, capturing the persona of Ziggy in that signature grainy Pennebaker style, making the character seem grounded, real, if unapproachable and ethereal.

  It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling. Rumours had been circulating that Bowie was unwell for a decade or more, but he was a name, a figure, a character, that, despite removing himself from public life, was always so present. He was at the forefront of popular culture, not really giving a damn, for nearly half a century. I came to Bowie late, but I fell head over heels for the man, the music, the myth. Funny how culture, art, music in particular, can make you feel like you know someone. Suffice to say, there’s a hole in my heart today. Listening to the music dulls the ache, but it will take some time to heal.

  And he was alright, the band was altogether.
  Yes he was alright, the song went on forever.
  And he was awful nice,
  Really quite out of sight