{"id":74946,"date":"2024-11-21T00:15:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T05:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=74946"},"modified":"2024-11-21T00:15:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T05:15:22","slug":"blurry-morphing-and-surreal-a-new-ai-aesthetic-is-emerging-in-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/blurry-morphing-and-surreal-a-new-ai-aesthetic-is-emerging-in-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Blurry, morphing and surreal \u2013 a new AI aesthetic is emerging in film"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Type text into AI image and video generators, and you\u2019ll often see outputs of unusual,\u00a0sometimes creepy<\/a>, pictures.<\/p>\n

In a way, this is a feature, not a bug, of generative AI. And artists are wielding this aesthetic to create a new storytelling art form.<\/p>\n

The tools, such as\u00a0Midjourney<\/a>\u00a0to generate images,\u00a0Runway<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sora<\/a>\u00a0to produce videos, and\u00a0Luma AI<\/a>\u00a0to create 3D objects, are relatively cheap or free to use. They allow filmmakers without access to major studio budgets or soundstages to make imaginative short films for the price of a monthly subscription.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve studied these new works as the co-director of the\u00a0AI for Media & Storytelling<\/a>\u00a0studio at the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n

Surveying the increasingly captivating output of artists from around the world, I partnered with curators Jonathan Wells and Meg Grey Wells to produce the\u00a0Flux Festival<\/a>, a four-day showcase of experiments in AI filmmaking, in November 2024.<\/p>\n

While this work remains dizzyingly eclectic in its stylistic diversity, I would argue that it offers traces of insight into our contemporary world. I\u2019m reminded that in both literary and film studies, scholars believe that\u00a0as cultures shift, so do the way we tell stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With this cultural connection in mind, I see five visual trends emerging in film.<\/p>\n

1. Morphing, blurring imagery<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In her \u201cNanoFictions\u201d series, the French artist\u00a0Karoline Georges<\/a>\u00a0creates portraits of transformation. In one short, \u201cThe Beast<\/a>,\u201d a burly man mutates from a two-legged human into a hunched, skeletal cat, before morphing into a snarling wolf.<\/p>\n

The metaphor \u2013 man is a monster \u2013 is clear. But what\u2019s more compelling is the thrilling fluidity of transformation. There\u2019s a giddy pleasure in seeing the figure\u2019s seamless evolution that speaks to a very contemporary sensibility of shapeshifting across our many digital selves.
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