“I created,,,oh no I generated,,,oh,,,hmm created,,,”

#Introduction
In my work, I combine sculpture, installation, and performance to explore themes such as human evolution, mail-order brides, and artificial intelligence.
Mainly I’m working with identity as a theme. I start with the little things I find around me. My works are mostly inspired by newspaper articles, books, movies, conversations with friends and ideas that come to my mind when I rest. It's fun to start with such a small discovery and develop a work through communication with people. 
For instance of this can be when a thought develops gradually and is linked to a larger narrative. I therefore create works through personal stories and experiences to let others 
understand what I see and discover things that I did not know anything about through others' experiences and stories.

#From Homosa-fish-ence to Homosa-clima-ence
One of my projects called "From Homosa-fish-ence to Homosa-clima-ence" (Shuman, 2009) started with an article written about Neil Shuman,  a scientist which claimed that people with small holes in their ears had evolved from fish.

I found this particularly interesting, as I had one hole like this in my left ear. Using this as a basis, I explored the idea of what it means to be human, through the lens of evolution. 
Going from fish, while working on this project, I wondered how we could evolve and survive in our future, that is, the world after climate change.  For example, in one of the work, while I was standing in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, I realized that I myself and everyone in the audience was one of the objects of this place. I believe that we are standing in this infinitely connected chain. This project begins in the past, passes through the present, and moves towards the future.

#Catalogue girl
Another project called “Catalogue girl” (Thaikone in Norwegian) is about the struggles and identity that I face as an Asian woman after moving to Norway, asking questions such as “Why are Asian women being objectified?” 

Asian women are easily objectified and prejudiced. Also, sometimes their children and their marriages live with the stigma by others. Why can't (some) men endure their own loneliness? Why does the solution to relieve loneliness result in buying a woman? What is the relationship between them feeling repulsed by radical feminism and finding an Asian spouse? What are the traditional roles of men and women they seek? Do they really need a spouse to fill in their loneliness? 

Through the Catalogue Girl project, I explored how culture has evolved to view humans as objects, not individuals. In this paper-doll work, the portraits are generated AI photos. I found a website that produces AI-created portraits. Despite their realistic looks, the people pictured don’t exist. So I downloaded these images and used them as paper dolls. The perceived imbalance of power in the relationship makes it seem like a wife is an object to be owned by a man. This dynamic is mirrored with Paper dolls to tell a story of being in control over different aspects, such as the appearance and identity of someone else.

Recently, I discovered a program called DALL·E2. DALL·E 2 is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from natural language descriptions. This program creates images based on its users and their own databases, so it can produce entirely new creative results, but sometimes it creates images based on our biases. Through this program, I created an image with a keyword such as "young Asian wife and old Norwegian husband" (note that the AI program created these pictures through my description). 

The results are as follows: The characters in this picture are an image created by AI, which is a couple that does not exist anywhere, but at the same time, the awkwardness and bizarreness of the image created by AI are combined to create a strong feeling. Also, I only used the description "young Asian wife and old Norwegian husband," which showed that the hierarchical and power differences between them were expressed in the picture. In addition, I used AI to create these portrait images because I thought that every time people tried to explain Asia to me after I moved to Europe, they were talking about a version of Asia from their fantasy that did not exist anywhere. Likewise, the Thai Kone and Asian women exist there as people who exist in their prejudices. Through this work, I am using the concept of selling people or ideal partners to criticize how women, especially Asians, have been viewed as exotic objects to own, not people. I am using absurdity to understand and present the topic in a way to engages other people in critical reflection on human relations in and across cultures.

#Discussion
From an artist's point of view, the concept of using AI to generate art interests me. Exploring provokes a question, such as: If everyone could produce artworks that they want, whatever ideas they have, what is art if that happens?

“We just need to get used to the fact that nonhumans,
like humans, frame ways of being through their practices.” (Tsing, 2019, p.19)


When examining AI creations from an anthropocentrism perspective, familiar words such as cognition, understanding, creativity, learning, knowledge, and communication take on an unfamiliar tone. However, is what AI generates also considered art? This question is meaningless because contemporary art has evolved in tandem with the growth of science and technology. This evolution goes beyond mere change; it becomes a phenomenon enabling the production of new knowledge through art. With the emergence of AI, human relationships and modes of interaction with others or non-human entities undergo transformation, blurring the boundaries between human and non-human. This implies the need to redefine the meaning of 'human.' Humans and non-human entities coexist interdependently, evolving together, and the communication between AI and humans involves constant exchange of information, mutually shaping each other's states. In essence, their existence is mutually essential.

