A juxtaposition of darkness and light characterises Easter: for Christians this celebration marks the Resurrection of Jesus three days after his death by crucifixion and therefore a moment of joyful triumph after Lenten, a season of fasting and penitence, and after the sorrows of the Holy Week. But, Easter time is also often marked by the last Winter snow, by heavy rains and cold temperatures, unpleasant weather conditions that often put us in a bad mood, casting a proverbial dark cloud on this Spring holiday.
Caspar David Friedrich's "Easter Morning" (1833) painting (from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum collection), embodies this sort of dichotomy between darkness and light.
In the painting women are going to the place where Jesus was buried, located outside the city, carrying jars with spices and balm to care for Jesus' body.
The lower half of the canvas portrays mortality and is plunged into a mourning atmosphere: it is late Winter, early in the morning, and it is cold, you can guess it from the misty landscape and the clothes of the women, who, motionless and portrayed from behind standing between bare trees, are wearing warm shawls and cloaks. You can almost imagine the silence all around them, hanging over the rocky landscape like a mourning veil.
Yet Friedrich often charged his contemplative landscapes with profound religious significance, hiding in them important and rich symbols: in this case, the mist is mystical (pun unintended), and, while the luminous moon is standing high in the sky marking death, the dawn, symbol of eternal life, is arriving, ready to dispel the night and announce that Jesus has risen, marking the return of hope. Just like the winter will soon give way to the spring, light will replace darkness, and life will win over death.
The main palette for this painting, though, is drenched in dark tones, so where could we turn to for unusual light inspirations? Well, check out Frank Lloyd Wright's glass panels from the B. Harley Bradley House, Kankakee, Illinois (on of them is currently part of the "Modern America: The Wolf Family Collection" auction at Sotheby's).
The B. Harley Bradley House (also known as "Glenlloyd") is a major transitional work that marks the beginning of Wright's Prairie style.
The exterior finishes of the house featured low-slung roofs, stucco and dark wood and bands of windows encircling the house like a necklace. The architect's most vivid glass works for the residence were six panels hung above the dining room table. In opalescent clear and rippled glass and lead came, the panels were characterized by ambers, yellows, and golden shades.
The design of the illuminated panels is extremely advanced with an exceptionally elaborate and sophisticated pattern: the triangular theme in the panels is alternated to fine lines forming rectangular motifs. The interweaving of rectangular pieces throughout the design is immaculately and painstakingly designed and executed.
While Wright left no commentary about the origin of the pattern, some historians noticed a Native-American influence in this design.
The lead was unusual in the Bradley windows since, though traditional for stained-glass windows, in this case it may have succumbed under its own weight and that of the glass it supported, so it was reinforced with steel backing bars to stretch the width, an expedient that added rigidity to the panel and transferred the weight to the frame.
Juxtapositions of darkness and light have always been inspiring in fashion collections and both the works included in this post could lead to contrasting palettes, ideal maybe for yarns (imagine a collection of browns and beiges with sparkles of soft orange and salmon pink derived from Friedrich's painting, and of orange, yolk and golden yellows borrowed from the laylight), but Frank Lloyd Wright's illuminated panel could also be used as the starting point for geometrically intricate knitwear designs. Whatever you decide to create maybe getting inspired by these two works, make sure that the darkness vs light is dichotomy is at play.
In yesterday's post we looked at egg inspirations (for today, Easter, and beyond), but sometimes an inspiration can lead you to rediscovering an artist and opening new research paths.
For example, the first picture in this post, entitled "Columbus' Egg" was taken by artist duo ringl + pit, childhood nicknames of avant-garde, entrepreneurial collaborative design and photography duo Grete Stern (ringl; 1904-1999) and Ellen Auerbach (pit; 1906-2004). These two female artists broke new ground in both commercial and fine art photography in Berlin during the '30s.
Stern and Auerbach first crossed paths in 1929 while serving as apprentices with the Berlin-based photographer and Bauhaus instructor Walter Peterhans. Peterhans' style emphasized sleek form and graphic design and his vision influenced in some ways Stern and Auerbach's style.
In 1930 the artists opened their own advertising photography studio under the name ringl + pit and soon became unconventional creative collaborators and romantic partners. The two artists were independent and confident women: both resisted the expectations of settling down and instead lived and worked in a shared studio space, while refuting conventional gender and sexuality norms and forging new ways of living and making art.
Together, Stern and Auerbach made advertisements and portraits, using their staged, humorous photographs to subvert the commodification of women in mainstream media and utilized their visual techniques to challenge traditional views of femininity.
Frequently incorporating mannequins, wigs, and other symbols of femininity, Stern and Auerbach sought to scrutinize the artifice and façade of feminine identity.
Their pioneering adverts focused on the power of the commercial goods and commodity represented not just as means to generate desire per se, but to contribute to the creation of one's self and one's identity.
Indeed, by fragmenting the feminine dimension in their adverts, the duo allowed many women to see themselves represented in those adverts.
At times, the duo also played with juxtapositions between mannequins and real women: in the advert for Pétrole Hahn, for example, their model is a lifeless mannequin, dressed in a frilly nightgown formerly owned by Auerbach's mother. The picture is disrupted by the unexpected appearance of a human hand holding a bottle of hair oil, emphasizing the artificiality of the image.
Another important point of their art was that, through their collaboration, Auerbach and Stern rejected the concept of the individual author: in later years, they reflected that it didn't matter who was in front of or behind the camera, as the image was made entirely together (you can bet that this concept of "collective paternity" of a work of art, or, in their case, of "collective maternity", will become more popular in future not just because in the creative arts there are numerous collectives, but considering also the use of Artificial Intelligence in art and fashion).
Auerbach and Stern closed their studio in 1933, as the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party forced the two Jewish, queer, avant-garde artists to flee their homeland. After they moved to different countries, they never worked together so closely again. Yet, the time may have come for a major rediscovery of the duo as next year is the 100th birth anniversary of Stern and the 20th death anniversary of Auerbach.
But let's close this post by going back to our egg inspiration: the title of the first image in this post, "Columbus's egg", refers to the eponymous expression hinting at a brilliant idea or an elegant solution to a seemingly difficult problem that actually reveals itself as simple or obvious. The phrase comes from a story about the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who, after being challenged by his critics to explain the significance of his discovery of America, reportedly showed them an egg and asked them to make it stand on its tip. When they were unable to do so, Columbus tapped the egg on the table, created a flat bottom and made it stand upright.
In the history of visual arts many photographers and graphic designers were inspired by ringl + pit, and this particular image was evoked in two variant covers of Vogue Portugal's Columbs Egg issue (March 2021) that featured two versions of a collage with a model and an egg.
