20.09.2025
Binge the Real Thing
Even the discriminating eye is set back by the new barbarians.
As comedian Jerry Seinfeld observed: hair attached by follicle to the scalp may be admired, caressed, and, yes, even kissed. But when a strand is detached from the skull—free to roam—it instantly becomes among the most reviled of objects. The zenith of ghastliness is the discovery of one of these filaments of fibrous keratin in one’s sandwich…or worse, for some reason, when drawn up draped over one’s spoon—from soup. This image is rivalled only by the trespassing house fly, frenetically eyeing the sandwich of leftover roast beef, or your precious pea and ham. Remember, too, the fly is covered in hair, albeit short, keenly groomed back, with the fly’s own spit. This is not to impugn one who rambles under a well-constructed hairpiece. If, however, said wig, or toupée is of quality, it goes unnoticed, strangers happily oblivious, unperturbed by the pretender mane, slicked with taming spit, or not. But was there ever a cheer squad for the rug, generally? For the rug itself, likely not. For its skilled creator, certainly. So too for those many other specialist practitioners whose delicate arts elevate us. Among them are those who work closely with the dearly departed, having them appear they are merely mid-snooze, ready to rise for tea and scones…or chicken soup? Mentioned there was the universal restorative. On that cue I could easily have taken to a tangent of related food memories; of the real things. This would go quickly to my apparently endless search for the equal of my mother’s cheesecake. So far, the next-to-conclusive reality—for me, at least—is that all there is to be found now is the slim wedge of cruelly cold counterfeit café cake. It’s a wish that, just as purveyors of gelato offer a taster, cafés ought do likewise with baked goods. Even if only so a discriminating customer might be free to retort: This… ‘cake’?… it’s coming up short.
It’s likely you’ve observed the budding of AI.
Dispiriting is witnessing the widespread marvelling at the flood of artificial intelligence gimcrack. Marvelling. Marvelling at barely comprehensible volumes of banal output; broad-acre scraped from a globe of IP, processing power poaching water supplies, draining the straining power grid under gargantuan demand.
Are we there yet?! Not too much further…
The new thing always abounds, always will because its charms so easily and seductively overwhelm the instinct to resist. All the nascent concerns about the deleterious effects of AI were hit and run victims, barely off the kerb at the crosswalk. AI, embedded in countless termination notices, welled up like tsunami, making landfall everywhere, dumping ashore; the countless reacting like Téa Leonie burying her face in a loved-one’s shoulder, bracing for impact. This isn’t mixing copha and coco pops for chocolate crackle time.
Even a little reading on the subject throws up distinct outlines for a copacetic but dystopian future, shot through by immaculate dross. The pixel-pimped smooth-as forehead spackled to high definition, Manga-plumped eyes and cheeks like GT fenders under Alpine sun, as dead-eyed as a mounted trout. For many—admittedly beyond a certain age—most of it doesn’t mean much of anything, except that it is no more than digi-kitsch missing an embedded drop-dead end-date. I’ve just heard an accomplished New Zealand artist say AI gives him the heebie-geebies. He’s not alone. The requirement now seems we must run a fact-check over almost all of it. This look real to you?! It’s now full-time sorting through the polyester to find the silk.
I’ve read that a tech start-up plans to ‘reconstruct’ Orson Welles’ 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons. The second feature film by the boy genius was infamously cut down by almost an hour on the orders of studio management, new—happier—ending filmed. A plan to reconstitute the many missing scenes by using AI means one thing for certain: it won’t be of Orson. The Welles credit would then be shifted to one side by a pretender that cannot know the mind and the practice of the artist in flow. Erm, Mr. Welles… Will something like this, do?
Opening with the Seinfeld bit was to touch on how it’s within the genuine article where the essential truth stands. In the creative sphere, human expression executed and refined by personal exertion can make such an impact, that there really is a pleasure in the knowledge of an other’s accomplishment, in imagining an other’s commitment to accumulate the required and necessary skills to, first, craft toward their own personal and private satisfaction, and then to present their work, releasing it to the world. It’s in the conception and the making of the work that an organic origination can deliver its own complimentary element of wonder.
In the execution of the creation, the work itself becomes the real thing.
Late last year, I was introduced to an online channel that celebrates the creative in a particular realm. I’ve rationed my viewing of its more than two-hundred and fifty episodes to a few per week. It’s now to patience, new editions coming only every week, or so. Researched, written and presented by an aficionado—a creative himself—the specialization records and, thereby honours, the remarkable works of history’s illustrators, going back something more than two-hundred years. Many near-forgotten, their works had enlivened not only literature, magazines, style, design, humour, culture and society, but everyday life for people of all ages. From realism to fantasy to science fiction. It’s a monumental ongoing project that tracks the imagination of those who wielded the pencil, pen, brush, charcoal, watercolour, gouache, acrylic, and oil. They placed their work before more people than have likely seen fine art in galleries, for the illustrators works came to their audiences, not least with the countless millions of books and editions that animated imagination everywhere. You may see the sterling efforts of this gentleman on the Pete Beard YouTube channel.
~~~
Earnest eyes on their project’s tree, a Granny, and a sun,
Paint tubes squish, colours mix, push hues, make them run
Shape a stem, form a flower, oh, I remember, and a bee,
Oh, no, what’s wrong? Quick, more green,
Gotta put my name, can’t see, brush aside my hair,
Hey Mum, look, even Gran’s in there,
That’s lovely, Dear, and ooh, purple in your fringe!
Go take a bath, then we’ll hang it on the fridge.
Hmmm, I love the wings on his bee,
Maybe the next Norman Lindsay...
~~~
Hmmm, one wonders if there’s an end-date for the creation of the finger-painted masterpiece hung upon the fridge.
TA