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Vanessa Williams
@fridgebuzz.eth
Scrolling through this channel it’s disappointing to see the overwhelming majority of images are of women—scantily clad, or idealized. Given a magical machine that can make any picture at all, are beautiful, slim, young (usually white or Asian) women all that we can imagine? As an artist, have you ever asked yourself: why am I placing a conventionally pretty, young woman in this image? Why not a man? Or an old woman? Or two teenaged boys? Or a dog? If you’re sexually oriented towards women, are you making art or expressing your sexual fantasies? If you’re a woman, is she meant to be you? If so, do you look anything like her? Or do you wish you did? Is that why you put her there? I’m not going to lecture about “the male gaze.” Either you know about it already or you can look it up. But I hope people will think and look at little more critically at what people who call themselves AI artists—including themselves—are making.
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Alien Honey👽🖤
@juliakponsford
I hear you, one thing to note is it can be very difficult to get a normal looking woman with some AI models, they will almost always come out sexy even if you aren't trying lol
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Vanessa Williams
@fridgebuzz.eth
Yes, @bluecockatoo reminded me of that. I have noticed this problem myself. Although with a bit of work it *is* possible to get an old woman, a man, a Black person, etc. So the tools disadvantage us, but as artists we’re still making the choice to let the default rule. That seems, at the very least, lazy. Thank you for engaging in the discussion!
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Blue Cockatoo
@bluecockatoo
Over time, I've worried about "appropriation" with making art that I might sell that depicted people who I'm not a member of their ethnicity or culture. If I do make art like that I want to be extremely respectful, but I've seen some artists get a lot of backlash for projects when their own culture/race is made public. For example I remember a controversy last year with a white guy making heavily stylized art of his "inner demons" that depicted what seemed like black men. He said that they weren't black men but dark skinned demons, but... Everyone assumed he was a black artist at first so there was some outrage when it was revealed he was white. It's safer to just stick with your own cultural background so your intentions are not misinterpreted. That being said, white and asian women are so generally put up as standards of beauty that they are almost "generic" and can't be appropriated. So I think that's another reason a lot of them are often featured and it seems "safe" to do so.
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Vanessa Williams
@fridgebuzz.eth
Hmm… I’m not sure how I feel about that. Does simply representing a person with a different skin colour than your own amount to cultural appropriation? If so, I guess I had better be careful not to put any white people in my art! That’s silly, of course, but it proves there’s something a bit whack about that idea. If I made a series of works about, say First Nations mythology, *that* would probably be cultural appropriation. On the other hand we do this all the time. When we use imagery from ancient Egypt. That’s cultural appropriation, isn’t it? But no one seems to care. In other words the definition is very slippery and fluid and seems more of an issue with certain groups than with others. I can also sort of see why making demons Black wouldn’t go over well, but it sounds like the artist wasn’t in the wrong, just misinterpreted. You can’t please everyone. Thanks for raising the issue.
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Alien Honey👽🖤
@juliakponsford
IIRC that artist was also sort of ripping off / being inspired by an iconic artist so that was an additional layer. And I think* they were included in a black artist curation and didn't say anything but I can't remember their handle to check
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Blue Cockatoo
@bluecockatoo
I think there's also a distinction between "ancient" cultures and mythologies like Egyptian or Greek that no longer have active communities and "modern" cultures like most First Nations groups that still have active members and have been colonized or worse in the not that distant past. I also think there's a difference between making art that respects the traditions of modern cultures but isn't for sale so there is no profit being taken vs art that is made specifically to be sold and that culture getting no benefit from it when they've already been taken advantage of. It's a really crude analogy, but maybe ancient cultures are more like "public domain" where modern cultures are still like "copyrighted" themes. Can you reuse copyrighted material in your art for personal use? Yes. Can you sell it? Well, not legally or ethically. It's a fine line in some cases, but one that we can easily not cross by being sensitive to by just avoiding representing modern cultures we aren't a part of.
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