Do you have your chocolate egg ready for tomorrow, so you can celebrate Easter in style with your friends or maybe simply drench your sorrows in chocolate if you're alone?
If you do have your egg, perfect. But, if you didn't get any chocolate egg or you don't like chocs, you can still get inspired by perfectly ordinary eggs and maybe spend some time rediscovering egg inspirations in art and fashion.
Eggs are considered as a precious ingredient in art: egg tempera (adding egg as a binding element for pigment) goes back a long way and was even found in the mural paintings of the Palace of Nestor in Pylos, dating to 1200BC. In that case, egg yolk was used as the binder and helped creating a quick-drying and long-lasting wash.
Yet, at the end of March, scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, found out that, while 15th century European painters started using oil as a binder, artists such as Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo Da Vinci still employed eggs but for other reasons.
The yolk protected indeed the paints from unwanted changes that occurred when moisture was absorbed from the environment, because the water was captured in the protein layer around the pigments.
So, yolk was a sort of antioxidant and allowed painters to prevent the wrinkling and yellowing that may have been caused by humidity. Researchers found traces of egg, for example, in Sandro Botticelli's Lamentation over the Dead Christ.
But, while Old Master artists used egg to stop the paint from degrading, therefore giving us the opportunity to admire their masterpieces today, in modern art eggs have been used in different ways.
The shape of an egg is extremely sensual, but broken or cracked eggs are great metaphors as they evoke our Humpty Dumpty-like human fragilities or our exhausted minds, maybe cracking up under extreme stressful moments, besides using crushed eggshell in an artwork can add an intriguing texture.
For Neo Pop Surrealist artist Philip Colbert, eggs are fun and he interprets them in a Pop Art key, like a child would, using bright colours, and replicating fried eggs on prints, but also on his suits and on the sneakers that he designed a while back in collaboration with Adidas.
Yet, eggs can also represent an irreverent provocation: in Sarah Lucas' "Self Portrait With Fried Eggs" (1996), the artist looks back at the viewer with a confrontational stare while posing with two fried eggs placed over her breasts.
Food here represents a sexual body part and the eggs are used to hint at the degrading objectification of the female body and used to subvert it.
A couple of decades after that iconic self-portrait Lucas, came up with other works referencing eggs, including an itinerant performance - "1000 Eggs: For Women" - that consisted in her female friends and collaborators throwing 1000 eggs at white gallery walls.
Interpreted as a take on the Pagan fertility rite of egg throwing in Spring, the performance also engaged with ideas of femininity, established a sense of community and solidarity and opposed pretensions. It was therefore to be interpreted like an act of rebellion and resistance (think about the gesture of throwing an egg at a politician).
This sense of ebullient rebellion also appeared in the sets that provided the backgrounds for Michael Clark's choreographies in Charles Atlas' "Hail the New Puritan" (1986).
This fictionalized documentary about the Scottish dancer and choreographer and his troupe featured a sequence to The Fall’s music in a brightly coloured space with monumental fried-egg flowers and a pair of giant Y-fronts, elements borrowed from Trojan's painting "Female Trouble" (1984), but also reminiscent of Salvador Dalí.
Dalí was fascinated by the duality of the egg with its hard exterior and soft interior and often used the egg as a symbol in his works (an egg sculpture is also precariously balanced on the roof of his house in the town of Cadaqués, Catalonia, View this photo, and integrated in the bronze sculpture "Space Venus" to hint at renewal and the future, View this photo).
Dalí's painting "Eggs on the Plate Without a Plate" (1932) features a plate of fried eggs and a fried egg suspended by a string: here the egg evokes intra-uterine images and memories that he experienced in the womb before birth, it is therefore conceived as a symbol of both hope and love.
Yet there are times when fried eggs also lose their symbolism: in the video for Björk's single "Venus as a Boy" (1993) directed by Sophie Muller, the singer is in a kitchen, fondling and cooking eggs.
In the video eggs were inspired by the singer's favorite book, "Story of the Eye" by Georges Bataille, a novella which deals with the sexual perversions of a pair of teenagers.
At one point in the book, a girl, Simone, uses boiled eggs for sexual stimulation, but in the video the egg is eventually fried, an idea of the director who didn't have the time to read the book Björk had given her and insisted on having a fried rather than a boiled egg.
For some contemporary artists the shells and the membranes of eggs are more inspiring: Marcela Calderón Andrade's works are inspired by an observation of the complexity of relationships in nature and are often composed of organic elements such as seeds, leaves and the inner membrane of eggshells. This material allows the Colombian artist to create sculptures of unsustainable lightness.
Her works "Círculo-Infinito", "Churo-Espiral", and "Vibración-Onda" are all made with the internal membranes of eggshells - a protective structure of life - which, after breaking, are capable of reassembling thanks to the memory that matter can retain, implementing a process of destruction and recomposition.
But the fragility of eggshells and internal membranes can also point at other symbols and metaphors: in the '90s Helena Sandström designed her "Eggshell" necklace that featured delicate flowers made with hens' egg shells linked together with a 24 carat gold cord.
With this piece the Swedish artist and jewelry designer wanted to prompt the wearer to think about special occasions and the value of things as wearing the piece meant immediately destroying it since it was incredibly fragile.
BUt what about eggs and fashion? You could write an essay about the food and fashion connection, dedicating an entire chapter to eggs: Turkish designer Tanju Babacan's A/W 13 collection was an egg-xtravaganza à la Agatha Ruiz de la Prada (remember her A/W 09 collection? View this photo) with dresses, blouses, coats and accessories covered in prints or appliqued motifs of fried eggs.
Babacan's egg-tastic black fur coat with fried eggs found a more wearable interpretation in Anya Hindmarch's A/W 16 collection that featured coats with fried egg-shaped fur patches that looked a bit like flowers.
Accessories had their egg-tastic moments with JW Anderson who included in his S/S 22 Loewe collection goatskin sandals with a heel that gave the surreal impression the wearer had just stepped on an egg, irredeemably crushing it.
Among the youngest generations of designers completely obsessed with eggs there are contemporary artist Carly Mark and her former assistant, Ayla Argentina. The duo formed the indie label Puppets and Puppets, launched in 2019.
Their S/S 20 collection moved from Fabergé eggs, the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia and American Psycho, three very unlikely inspirations, and featured shoes fashioned from egg cartons and nipple coverings with fried eggs.
The duo revised the egg inspiration in their A/W 23 collection that featured fried eggs applied on shoes, bags and incorporated in their beaded bustiers.
Puppets and Puppets usually balance wearability with playfulness in their collections, something that calls to mind the work of another egg fan, Cinzia Ruggeri.
