Infinite Eddies

Infinite Eddies (2023) explores the affective dimension of Midjourney’s generative AI mediating one source photograph of my father and myself. Prompts recontextualize our mediated image in other places, times, narrative realms, and visual aesthetics, yet across the set the configuration of our bodies, our expressions, remain constants. I theorize this manifest recurrence as affective elements present in the visual evocation of a relationship, expressed in myriad variations and mutations of proximity and arrangement. Playing with prompts to influence the computational temperature of output images, this recurrent, mutable element troubles Benjamin’s formulation of the aura of the original work of art, conjuring instead an aura of affect in social relation and physical configuration, retained across an expanding set of images that are not photographs. The aggregate effect is of eddies or ripples around the source photo, the unseen pebble dropped in a virtual pool. The spectrum of centripetal elements and patterns and centrifugal outliers open questions as to the extent of the data set determining the temperature of generated images, the parameters defining alignment (Christian) in the “magecraft of prompting” manifest in a spectrum of results from “Maximum Obedience” to “Maximum Surprise” (Kelly).

Launched for the Future of Writing Exhibition: A Symposium for Teachers.

 May 1, 2023.  University of Southern California.

Talk: "Infinity +1 and Infinite Eddies" MIX Storytelling in Immersive Media, British Library. July 7, 2023.