Refluxagram

This is a 2023 public art project that aims to explore the content biases, aesthetic biases, and ethical implications of copyright and plagiarism in the artificial intelligence tool Midjourney. 

This year, every post from the official Instagram account will be fed into an AI with a minimal number of prompts, using the "imagine" and "blend" commands on V4.

The content biases of Midjourney have been demonstrated in early experiments, in which, when an abstract image was used as input, the AI has shown a tendency to produce grids with three abstract images and one image featuring a white woman. However, when inputting images of two men of colour standing next to each other, Midjourney resisted producing a similar image, preferring a mix of ethnicities and genders (e.g., one black male and one white female).

Midjourney also appears to have its own baseline aesthetic, with a moderate dramatic and slightly painterly effect. Furthermore, it seems to have an aesthetic bias driven by cultural assumptions of beauty and symmetry.

The project also raises questions of copyright and plagiarism as "Refluxagram" uses images from Instagram. The artist Richard Prince faced controversy for using images from the same social media platform, but he was reproducing them as opposed to reprocessing them. Midjourney re-creates and "re-imagines" the input images, but despite the fact that a brand new image is output, the results are often very recognisably close to the original. This is a real-time exploration and the project awaits a response from stakeholders and the community

Plagiarism is also an issue as some of the images produced by Midjourney are straightforward "re-imaginings", while others are in the style of existing creatives. This is a hot topic in culture and is being explored in real-time throughout the project. Already, the prompt "McCurry" (presumably referencing photographer Steve McCurry) has been banned, and the implications of plagiarism will be investigated as the project continues.

Above each post is a link to the original official Instagram post, upon which the Midjourney image is based. 

This is a 2023 public art project that aims to explore the content biases, aesthetic biases, and ethical implications of copyright and plagiarism in the artificial intelligence tool Midjourney. 

This year, every post from the official Instagram account will be fed into an AI with a minimal number of prompts, using the "imagine" and "blend" commands on V4.

The content biases of Midjourney have been demonstrated in early experiments, in which, when an abstract image was used as input, the AI has shown a tendency to produce grids with three abstract images and one image featuring a white woman. However, when inputting images of two men of colour standing next to each other, Midjourney resisted producing a similar image, preferring a mix of ethnicities and genders (e.g., one black male and one white female).

Midjourney also appears to have its own baseline aesthetic, with a moderate dramatic and slightly painterly effect. Furthermore, it seems to have an aesthetic bias driven by cultural assumptions of beauty and symmetry.

The project also raises questions of copyright and plagiarism as "Refluxagram" uses images from Instagram. The artist Richard Prince faced controversy for using images from the same social media platform, but he was reproducing them as opposed to reprocessing them. Midjourney re-creates and "re-imagines" the input images, but despite the fact that a brand new image is output, the results are often very recognisably close to the original. This is a real-time exploration and the project awaits a response from stakeholders and the community

Plagiarism is also an issue as some of the images produced by Midjourney are straightforward "re-imaginings", while others are in the style of existing creatives. This is a hot topic in culture and is being explored in real-time throughout the project. Already, the prompt "McCurry" (presumably referencing photographer Steve McCurry) has been banned, and the implications of plagiarism will be investigated as the project continues.