The late Italian artist, fashion and interior designer was an egg-stimator and often used eggs in her collections or installations: among her egg designs there is an apron covered with appliqued fried eggs that reveals her rich vein of kitchen sink surrealism, but also an hilarious earring for a quail (obviously featuring an egg pendant).
When she came up with her menswear line (Cinzio Ruggeri), the designer highlighted in the press notes that the man she had in mind for this line had "an unbearable personality", but was "marvellous to put up with" and that he loved "adventure, music halls, the night and Fabergé eggs".
Yet, rather than getting inspired by Fabergé eggs, Ruggeri remained impartial to the humble egg that also appeared on humorous silk blouses from the early '80s that she designed for ready-to-wear Italian brand Bloom (one featured for example a broken egg appliqued over a pocket and a fried egg underneath, as if the yolk was being poured into the pocket that magically expelled it fried and ready to be eaten).
This gesture inspired her blouses with appliqued motifs of a dog house on one side and a tree on the other and a little chain with a movable dog in between, or a hen and a fried egg with a movable egg suspended between them. In this way, the wearer would find a purpose in an otherwise meaningless and annoying repetitive gesture.
In the mid-'80s Ruggeri created also a white mini-dress covered in appliqued motifs of three-dimensional snakes and eggs: well, a snake is an oviparous animal, after all, so the idea worked pretty well.
Just don’t look for deep meanings, because Ruggeri probably wasn't looking for any in-depth conceptual story behind this motif, but she definitely liked its shape and the simplicity and fun possibilities offered by the humble fried egg.
Hilarious, irreverent, punk and defiant, her designs with sunny side-up yolks were a way to raise two fingers to serious and boring fashion, because you must break a few eggs to make an omelette.
So, on this long Easter weekend, enjoy your eggs whichever way they come, be they fried, scrambled, poached or boiled, or, if you're lucky enough, chocolate ones, always bearing in mind that art and fashion's egg-licious obsession goes way beyond Easter.
There are obviously sculptures from all sorts of times and places in museums all over the world that you may use in such cases, so it is easy to get lost if you don't focus and reduce your inspirations to a reasonable number of artworks. To do so, the best thing is to look at the most intriguing ones and learn from their finest details or materials used to make them.
A great example is the Crucifixion attributed to Guglielmo Della Porta (1515-1577): preserved at Rome's Galleria Borghese this work features stunning details. As today it is Good Friday and in many Roman Catholic churches people are practicing the Veneration of the Cross or taking part in religious processions to ponder about the passion and death of Jesus, let's examine it.
From pictures or from a distance, the bas-relief looks as if it were made with a material such as ivory, but actually this is a wax bas-relief.
The relief is characterized by bichromy with a dark slate background highlighting the figures modeled in white wax. The work is rich in details with minutely detailed figures, exquisite draped motifs and deeply carved lines that emphasize gestures and movements, and can be divided in different levels.
The three crosses in the upper part immediately capture the observers' attention, immersing them in the dark and dramatic atmosphere of the scene. Christ is on the cross in the centre with his head tilted; on the left cross there is the good thief with his arms open and raised, in a gesture of prayer; on the right, the bad thief turns his back to Christ and hangs lifeless from the cross.
The rest of the scene is filled with a multitude of figures: in the second section of the bas-relief numerous men are engaged in the crucifixion and, using ladders, axes and saws, they are lifting and securing the crosses; there are also Roman soldiers on horseback at the foot of the crosses and turbaned characters.
In the third section, on the right there are soldiers determinining who will keep Christ's tunic because it was woven in one piece. Two soldiers are fighting over the clothes of Christ (the tunic with its folds creates a dynamic movement in that section of the bas-relief), while another two men are confronting each other with knives.
On the left, the Virgin Mary, overwhelmed with grief, has fainted; she is supported by the pious women with Mary Magdalene, while Saint John the Evangelist is praying.
The chaos and confusion created by the figures forms a sort of pyramidal configuration that reaches its climax with the crosses: the configuration of the bas-relief looks like a sort of metaphorical human pyramid, but in between the figures you can actually see a representation of the rocks that add a physical reference to the artwork, reminding us we are on the Golgotha, a skull-shaped hill in ancient Jerusalem.
The rich and elaborate ebony frame of the bas-relief is entirely decorated with intarsia elements and hard stones - marble, gilded copper, lapis lazuli, red jasper, amethyst and chalcedony. The cabinet is similar to cabinets and reliquaries that were popular in the 16th century.
The work was attributed to Guglielmo Della Porta, based on a comparison with some of the artist's drawings preserved in the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf (in Vasari's "Lives" the author spoke about 14 models for reliefs executed by Della Porta for bronze casts, although the dimensions do not coincide with this one).
Those who attribute it to Della Porta also state that this must have been a preparatory work for one of his bronze reliefs as the work was made with white wax, usually employed as a preparatory material for a metal casting (this hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that the wax models of Della Porta's partially executed bronze Passion series that were in his workshop were dispersed after his death). Others think this may be the work of a Flemish school sculptor and goldsmith from the 16th century, who had moved to Rome to refine his skills.
While these researches may seem secondary for an Artificial Intelligence project, they are still important as they help us pondering more on the possibilities that different materials may offer and inspire us with unusual words that can be employed to achieve unexpected results in fashion-related prompts.
Some art purists think digital works are not the real thing: you may agree or disagree with this statement, but, what's for sure is that the analogue and the digital formats are obviously interrelated. An exhibition opening later on this month at the Pittlerwerke, Leipzig, and co-curated by Richard Castelli, Dr. Dan Xu and Dr. Clara Blume, will attempt to find links between these two levels.
"Dimensions" (April 19th - July 9th) will include 60 international artworks exhibited in an architecturally intriguing space - a 10,000 square meters industrialization-era machine factory.
Featuring pioneers of the digital format such as Nam June Paik and exponents of the contemporary avantgarde, "Dimensions" explores the latest trends in electronic art but also their roots to find different levels of interrelations between art and technological developments, inviting visitors to overcome prejudices and anxieties surrounding the digital format, and look at the artworks with an open mind.
After all, as co-curator Xu explains, "New technologies are omnipresent and are increasingly becoming a projection surface for expectations and fears – from AI to blockchain."
The exhibition is divided into chapters - media and video art, immersive art, robotic art, algorithmic-generative art, and virtual and augmented reality - that illustrate how digital technologies shape and warp our perception of reality.
Historically, the exhibition begins with the French painter, photographer and sculptor François Willème (1830 -1905) who in 1859 patented a process for producing portrait sculpture using 24 cameras. By superimposing these simultaneously achieved photographic images, he created photo sculptures that could be considered the early versions of today's 3D scan.
