In an earlier post, I discussed using AI commercially and making images that I would not usually have anything to do with. Since my work is always an inquiry focused on technology and the body, it’s probably true that the more I become acquainted with the tech, the better. And I would not be learning so much had I not gone down this path, so I am grateful for that opportunity.
Due to the nature of the job, questions around censorship, the female form, and guardrails remain at the forefront of my mind.
In the previous post, I wrote;
“I have come to the conclusion that these image-machines surely must have been trained on a store of dead or sleeping plastic models. Perhaps there is a vast store of Sleeping Beauty Cindy Doll images somewhere on the internet. Is porn really dominated by sexual fantasies about sleeping plastic ladies?” These questions remain. But the following image triggers a new layer of questions.
Recently, my working partner Anastasia wrote a prompt inspired by the Tarot death card (as required) and between us, we generated a plethora of frightful-looking digital spectres (see above). They reminded me of a book I had read about mostly male artists painting and photographing dying and dead women called Over her Dead Body by Elisabeth Bronfen (2006). I wrote about it when studying a course titled Self and Other in 2017 (which was more tightly focused on class than the psychology and phenomenology of self and other than I had expected). I mentioned the book to Anastasia and I think she believed I was joking when I suggested we might pursue this as a potential project. There is an historical trend and it is certainly worth considering. We would not be alone: see artists Joel Peter Witkins and Isabelle Mège who I wrote about a few years ago in preparation for one of the earliest academic essays I submitted. Sally Mann is another, whose images of corpses in Body Farm (2001) elicited mixed responses.
Given the overwhelming number of generations that have emerged in our efforts to deliver what our client has requested, where women look positively lifeless even when we are not requesting images inspired by the Death Tarot card, this feels like an extremely valid avenue of inquiry, despite (or perhaps because of) the perennial problem of AI images often being somewhat ‘thin’.
Bronfen, E. (2006) Over her dead body: death, femininity, and the aesthetic. (1. digital, on-demand ed) Manchester, UK New York, NY: Manchester University Press.
Mann, S. (2001) Body Farm At: https://www.sallymann.com/body-farm (Accessed 29/09/2023).
Witkin, JP and Mège, I. (1990) Nègre’s Fetishist At: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4859442 (Accessed 29/09/2023).