Working with poetic illustrations and political art, I interact with artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that simultaneously mirror and critique our evolving digital landscape. My work probes the interplay between art and technology, mirroring the shifting social and political currents of our time.

The inclusion of AI in my artistic process provides a distinctive avenue to address pertinent events and express viewpoints that may defy verbal articulation. I integrate these pictures into my communication process with the audience on social networks; they become an integral part of the mechanism for generating meaning. It serves as a medium for the otherwise inexpressible, providing a platform for me to voice my dissent against the realities of war and oppression.

AI creators often shy away from themes of politics, sex, and violence - themes that have historically been integral to the art world but are now seen as disquieting disruptions to the comfort of everyday life. This, I believe, is symbolic castration. It resonates with Baudrillard's concept of a crime against reality, the idea of an encapsulated world that shields its inhabitants from confronting the trauma of the actual world. This protective veneer is enforced by bots, the mechanized custodians of this sanitized reality.

MidJourney, an AI platform I work with, attempted to suppress certain themes by censoring its query dictionary. A prime example is the prohibition of the word "gore". A curious fallout was the exclusion of the phrase "candy gore" - an innocuous term referring to a lollipop. This, to me, signifies a profound misunderstanding. Language is isomorphic to reality; it mirrors the complexity of our lived experience. Banning words cannot change reality, it merely leaves a void in our linguistic framework, a void that, inevitably, gets filled with euphemisms or other linguistic bypasses. Ironically, MidJourney now employs another AI as a watchdog, enforcing its rules of sanitization. In the context of my artwork, I draw upon Baudrillard's theories to critique the sanitization of our online spaces by AI. The erasure or censoring of certain themes, such as violence or politics, results in an environment that veers towards hyperreality - a world stripped of uncomfortable truths and difficult discourses. As an artist, I am committed to challenging this narrative.

For the sake of consistency and the radical nature of the artistic gesture, this artist statement is composed using ChatGPT.