Through a QR code visitors receive an augmented reality 3D model of the photo sculpture shown in the exhibition – a self-portrait of Willème, which they can take back home with them on their mobile phones.
Other forms of digital art are presented as immersive projections and installations: Kurt Hentschläger's fog and stroboscope installation will reawaken the senses of the visitors with light and sound stimuli, while visual artist and composer Ulf Langheinrich created especially for this show two monumental stereoscopic 3D audiovisual artworks, "Movement-L" and "Waveform-L". These visual soundscapes will allow visitors to collectively experience the tension between time, space, body and technology.
Visitors who are into textiles should check out Ivana Franke's new site-specific installation. Franke is well known for her multi-disciplinary work inspired by neuroscience and combining technology and architecture.
Her works often integrate complex monofilament structures anchored to a stainless steel construction that create ephemeral architectures when the threads are hit by spotlights.
While Franke works with filaments, Shiro Takatani explores the shape of water: his 3D water matrixes composed of computer-controlled electrovalves, allow him to transform the liquid into animated and three-dimensional gravity-defying creations.
"It is interesting to observe how the electronic arts have attained a certain maturity together with technology's development; one could even speak of a fresh new 'classicism' with its own rules, removing itself from the essence and the specifics of electronic arts," explains Castelli.
Choe U-Ram's metallic machineries like "Urbanus Female" integrating a CPU board and a motor, are a great example of this combination of digital inspirations with innovative technologies. The works represent machine-organisms with systems that resemble that of plants and that live on skyscrapers.
Some experiences included in the exhibition are merely digital, like Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw's VR system that allows to step into Leonardo da Vinci's "Virgin of the Rocks" painting and move around it, or Yang Lu's videos and images inspired by virtual reality, gaming subcultures, and popular music, that celebrate the Internet as the locus of possibilities, as a place where people can control their own identity.
There are also digital artworks inspired by contemporary experiences: Ziyang Wu's "Where Did Macy Go?" is an 11-episode animated video inspired by the epidemic that considers the collapse of old community structures, a new home-based tele-republic, and social justice under the pandemic. Originally posted on TikTok to challenge the possibility of online exhibitions, the series is a response to the volatility, complexity and confusion of our times.
One of the chapters of the exhibition - "Immersion" - is not limited to virtual reality, but also embraces physical-immersive environments: Jean Michel Bruyère / LFKs' work, such as "Le Chemin de Damastès", consists in 21 hospital beds that, wired for movement and soundtrack synchronisation by computer, form a perfect choreography, while Golnaz Behrouznia and Dominique Peysson's "Phylogenèse Inverse" (Reverse Phylogenesis) present a series of future forms of biodiversity and varied and extravagant life forms with strange anatomies and enigmatic functions.
These organisms, based on a scientific discovery focused on a jellyfish capable of reversing its life cycle allowing it to return to an earlier cellular state, show the results of a de-evolution process and invite visitors to dive into the future of the living world, raising fundamental questions about the essence of life.
The venue's history as a machine factory creates a symbolic architectural link between the physical space of the event and the digital exhibition: the machines that were produced here and that once transformed society have been replaced by a digital art revolution that is in turn contributing to change society.
Besides, the city where the factory is located, Leipzig, represents another connection with the themes of "Dimensions": it is indeed the birthplace of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. As Castelli notes, the philosopher and mathematician, "developed elements of binary logic, which formed the foundation of computer science, and was receptive to the beauty and aesthetics of the binary (digital) world, thus anticipating the core of this exhibition."
Yesterday, US President Joe Biden met with his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to discuss the "risks and opportunities" of artificial intelligence.
While the president highlighted that AI could help in addressing disease and climate change, he also stated that it is of vital importance to address potential risks to society, national security and the economy.
"Tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public," Biden stated.
Asked if AI was dangerous, the President answered, "It remains to be seen. It could be."
Among the industries that are looking at the new possibilities offered by Artificial Intelligence to try and understand if AI is dangerous or helpful, there is fashion.
Besides, will brands hire their own in-house AI departments or turn to specialized AI studios?
At the moment things are still at an experimental stage, but there is definitely an interest in the applications this technology may have in fashion as proved also by events such as the first AI Fashion Week (20-21 April) that will be held in New York at Soho's Spring Studios and will showcase collections from emerging AI designers.
AI models are developing at rapid speed: for what regards AI text to-image apps, the results that can be achieved with the latest version (v 5) of Midjourney are mind-blowing.
I've been experimenting with Midjourney since the end of last year, but I have used it more extensively since January.
In February I started developing ideas for a fashion collection that combined a sporty and casual mood with art inspirations from the Renaissance period.
At the end of February, Midjourney managed to produce coherent styles, but didn't respect the entire content of the prompt.
If you requested a classic fashion show picture with a model walking on a runway and people sitting on both sides, the system at times seemed to be struggling to recreate the set and focused mainly on the model.
Besides, quite often it didn't respect the given ratio and also tended to crop the figure that was usually slim and at times impossibly elongated.
The main distortions occurred around the nose, eyes and lips, so that models ended up having disquieting faces (in one case the face looked as if it had been sucked in by the hood...pure horror); hands at times presented awkward configurations with extra fingers, but that didn't happen too often to be honest, most times the hands weren't indeed a problem.
Hand distortions often occurred in the prints on the garments that featured portraits and paintings; in one instance, the hand of a woman portrayed on a top seemed to hold the hand of the model in an uncanny way.
The models produced were mainly white; when prompted to create an image of a Black model, the system tended to over-impose on a body a head that didn't match with the requested photographic rendition of a model, but that looked like a painting or a digital interpretation of a Black model.
Another mistake Midjourney was prone to, was creating a blend: the painting that was supposed to be a prop in the background became indeed a combination of a static figure and a human form.
So, from the head to the torso the image was flat and static, but from the waist down the image appeared like a pair of legs that came out of the painting and actually walked on the runway.
Style-wise Midjourney respected the prompt, coming up with a series of tracksuits or casual styles with a Renaissance twist about them.
At the beginning of March, prompted to create matching sports bags and sneakers, the system came up with oversized bags and rucksacks with prints that presented in some cases a few distortions.
Yet most times for what regarded the bags, the system respected the prompt that contained references to Renaissance costumes and three-dimensional elements: the latter were interpreted in the rucksacks as three-dimensional motifs applied to the printed portraits on the bags.
Midjourney made more confusion instead when it came to sneakers: the figures printed on them presented some anachronisms as they wore pleated tunics from Roman or Greek times, but also sported oversized sneakers.
The system was not capable of interpreting the words "three-dimensional" in these cases, but produced figures with clothes that came out of the shoes creating awkward reliefs.
A twist in the prompt in the days that followed pushed the system to refocus on costume details: Midjourney excelled at creating tracksuits with ample sleeves or that combined Renaissance costume details with tracksuits.
