slapstick can be so lesbian if you believe

let's say you have a patron and an artist. the patron gives instructions on what they want, and when they snap their fingers, the artist makes it following their instructions—making their own interpretations and decisions on everything that wasn't specified based on their skill, experience, thought process, and personal inclinations. maybe the patron picks the subject, the style, the colors, general composition, whatever. maybe the patron says they want a person with rosy cheeks sitting under a tree. it's still the artist who has to decide what EXACT shade someone's rosy cheeks are and how to blend it with the rest of the skin and how to convey that while still adhering to their lighting and texture and level of detail requirements, what EXACT angle each leaf should be facing, etc etc.

in that scenario, you wouldn't really call the patron an artist. the artist is an artist and the art is art, because someone did make it on purpose, but the patron didn't really make it so much as cause it to be made. they prompted it to the same extent a boss prompts work; the boss didn't do the work. you wouldn't call a film director a cameraman or an actor, no matter how much they influenced the acting and camerawork in the movie. between the patron, the boss, and the director, there is a middle actor who actually executes the task. with gen ai there is a patron giving instructions and snapping their fingers, and rosy cheeks and maple trees appear. the work is prompted and then happens, but it's not quite made. because there's a distinct middle actor between the ai "artist" and the image, and that middle actor is unthinking. and a lot of what we use to determine what's art comes down to choices during production made with conscious intent.

photography is art even though it's captured instantly from real life (with the click of a button, even) because the photographer still had to make a lot of choices re: lighting, timing, camera settings, location, etc, in a way that's very hands-on and requires a certain amount of artistic knowledge and skill. they clicked a button, but nothing assembled the scene for them. they had to find the Right tree and the Right person at the Right time of day and season and then they CHOOSE to capture the Exact Right Second of that scene and that's the photo. collages are art even though they use other people's art (i.e. photographs cut from magazines) because there is intent in how the components are selected and arranged and skill in how they are cut. every component is directly, consciously, and individually assessed, chosen, and assembled by the artist. readymades are art even though they're just an object someone declared an art piece because someone took a part of the world around them and changed its context. the artistic act is the selection, removal, and declaration as art. and, of course, someone made the object to begin with. (you could compare this to the film director. you wouldn't call the director a cameraman, but they are still an artist; the readymade artist is not a urinal craftsman, but they are an artist. if that makes sense). there are always conscious decisions being made by the artist.

now this argument is far from perfect. you could argue ai art steals other artists' work as much as collages do, just down to the pixel-by-pixel level. you could argue the prompt revision process in ai is a process of conscious assessment and selection by someone, and therefore as involved as a readymade or photography piece would be. you could argue that every component of every photograph, collage, or readymade AREN'T chosen, and that im holding ai art to a higher standard than these. you could argue that my distinction between "making" something and "causing something to happen" is super vague and ultimately bullshit bc of how much it relies on connotation. i don't think that what ive laid out here is irrefutable proof that ai art isn't art, and i don't know that i need it to be. it's just the best way i can think to express why it doesn't feel right to me and so many others.

the thing is, i don't want to dismiss something as "not art" just because it doesn't FEEL like art to me, and i worry that a lot of the arguments for why it doesn't count as art are a little bit regressive and reactionary. there are many types of art that are now generally considered art that were once dismissed like that, and as someone who considers pretty much everything that someone claims to be art as art, i don't love that a side i agree with seems to be arguing from such a knee jerk "just cuz" kinda place. my definition relying on conscious individual consideration might be arbitrary and reactionary in and of itself. maybe my position will change in time. it's hard to say.

TO BE 100% CLEAR: FUCK AI ART. I DO NOT RESPECT IT BECAUSE IT IS UNETHICAL. my point here is that anti-ai art arguments probably shouldn't rely on accusations of "soullessness" just because their method of engagement is different (and because any definitions reliant on things like effort, process, time, skill, use of machinery, etc kind of draw arbitrary lines imo; plus there's an urge to dismiss things you disagree with as "not real art", and i think that's dangerous and reactionary and we should be careful of it)—but also that i totally get why people say they're soulless, because a prompter is so distant from the art that it doesn't feel accurate to call them artists at all.