AI Art experience
I work as a photographer - and I love it. However, photography has limits; I can show a lot with it, but there's also a lot I can't show working lensbased. AI tools help me to visualize the invisible and to do this with a photographic look.
Personal experience
I can visualize the invisible with AI. in the case of the images of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, these images describe the present. What also works is to create past-referential images. I have created two series (one is finished, the other is a work in progress) in which I have translated over 30-year-old moments in my life that have not been photographed into the photographic look of the time. Example: In November 1991, when I had just turned 17, I went to the legendary Nirvana concert in Hamburg with my friends. None of us had a camera with us.
Unexpected thought
Fishnet tights are banned - seriously? It's really difficult to prompt them. A good combination of different languages and strategically used spelling mistakes helps. Who knows how much longer.
Description
Ataxia is a common symptom of multiple sclerosis that affects about 80% of people with the disease, it means the loss of muscle control in arms and legs. In my case, this means, among other things, that I suddenly seem to have forgotten how automatic activities such as writing or drawing work technically. The hand is still able to draw a simple line, but more complex processes - the aforementioned writing or drawing - no longer work. In addition, the hand no longer feels part of my body, it no longer has anything to do with me. After about half an hour or an hour, the spook is over again.
Process
Most symptoms of multiple sclerosis are not visible. I find it very difficult to describe the symptoms verbally in a way that is understandable for my listeners. I often get the impression that even the neurologist treating me doesn't fully understand it, even though she is very familiar with the subject. Midjourney, on the other hand, seems to understand me. I have described the symptoms and am surprised at how accurately the bot translates the descriptions. I have created a series of 15 pictures of the symptoms of (my) multiple sclerosis, the picture of ataxia is one of them.
Tools
Midjourney and Photoshop
Having exhibited as a photomedia artist internationally for 25 years, Boris’ refusal of the Sony World Photo Awards in 2023 kicked off a global debate about AI and art. His generated image PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electrician became ‘the picture that stopped the world’ (The Guardian) and an iconic symbol for a new era.
The strength of AI is its ability to combine given content and recognise existing structures. The weakness of image generators is their visual bias, a favoured interpretation of the prompt and a pre-set aesthetic. In Midjourney, every undefined woman is thus automatically long-haired, in her mid-20s and a model. Anyone who sees themselves as an artist must therefore offer more than the aforementioned Midjourney model in front of a beautiful background or a man with an animal head. You have to ask yourself the question ‘why?’, because otherwise the image remains mere visual icing devoid of spiritual and emotional nourishment.
For me, art is an individual expression of the ‘human condition’ with all its light and dark sides. To get there, you have to become aware of yourself, recognise your emotional abysses and individual influences. Only then can you utilise the artistic potential of AI, which consists of a journey inward. An exploration that is so subjective that it is not interchangeable.
Sabine von Bassewitz had the courage to embark on this exploration. Affected by multiple sclerosis herself, she tries to visually convey the physical sensation of an MS relapse, which consists of emotional upheaval, spasticity and movement disorders, among other things. And she succeeds in doing something that listing symptoms cannot: communicating with the viewer and creating understanding. It gives the generated image depth and incidentally shows where AI is superior to photography: in the depiction of inner states—be they physical or psychological.
