Creating in the age of AI

Was there a perfect time on the internet?

Nowadays there seems to be constant nostalgia for one period of internet history or another. The renaissance of the 2000s ‘frutiger aero’ aesthetic went massive a couple of months ago, and now it seems everyone wants to be harkening back to the days of drawn on finger moustaches and galaxy leggings. Hell, I’ve even been invited to a 2016 themed party tonight!

It seems no one can escape the desire to return to a time on the internet when it was only slime videos and cat memes. 

I, despite my churlish tone, am not exempt. 

I mean, why else, in 2026, would one start a blog? Yeah, yeah, I’ve always written a diary I’ve secretly wanted to be read aloud (because I regard my thoughts as super cool and sexy), and I’ve always wanted to be a writer in some capacity or another. But truly there is a deep desire for ‘simpler times’ (if they ever really were), that even I cannot escape. 

The internet, for a lot of people, used to feel like a community. Instagram used to show you your favourite friends recent activities, their outfits, projects, even art. And of course there were big creators that the platform pushed. But now, it seems, your friends and community get trodden on in the interest of getting a hooking reel in front of you until it’s line and sinker. The home page is just content upon content upon ads upon ads. You won’t know what's going on in your friends lives, but you’ll sure as hell be on our app for the next 7 years of your life. 

It just feels dishonest, and distasteful. 

And that seems only natural, in the face of the ugly, inhuman heads that keep rearing.

Because the truth is, a lot of what is being platformed today, isn’t even human.

Recently, one of the biggest artists on spotify, Sienna Rose, having very quickly rose to fame in the soul and RnB music scene, is having her humanity questioned. There are videos of her online promoting her music, with no confession of human or not, where she seems suspiciously to change age drastically, from post to post. 

And it’s in this age of human-vestigation and AI artists skyrocketing above hard-working and long-earned real musicians, that we are trying to create.

It’s easy to reach for the little brain in your pocket. The answer to any question, without stopping to think for yourself. I think this is debilitating for artists. Our work is becoming less and less valuable and harder and harder to make. 

I believe, the best art is made through limitation, and boredom.
When you have all the stimulation and content you need, your brain does not have space to push something out itself. And when you have a micro person, an almost human, giving you a slightly-less-good version of the idea you could have created, it's hard to put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard. 

And on another level, the result the computer gives you is hard to disregard. Is it not deemed perfect? And, furthermore, does it not alleviate the fear spoken of, and felt, in the last update? That, really, your version wouldn't be perfect anyway. 

That’s one of the most insidious things about the AI age, in my opinion. You don't have to fail anymore. You can simply ask chat GPT to make your album, or paint your picture or sew your… clothes…

Aaaaand now we have hit my favourite part of me talking. The good bit. The bit where we spark hope into the generation again.

Because you can prevail. 

You are the process and the creator. Whether or not large language models are going to replace human art, they CANNOT replace human experience. Maybe to everyone else the art might look the same (although to even that I am still doubtful), but nothing will make YOU feel like you are making the damn thing, except making the damn thing. 

And what is art except the human experience becoming manifest? Making physical the thing you feel, see, hear, touch, taste. There is communication in that emotional vulnerability. And other humans feel the story, and the emotion, and the experience. 

That is what is so beautiful about it. 

And that relatableness is only INCREASED with mistakes!

More people might like your art, that they can see themselves in the way you haven't quite crossed your t’s, or dotted your i’s. Maybe they'll think: ‘I also put hearts next to my name when I sign something’, ‘I know how it feels to leave half the canvas a streaky mess having been burnt out by the greatness of the first half’.

Furthermore, even ‘perfect’ art is made imperfect. Film grain is added to photos, people are up in arms about the pervasive  ‘Netflix lighting’ that seems to have pulled all artistic beauty out of films in the modern age. We prefer when the art is made imperfectly. 

Perhaps AI might be exactly what us perfectionists need. Already, anti-AI trendsetters are showing that people watch the dirty, messy, rotten version of things in the wake of AI ‘perfection’. Consumers of content seem to like the low poly animations, and half rendered builds, the inside of the behind of the thing that's polished on its surface. There is a stream of new, decidedly human, and decidedly imperfect, content, art, makeup, and style. This might be the incoming storm of protesting AI art, a new age of imperfections highlighted, and  mistakes praised for their proof, of growth and of passion. 

All that to say, I have my doubts about an averaging software being able to truly replace real, human art. But I am not an expert in large language models, and can only write with my hope for the importance of the human experience at the forefront. 

Be completely human, let the experience speak through you, and whatever you do, don’t let AI stop you from creating whatever it is you create!

Never stop never being perfect.

H.G.Lightly  x

Inspiration Nation

This week I’ve spent a lot of time on the sofa in front of the tv. 

That's okay! I still felt the inspiration claw its way out of the tv and worm incessantly into my brain. I’ve been finding it easier and easier to scrape inspiration out of my activities lately, since I’ve taken to noting them down. Like the more I try and find inspiration, the more I find. 

I was watching Girls, and was overcome with the deire to write a TV show. Of course I didn't quite have the skills to simply sit down and write award winning television. But I started something. 