The adjective "Asian" in front of the word "model" contributed instead to generate a confusion with an intriguing result: Midjourney came up with an Asian model wearing an elegant tracksuit that incorporated a cropped jacket with elements vaguely reminiscent of Chinese warriors or samurai armours with floral Renaissance prints.
While sleeves became better, figures were still elongated, but the system improved slightly when generating Black models, even though close ups of Black models wearing jewelry weren't always convincing.
The images in these cases still looked like polished digital drawings with imperfect jewelry pieces (think chains that seemed to melt into a shirt), compared to portraits of white models that looked incredibly realistic.
In the meantime, the system also started coming up with better images of audiences, but requesting an image of a front row with multiple people still caused confusion.
Providing credible images of crowds proved confusing and Midjourney generated in these cases multiple hands, arms and legs, distortions in clothes, headgear and masks.
Proportions were rather bizarre with more elongated characters, and even those editors and influencers that Midjourney was prompted to generate and that looked perfect betrayed gross imperfections when it came to their hands that often integrated another hand or extra fingers.
Crowds represented a traumatic moment for the system that also generated hybrid humans, with more than two legs and heads that seemed over-imposed on random bodies.
In mid-March, Midjourney v5 brought a complete revolution: the prompt was the same, but the models looked definitely more polished and were absolutely more realistic.
The spaces and architectures of the show venue were also detailed, complete with front rows and there weren't any awkward blends between paintings in the backgrounds and models in the foreground.
The system responded well to the prompt: lights were perfect, models often looked at the camera and didn't show an alienated or absent stare.
There weren't any more elongated figures and Black models were represented in more credible ways (albeit the generic term "model" mainly prompted the system to create young, slim and white models).
The system also became smart enough to actually interpret the prompt more in depth, creating more precise prints and motifs: rather than generating garments with one badly rendered painting, it translated the "Renaissance jacquard motifs" prompt into tapestry-like interventions and variations.
Sneakers also looked more realistic: the same prompt generated more precise sneakers that combined sections of paintings; a variation in the prompt that referred to pearl embellishments generated instead platform sneakers covered in pearls, rhinestones and fabric flowers. The details were so precise that you could even see the glue around the appliqued pearls.
So what's the verdict after this experimental session on Midjourney? Well, the system is currently trained to create very polished images and is perfectly capable of generating pictures of an imaginary fashion collection.
Sure, it didn't look desperately innovative and was derivative, but the level of perfection the new version of Midjourney has reached is impressive.
As AI systems keep on progressing, they will definitely become part of the fashion industry and you can bet designers will start using Artificial Intelligence to create blends from their archives or generate quick ideas for their collections (well, those designers who aren't already doing so...).
Will this generate more "AIgiarisms" or the proliferation of blended collections? Probably, but for the time being it is fascinating and, yes, slightly scary as well, to see how Artificial Intelligence is developing and progressing. Ah, yes, one last note for those who appreciate those early and hilarious distortions: you can still generate them on Midjourney by adding "v 4" rather than "v 5" in the prompt.
A few years later, a computer-generated model and an influencer arrived on the scene - Shudu and Lil' Miquela. The former was created by British photographer Cameron-James Wilson who was inspired by iconic beauties à la Alek Wek and Nyadak "Duckie" Thot and by a Barbie called Princess of South Africa.
Miquela, created by Trevor McFedries and Sara Decou, seemed less real compared to her: Shudu was more into fashion photoshoots, but Miquela had streetwear cred and looked like a character out of a video game like The Sims.
Both anyway had their own successes, collaborating with brands going from Balmain to Prada, proving digital models were another way to reach out to consumer and communicate fashion.
Time goes fast, though, and now there are also more imaginative digital models, like Zlu, a blue alien created by architect Ilian Gazut. Zlu has so far collaborated with brands like Pull & Bear and GCDS, but the most interesting thing about it is the way Gazut integrates the giant alien in cityscapes and in particular inside buildings, with windows that open up like curtains to reveal Zlu posing or trying to interact with passers by.
But there is a new revolution at the moment that may change the fashion industry forever - Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated models.
In mid-March Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) announced a new partnership with startup LaLaLand.ai, an Amsterdam-based digital fashion studio that creates customized AI-generated models and that has also worked with other popular brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
LaLaLand.ai was founded in Amsterdam in 2019 by Michael Musandu, who developed the software because he was unable to spot models who looked like him in fashion (born in Zimbabwe, Musandu was raised in South Africa, but studied in The Netherlands). LaLaLand.ai uses advanced AI to allow fashion brands and retailers to create hyper-realistic models of every body type, age, size and skin tone.
According to Levi's, the AI-generated models will start appearing on the brand's e-commerce website later this year. In an official press release on its site, Levi's highlighted that in this way the company wants to create "a more inclusive, personal and sustainable shopping experience for fashion brands, retailers and customers."
Levi's explained it wasn't replacing human beings, but wanted to offer a wider range of models on its site, considering that on the brand's website and app there is just one model for each product (that's the standards for most brands - one or two models per product) and consumers aren't told what size the model is wearing. The idea is to help the brand to represent all sorts of sizes, skin tones and ages, so that consumers would be able to see one product on a variety of models, developing in this way a personal shopping experience.
"While AI will likely never fully replace human models for us, we are excited for the potential capabilities this may afford us for the consumer experience," stated in a press release Dr. Amy Gershkoff Bolles, global head of digital and emerging technology strategy at Levi Strauss & Co.
Yet Levi's announcement about what the brand considers an "inclusive customer experience" didn't get a lot of positive feedback, in fact the announcement was met with a backlash.
On social media, people commented about the fact that a powerful brand such as Levi's should have the money to hire a diverse cast of real models rather than opting for several AI-generated avatar. But the company highlighted again in a note to the original press release that the pilot regards its website and the possibility to offer consumers better representations of their products, and that it is not scaling back their plans for live photo shoots, the use of live models, or commitment to working with diverse models. "Authentic storytelling has always been part of how we've connected with our fans, and human models and collaborators are core to that experience," the company concluded.
There are pros and cons in using AI-generated models (images 7 to 16 in this post represent examples of fashion models for an imaginary jewelry collection that I generated using Midjourney): from the point of view of a brand like Levi's, opting for them means to be able to cut on certain expenses and save money and time.
Famous brands usually have a wide range of products on their sites, in some cases products are added on a monthly or even on a weekly basis. In the case of denim brands, one product is often available in different washes or different fits and obviously sizes, so for one garment they would have to take several pictures. Hiring real models would mean to organize one or several casting sessions with proper photographers, stylists and hair and makeup artists. A fake avatar made by a digital studio would therefore represent a very appealing solution for such a brand.