“For us humans, the flow and flush of waters sustain our own bodies, but also connect them to other bodies, to other worlds beyond our human selves. Indeed, bodies of water undo the idea that bodies are necessarily or only human. but they are just as likely a sea, a cistern, an underground reservoir of once-was-rain. Our watery relations within (or more accurately: as) a more-than-human hydro commons thus present a challenge” (Neimanis, 2017, p.2)

I usually said I “created” this photo through the AI and people corrected me you “generated” this photo through the AI”
How can define between creative and generative? also, there arises a question about whether the concept of 'creative' remains valid in contemporary art. The notion of creation has shifted from dimensions such as producing something new or making something to the act of selection, arrangement, and editing. This shift has been made possible through the progress in industry and technology, now manifesting in methods similar to AI. In this context, how should "generative" define meaning in the realm of art?
Modern and contemporary art have evolved in response to the advancements in science and technology. 

How should artists adapt and respond to the era post-AI? I tried seeking answers in Astrida Neimanis's 'Introduction: Figuring Bodies of Water,'

“Instead, we need to seek ‘ways of living with problems’. In other words, the challenge is not to solve the feminist paradox of bodies, but rather to experiment in how to live this paradox, and live it well. My conviction is that negotiating paradox is one of feminist theory’s best plays, and my proposition in this book is that the figuration of bodies of water might be one means for such experimentation.” (Neimanis, 2017, p.17)
“I prefer to understand anything ‘new’ as a rearticulation of and with (in the sense of ‘fitting together’) feminist work already wagered, and still ongoing. This is not to dismiss crucial disagreements about the efficacy of a posthuman politics, nor to claim that there is nothing new going on with current feminist posthumanism, but rather to remember that we are the condition of each other’s possibility (another lesson of water, as we’ll see). In this very specific sense, I do think we are all in this together.” (Neimanis, 2017, p.19) 
“The primary aim, then, of Bodies of Water is to reimagine embodiment along feminist and posthuman trajectories – but it is just as much about reimagining water. Put otherwise, changing how we think about bodies means changing how we think about water.” (Neimanis, 2017, p.19)
“In any case, paying closer attention to how we imagine water, and attempting to forge alternatives to our dominant imaginaries, is not just a thought experiment. It is a means for cultivating better ways of living with water now.” (Neimanis, 2017, p.21)
“Thinking water as a vast generality has indeed engendered some worrying consequences, as Linton outlines, but it also opens up to new kinds of thinking that can be empowering, and useful, in our current situation – for example in thinking about water as a universal human right. It also opens to one of the principal questions of this book – namely, of how to think our commonality as water bodies alongside, rather than against, a more specific politics of location. In any case, paying closer attention to how we imagine water, and attempting to forge alternatives to our dominant imaginaries, is not just a thought experiment. It is a means for cultivating better ways of living with water now.” (Neimanis, 2017, p.21)

But are the effects created (or generated) by AI really new? Is it really revolutionary? I would like to say that is not the case.
The central processing unit (CPU) of computer computations, crucial for data storage and processing, bears similarities to organic entities like humans and animals. The CPU in a computer receives external information, memorizes it, interprets commands from computer programs to perform operations, and outputs information externally. Amidst these changes, predictions are made regarding the evolving role of artists. Artists may explore alternative perspectives to bypass fixed classification systems, discover new meaningful connections, and navigate the realm between AI and humans to extract significance. Contemplating how to handle information, artists may apply AI in the artistic dimension, creating new systems of their own. The exploration involves understanding how processes, concepts, situations, and information function within the contemporary context, generating new languages in art through their interrelationships. Artists must ponder how to handle information and autonomously activate unique systems. In the future, artists may connect and interact with various forms of life and technologically driven entities, forming networks capable of cross-interaction. This will become the role of the artist in shaping the future.





List of References:

Shubin, N (2009), Your Inner Fish, Penguin Books Limited, Great Britain.

Tsing, A.L. (2019) ‘When the Things We Study Respond to Each Other: Tools for Unpacking “the Material”´, in More-than-Human.

Neimanis, A (2017), Bodies of Water, Bloomsbury Publishing, London.