Diana Nicholette Jeon | Cake

DIANA NICHOLETTE JEON┃STATEMENT ABOUT AI

I’ve been deep into exploring the generative AI space since late June, 2022. From day one, it has been my goal to make work that looks like work I would make using my photos or taking photos. I spent a long time in school and after developing a vision and a recognizable style, and I have no desire to simply turn that off or make work that looks “generic AI.”

One issue that has emerged from the recent text to image and image to image generators is “Can a work created in this media ever be considered a “photograph”, and if so, under what circumstances? Because of this, I have made imagery that explores this topic of AI recreating my photos, or when AI looks like various photo processes, or what happens when you print it and rephotograph it as part of the making process, each series attacked the problem from different angles. I wish I could say there is a consensus, but there is not.

Additionally, long before the Kashtanova copyright controversy, and the current fear of some photographers of “easy and fast AI work riding the coattails of actual photographers”, I intuited that the US Copyright Office would be looking for “transformative artist development” of the works they would otherwise deem as “created by a machine. As of yet, they have yet to allow an AI generated work to have copyright, but they give little transparency as to how many have applied and how transformative from the AI generation it must be.

Would my ideas be transformative for copyright purposes? Can a photograph of an AI print be a photograph, or strictly a reproduction? Did the artistic interventions I made transform the work into a photograph? Did any of these interventions transform the work from that of a machine, to my own? In my opinion, they do, as I usually use my own photographic imagery as the prompt, do significant color and “feel” work, and often composite with my AI or with my photos or both. Would the copyright office think so? It remains to be seen. With the lack of clear guidelines from them and an obtuse process that does not allow for :showing your work, or, I am not running to pay them

I like Ai. I am quite adept with the tools of it, and my work is very individual to me. It is also generally quite process driven and technically involved. I know many think otherwise, but that is true for me and how I use it.

CAKE – ARTIST’S STATEMENT

CAKE is a visual journey into the hearts and minds of American women. It reveals our fierce resilience and inner vulnerability amidst a landscape marked by shifting cultural norms and systemic inequalities. In June 2022, Supreme Court justices, several selected by a misogynistic President, now an adjudicated rapist, put the final nail in Roe v Wade’s coffin. Women in present day America have become the first generation with fewer autonomous rights than our mothers and grandmothers had. In 1765, Jean-Jacques Rousseau coined the phrase “Let them eat cake.” Today, the term commonly references a frivolous disregard for another’s plight. The current Republican war on women has led to the unthinkable: women being denied lifesaving and compassionate reproductive care, endangering our lives and future child-bearing abilities. As tone-deaf politicos cruelly continue working to create national bans and criminalize both providers of and women seeking reproductive care, my head hears only the “cake” speech. What year is this? The imaginary women I have conjured using AI are stand-ins for every woman engaged in the battle against these new and distressing societal restrictions. Each is a visual testament to our hearts, minds, and untold disenchantment stories. CAKE serves to initiate further dialogue, asking viewers to question minority, evangelicallydriven court rulings that inflict pain on the experience of American women today while serving as a call to action for viewers to confront uncomfortable truths and advocate for a more inclusive and equitable future. diananicholettejeonneart@gmail.com 1/1 http://diananicholettejeon