That said brands must be extra careful at the moment: a few months ago, AI-powered text-to-image applications were more skilled at creating white models, probably because they were trained mainly on them.
Nowadays, you can get very credible images of Asian or Black models as well, so these applications are getting better as they are being trained with more images. Yet, brands may commit some mistakes by creating an imbalance including AI-generated Black models in their website, but then favouring white models in adverts or runway shows. For some critics of AI-generated models, there are also risks of appropriation when white people create Black models: when Shudu first came out, some expressed their criticism, noting that she was an idealized Black woman created by a white man.
Brands will also have to be careful of how far they can push their AI-models: in 2019 consumers didn't enjoy Lil Miquela being featured in a Pride ad by Calvin Klein that showed her kissing Bella Hadid as they perceived it as queer-baiting, embracing a minority and exploiting queerness to get more viewers. So this is another aspect they may want to avoid.
There is something, though, that maybe fashion brands opting for AI-generated models would be able to avoid - a class action. Many companies in the last few years adopted augmented reality (AR) technology to help consumers visualize how clothing would look on their own bodies.
But virtual try-ons (extremely popular during the pandemic) offered by brands on their own sites or through Snapchat, were recently at the centre of class actions with users complaining about how companies possess and retain the biometric data captured using virtual try-on tech (especially when it comes to products that go on or around a person's face, such as makeup, jewelry, and eyeglasses).
At the same time, these companies would meet new dilemmas with some links to the legal field and in particular to copyrights especially if they use body scans of real models to generate AI models.
This practice poses a question: should models receive a fee every time their scan is used not just to create an AI-model but to train an algorithm? (But how will they be able to prove it? And will brands be honest enough to actually state next to a product that the AI-model wearing it is based on a real model and provide us with their name? Unlikely). Maybe model agencies will have to start adding specific paragraphs to model's contracts regarding body scans that can be used for AI-generated models.
Another point is that, while it is perfectly fine to unlock the technology's potential to showcase fashion on diverse bodies, AI applications may still find it difficult to produce a wide range of bodies (yes, the technology progresses quickly, but at the moment it excels mainly in the production of models with a slim silhouette or an average body type).
At recent runway shows there were fewer plus size models and with the industry obsessed with Ozempic, there are concerns that thin models will be in again. And what if rather than real plus size models, the industry started favouring their AI-generated counterpart?
Last but not least, with AI-generated models we risk of creating impossible beauty standards: we don't even need to use special filters or Photoshop to make the models look more beautiful as Artificial Intelligence is capable of generating perfect people (well, it is still has some problems when it comes to hands, especially when you try and portray a crowd of people like a front row at a fashion show, but it is getting definitely better).
So, this may mean that an unattainable level of perfection will be sought in fashion images, something that may greatly damage our collective perception of beauty, already altered by the use of Photoshop and of filters.
While there is no immediate solution to all these dilemmas, at the moment we are experiencing a rapid proliferation of AI-modelling agencies: you can now easily find a fashion model or an avatar for your business communications for a reasonable monthly fee.
The site Deep Agency allows you for example to get high quality images of AI-generated models just by typing in a description, and a subscription grants you access to models of various races (then again, they are all in their 20s and 30s and definitely not plus size).
So what will happen to models? Will they join the list of people whose jobs are at risk because of the progresses of Artificial Intelligence? Time will tell, but AI has the potential of transforming several industries, fashion in particular.
The best thing for brands and fashion houses at the moment would be to use both real and AI-generated models in a responsible way: as you may remember from a previous post, when Louis Vuitton opted to have Lightning as the protagonist of its ads, the company also included real people such as Korean actress Doona Bae, rapper and actor Jaden Smith and models Sarah Brannon, Rianne Van Rompaey and Jean Campbell. Fashion is about fantasy and reality, after all, and playing with these two levels - and doing so in an ethical way - seems to be the most reasonable option.
The textile industry went through some major changes in the recent decades: new technologies introduced innovative manufacturing techniques and materials, while the rising interest in sustainability is constantly challenging fast fashion processes.
These reasons pushed quite a few countries with a textile tradition to find new strategies to face global competition and present innovative approaches in design, engineering and technology.
Swiss textile companies, in particular those based in Eastern Switzerland, have developed in the last few years projects and researches to look at the potential of their textiles. The results of their work will be exhibited at the "Textile Industry & Artists in Residence" event (21st April - 18th June) at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur.
The event provides insights into the programme of the Textile and Design Alliance (TaDA). The funding programme includes both international designers, artists and cultural practitioners (six candidates a year), invited to use a local studio in Arbon and develop a project with a wide range of companies and institutions in Eastern Switzerland, including the Textilmuseum in St.Gallen.
The TaDA residency went from strength to strength: since 2019, over 850 applications from 86 countries were received and assessed by a jury. The 18 participants selected so far – designers, artists and architects among tem – are given unique freedom to experiment using on-site knowledge and production possibilities.
The exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur will allow visitors to discover the three-year pilot programme through the works of 13 artists involved in the alliance to show visitors the potentially positive impact that a multi-disciplinary approach combining design, culture, technology and economy, can have on textiles.
The presentation at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur does not primarily show products or completed works, but focuses instead on the process of cooperation between culture, technology and business. Project examples include combining traditional embroidery on Saurer AG machines with the latest fibre technology from Empa, changing the functionality of fabrics by laser cutting or applications at Lobra, or using "maladjustments" of the embroidery machine to try out new ways of expression or process.
Among the other artists on display this year there's also Stéphanie Baechler who worked as a Textile Developer/Design Assistant for Hussein Chalayan in London and was Head of Print Design for the Swiss textile company Jakob Schlaepfer for three years.
Since then, she has worked on sculptures and has developed a dialogue between ceramics and textiles. Her works on display here look at the tactile dimension and interaction between body, movement and space.
The desire to let different materials or entities dialogue together is also behind the research carried out by South-Korean Aesun Kim. The artist is interested in human-computer interactions and expresses them through new digital aesthetics: her current research revolves around exploring creative, multi-sensory e-textile wearable interfaces that react by human bio signal data such as the heartbeat rate.
Laura Deschl, a social designer and artist favouring research-driven academic work often accompanied by object or material based forms of expression, is also interested in therapeutic textiles and in how objects can initiate, regulate and influence human emotions.
Some of the researchers included in the event aren't strictly textile artists: Maidje Meergans is a documentary photographer from Berlin currently developing a project on the craftspeople working in the textile industry; Quang Vinh Nguyen is a Swiss product designer of Vietnamese origins investigating the culinary and folksy traditions of Vietnam in various media.