It’s called ‘Let it Echo into Infinity’, which, I agree, is an incredibly silly name, but I wrote the whole thing in one. And also, y’know, I will stick by my work. I liked the name. No attempt to make you know that I know that it's silly. It's worthwhile to me! That's why it goes here, even if I don’t feel ready to show anyone else yet.

It was a lovechild of this blog, too, as it’s about inspiration, and working through difficult times and burnout, and the importance of art to people's lives. 

I think writing this blog has been a very forward productive force for my inspiration.

I was also inspired by my writing group that meets on a Wednesday. I wrote a small article for my University magazine about it. 

Creation Station

I have no pictorial art for you this week. I haven't gotten any images onto paper. Not every week can you make every type of art though! And when I feel the pull of the brush I’m sure this section will come alive with colours again!

For now, I will post the small writing projects from this week on a new page, entitled ‘The Blog Age’, for all my work made while this page is up and running.

The Beginning of Spring

The sun came out last week. First time in what feels like a million years. And upon wandering the sweet, snowdrop spangled streets of Leeds, I was reminded of something. 

We wait. Like a winter bear hibernating, we wait for inspiration. We expect it to twinkle cheekily through the branches of a busy day, with a sunny smirk, and we can roll our eyes, ‘you know what Mr. Inspiration can be like’, and grab at the gods rays before they inevitably slink back behind the clouds again.

I don't like that wait. I have wasted so many days waiting for the sun in winter, sometimes, I think you have to start making the light yourself.

Inspiration is not a passive act, but an active one. 

Last year, for a creative writing assignment, we were asked go out into the city, and observe three things. Write them down, write about them, that sort of thing.  

It stuck with me a long time. People, lifting heavy bags from Lidl into the boot of their car, birdsong that makes you think of your childhood home, clouds passing behind the winter blanched trees. 

It was like something was being replenished, as I walked around, or sat on a cold bench, or mused upon a frozen lake. Peace was filling up slowly inside me.

Noticing the world, consciously, conscientiously, that’s the inspiration. Or it's one part of a two part system, the second part is just doing. 

You can't always be putting-out-there, sometimes you need to take in. 

This world can make you feel like a bad person for stopping and smelling the flowers. 

I find a constant catholic guilt that likes to follow, like the wafted scent of dog behind a wet hound, in capitalism’s wake. We see it everywhere. In podcast bro’s insistence that they wake up at 3am and live double the life we do, after a 9-6 you need a dropshipping side hustle, always getting your ‘money up’ on the perpetual ‘grindset’. Constantly increasing your yield, as a person, compensating for the time you take to breathe. It's everywhere, and it eviscerates any concept of peace, or breaks, or a moment for breath.

But that leaves you really down trodden, beaten up by your own mentality. And it can leave you totally and exhaustively empty. 

It is human nature to pause for a moment, at the top of a mountain, sit on a crag and stretch your legs. And for the people that do have the ability to take a deep breath and observe, it could fuel you.

Constantly numb to your surroundings, busy with this and that, vaguely dissociated in the humdrum of daily life, it can feel like you are waiting indefinitely for inspiration to strike. 

It can feel uncomfortable, and shameful, you might not even realise you’re avoiding taking breaks. But to outpour you need to have a full tank of fuel. And while a lot of that in the rest of your life can be friends, that refill your social battery, or watching a comfort show for emotional refreshment, I believe that creative replenishment comes from your surroundings.

That's what blossoms into creativity. The sun glinting through the blades of grass when spring is on the turn, remembering your childhood in the stretch of grass between here and there. Let yourself watch, not to consume, just to be. The world goes by. The bird sound becomes song in your chest, the gravel underfoot a beat of the drum, and the wind in the trees is the orchestra arrangement, you start hearing in your dreams. Art comes out of you as infinitely as if you are the sun.

Never stop never being perfect,

I was ill last weekend, so I didn't manage to get a post out. Like really ill. Like in bed for 3 days, moaning from pain ill. But I’m feeling smashing now! So, sorry for unreliability. Hopefully I won't be too ill to write again!

H.G. Lightly. x.

Inspiration Nation

Talking to my housemate and friend has led to a lot of inspiration this week.
Outside in the sun, on a picnic bench, I was told about her grandad, and how he lived life: ‘side quest to side quest’. Apparently, he opened a pub with his friend of ten years on a whim, and would plan each fifth, milestone, birthday, for five years. Never not planning a party sounds like a good way to live i think.

Another source of inspiration, from a slightly unconventional source. When watching Louis and the Brothel, 2003, I found a distinct kinship with one the prostitutes: a woman named Hayey. Struggling with alcoholism and running from the memory of an attempted murder suicide by her late husband, she managed to come across as uncomfortably quick and witty, and full of a destructive, but beautiful, fire. Like she had come out of ashes winged in fire. Come out of death full of life.

Creation Station

This was a little doodle I did because my freind was so cute she just had to be put in Moomin Valley. 

I'd like to redo this one with more time, and creative liberty, trying to deconstruct how the Moomin creators decided on what animals to make people, and use that to inform it. 

These are a pair of portraits I drew trying to test out different drawing software on my ipad.  They came completely just free from my hand, whatever I was feeling I drew. I think its cool how they kind of mirror each other's colours. I also think there is perhaps an obvious superior software?