The traditions of their home countries inspired many of the artists involved, including Olaniyi Rasheed Akindiya, an interdisciplinary artist born in Lagos, Nigeria, whose works are inspired by the traditional textiles and iconic weaving crafts of Nigeria and Ghana.
Akindiya is interested in the role of textiles in Nigeria's society and the unwritten history of industrial embroidery in his country in relation to trade with Europe.
Art and fashion combine instead in Alexandra Hopf's works that translate the geometric silhouettes of Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist paintings into clothes or reinterpret the Constructivist uniform clothing designed by artists such as Varvara Stepanova, Vladimir Tatlin, and Alexander Rodchenko.
There will be more to discover for textile fans at the "Textile Industry & Artists in Residence" event at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, artists instead should keep in mind that the next call for the residency will be launched in June 2023.
A day after Italy banned ChatGPT over privacy concerns, it came to the attention of the media that, in December, Italian lawmakers of the nationalist Brothers of Italy (Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party) presented a draft for a legislation to ban the use of terms in English.
Though mentioning all foreign languages, the bill entitled "Provisions for the protection and promotion of the Italian language and establishment of the Committee for the protection, promotion and enhancement of the Italian language", focuses in particular on English, which the draft states "demeans and mortifies" the Italian language.
Including 8 articles, the bill calls both public and private bodies to use the "language of Dante" to promote their goods and services in the national territory.
The draft specifies that even in offices that deal with non-Italian speaking foreigners, Italian must be the primary language used (how will they understand each other remains to be seen...). Besides, public communication and official documentation should be done in Italian and translation tools or interpreters should be used for any event or conference held on the territory of the country. Foreign acronyms or names for roles in companies operating in Italy would also be prohibited and Italian language would have to be used in employment contracts (foreign words would be allowed only if they are impossible to translate).
Foreign language courses in schools and universities would be accepted only if justified by the presence of foreign students (would this imply that Italy wouldn't need as many foreign language teachers as they have now in primary and secondary schools? Would this cause a loss of jobs or a reduction of hours?).
The Culture Ministry would also establish a committee that would make sure of the "correct use of the Italian language and its pronunciation" in schools, media, commerce and advertising.
If passed (it would have to be approved by both houses of parliament – but no date was provided), the bill would impose fines between €5,000 and €100,000 to those found violating the rule.
The bill sets back the clock to fascist times: Italianization is nothing new and this sounds like the latest version of the ban on foreign words issued in July 1929 by the Fascist government to purge influences that may have posed a threat to the purity of the state.
It also sounds as if the bill was drafted by somebody too ignorant and too lazy to learn English or any other foreign language. Too embarrassed to admit it, rather than even trying to learn a foreign language the lawmaker tries to lower the standards of the entire nation. Proof of the lawmaker's ignorance stands in the fact that the draft states that the widespread use of English in Europe is "even more paradoxical" given that Britain quit the European Union. But Britain is not the only place in the world where English is spoken: we all know that the list of English-speaking countries and non-sovereign entities is extremely long and, apart from that, English is also spoken in many countries where it's not an official language, that's what makes it global.
The lawmaker who drafted such a bill probably never learnt a foreign language, never had the pleasure of practicing it and meet people coming from different places, never lived in another country, and never tried to build any cultural bridges - all symptoms of extreme narrow-mindedness.
There are many fields in which we mainly use English terms – think IT, finance, medicine, but also fashion. While it seems unlikely that companies will start using Italian for popular acronyms such as "CEO" or definitions like "risk manager", it is even more unlikely that the country will give up its "Made in Italy" label. When the Brothers of Italy party took office last October, it added the English term "Made in Italy" to the name of the industry minister. Would they have to change it with a literal translation of this definition - "Fatto in Italia", "Realizzato in Italia" or "Prodotto in Italia"? It would be ridiculous as nobody would understand such definitions outside of Italy.
The draft for this bill is completely out of touch with reality and doesn't even take into account the fact that Italian society has changed: classrooms are multi-cultural microcosms and often there isn't any money to hire proper interpreters in schools, so kids of migrant parents who have been living in Italy for a few years end up being the cultural and language mediators between the newly arrived kids and their teachers.
The idea behind such a draft is to prove the cultural greatness of a nation above others, but there's nothing greater in our lives than learning from each other with an open mind.
Languages are exciting as they are alive and every day they change and mutate; every year we add new words to our vocabulary, terms that allow us to grow, personally and globally, all together. Thinking you can translate everything is naïve (consider how nowadays most film titles are left in English to create global franchises) and thinking you can preserve your language from evolving is like locking your brain to any positive influence that may come from another country, another language and another culture. But then again, everything evolves, only fascists remain fossilized in their fascist beliefs.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Italian fashion if such a bill ever passes. Will fashion be next? After all, Mussolini tried to boost a national style, banning the import of foreign fashion items. In 1936 Cesare Meano published then the Commentary and Italian Dictionary of Fashion that had the purpose of purging the language of fashion of foreign terminology, in particular of French words. A year later, the fascist regime established in Italy the Ente Tessile Nazionale (National Textile Body) that had to promote the so-called autarchy, that is self-sufficiency, in textile production.
So will Italy one day have "influenzatori" rather than "influencers" or will it step back to a time when fashion was just another instrument in the hands of the Duce who saw it as a political vehicle for the modernisation of the country? The mere thought brings back nightmarish visions of early fashion designers such as Fernanda Lamma, a fervent advocate of the regime, who designed garments like the "mantello Mussoliniano", a cloak in the style of Mussolini, and a white dress embroidered with golden fasces, or the artist Frare of Treviso, who designed a white dress that recreated the lictorian fasces, symbol of the fascist regime. The idea is unsettling and simply contemplating it is enough to send shivers down one's spine.
What did we learn in the last few days? That Artificial Intelligence (AI) is definitely progressing faster than human intelligence. Last week, the by now infamous "Pope in a puffer jacket" images that should have been a mushroom-induced hilarious and circumscribed moment of madness, suddenly turned into a pivotal fashion topic with people speculating about the Pope wearing Balenciaga.
After realizing the Pope does not wear Balenciaga and that the images were produced by AI text-to-image generator Midjourney, the huge case of mass disinformation became an endless debate about AI being a major threat to humanity. After all, by now AI can generate perfect images, videos, texts and even voices, so faking somebody - from a politician to a celebrity - saying something extremely dangerous and inappropriate is extremely easy.
As a consequence, there has recently been a high level of paranoia surrounding Artificial Intelligence: a letter posted on the website of non-profit organisation Future of Life Institute, co-signed by Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang among the others, demanded to take a six-months break in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research.
"We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4," read the letter. The reason of this call was stated at the beginning of the letter: "AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity."
Now, there are actually several issues about the letter: first of all, the Future of Life Institute (FLI), is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, so this is not a letter written by an independent organization.
Besides, the definition "more powerful than GPT-4" is rather generic. What does it mean "more powerful"? In which ways? We're not sure, but it sounds like Trump's "super duper missile". The other point is that signatories included Xi Jinping and Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, who actually claimed on Twitter he didn't support the contents of the letter. So, it looks like while AI is generating fake images of the Pope, FLI is generating fake signatories.
But more steps were taken against Artificial Intelligence yesterday: OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy after the government's Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (Data Protection Authority) issued an immediate temporary ban on suspected breach of privacy rules.
if you're in Italy and try to access the site, you will get the following message on your screen: "We regret to inform you that we have disabled ChatGPT for users in Italy at the request of the Italian Garante. We are issuing refunds to all users in Italy who purchased a ChatGPT Plus subscription in March. We are also temporarily pausing subscription renewals in Italy so that users won't be charged while ChatGPT is suspended."
The Garante, accused Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI of a data breach. According to the Garante, ChatGPT doesn't have a disclosure notice to users about data collected by OpenAI, and doesn't have any legal basis that justifies the massive collection and processing of personal data to train the algorithms on which the platform relies.
Besides, according to the Garante, the lack of an age verification mechanism exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness, even though the service is allegedly addressed to users aged above 13 according to OpenAI's terms of service (and even though the service doesn't allow you to use certain terms; if you invite it to employ foul language, for example, it will tell you something along the lines of: "As an AI language model, I cannot use swear words or any kind of offensive language. My purpose is to provide helpful and informative responses while maintaining a respectful and professional tone").
And so Italy has become the first Western country to take action against a chatbot powered by Artificial Intelligence, placing it alongside China, Hong Kong, Iran and Russia and parts of Africa where residents are unable to create OpenAI accounts.
It is interesting to note how most people seem to be more afraid of other types of damages that AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT may cause. In the past few months, for example, lecturers and teachers in other countries such as Australia complained about students using ChatGPT in schools, wondering if it should be banned from educational institutions as it may have a negative impact on student learning and generate plagiarism, but the discourse wasn't so heated in Italy. There weren't indeed major scandals in Italy at university level with thousands of students getting ChatGPT to write their dissertations and other similar cases.
Cut and paste is an exercise that the Italian government seems to allow, actually: there was indeed a very bizarre "cut and paste" human exercise when a couple of weeks ago Claudio Anastasio, appointed by PM Giorgia Meloni (allegedly on recommendation of Rachele Mussolini, a city councilor in Rome and granddaughter of Benuto Mussolini) to head state-owned company 3-I, sent an e-mail to his board of directors. Anastasio took Benito Mussolini’s 1925 speech to Parliament in which he claimed he took "political, moral and historical responsibility" for the assassination by fascist squads of socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti, replaced the word "fascism" with "3-I" and sent it around. The entire story was rather worrying considering that 3-I is in charge of the digital transformation of public services in Italy and taking into account the fact that the speech in question marked the beginning of a totalitarianism in Italy. Anastasio resigned in the end, but the government is still full of proud "heirs of the Duce", as Ignazio La Russa, president of the Senate and co-founder of Fratelli d'Italia stated in September ("We are all heirs of the Duce," he stated. I personally dissent, I'm no heir of the Duce).
So ChatGPT was banned not on "AIgiarism" grounds, but on privacy grounds. Bizarrely, the Garante never banned social media in Italy on the same grounds. The Garante investigated WhatsApp and eventually ordered it to stop sharing user data with parent company Facebook in 2018, but never blocked it. As for protecting minors, well, you should be 13 years old to use Facebook or Instagram in Italy and 16 to use TikTok, but, obviously, there are kids younger than that using these socials. You must also be 16 years old to use WhatsApp, but, in most cases, kids younger than that age have chat groups on WhatsApp with their school friends that also include some of their teachers.
Usually you ban what scares you and what you don't know because you're too afraid of learning. ChatGPT is pretty scary for some: yes, it can be damaging for students, yes, it can still hallucinate and create incorrect texts, but banning people from accessing it, means to stop all people on Italian territory to experiment with it and learn from its mistakes, understand its powers and limits and eventually leave them behind compared to users in other countries.
Most people do use AI-powered tools as a hobby at the moment, to create art or entertain themselves: we have indeed seen how crochet and knitting enthusiasts use it to create patterns with hilarious results; others use ChatGPT for coding purposes or even to come up with recipes (the latest iteration of the AI behind the bot, GPT-4, should even be able to provide recipe suggestions based on a photograph of the contents of your fridge).
Besides, the new plugins on GPT-4 can enable it to look up data on the web and provide new opportunities for businesses as well, as users may be able to employ the plugins for a variety of applications, from organising a trip to finding a restaurant.
At the moment the priority is not stopping Artificial Intelligence, but training it in a more ethical way, developing new legal and copyright rules to protect one's original work and understand in which fields, including education and productivity, it can improve our lives. So far we know for example that AI can help detecting breast cancer, while researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new AI model that outperforms human pathologists in identifying brain cancer. The system analyzes large volumes of data and accurately classifies glioma, a type of brain cancer, into its two subtypes - oligodendroglioma and astrocytoma - in just a few minutes. The AI model has an accuracy rate of over 94%, compared to the human rate - 75%. The AI system also proved to be more consistent, while human experts' accuracy obviously varies depending on their level of expertise.
Everything can be bad if used for the wrong reasons: you can use WhatsApp to contact your friends based in other countries, but you can use it to stalk and threaten somebody; you can use TikTok to post hilarious videos of your epic fail and gather millions of followers, but you can also use it to offend someone, encourage body dysmorphia and push somebody to become anorexic. And you can use a knife to kill or to cut a loaf of bread. A tool is just a tool, it is the way we employ it that makes the difference.
Time will tell who's right or wrong in this dispute between the Italian Garante and ChatGPT. In the meantime, OpenAI has now got 20 days to respond to the request of Italy's Data Protection Authority or could risk a fine of up to 20 million euros.
So, yes, in the last few days we have got the confirmation that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is definitely progressing faster than human intelligence. There is instead no ending for human stupidity: ChatGPT may be banned from Italy, but everybody on Italian ground can obviously use a VPN, pretend to be in another country and continue accessing ChatGPT.
Blissfully ignorant of having been banned in Italy, ChatGPT first suggested to do so when I asked what to do in the eventuality it was banned. When I asked again a few hours later, it was still blissfully ignorant of the ban, but suggested to comply with the laws and regulations and even reach out to legal experts for guidance. Who knows, maybe Artificial Intelligence may not be the villain after all.
