Yes, you are creative

To create is to be human.

Some of the oldest evidence of art goes back to depictions of a hunting session discovered in the caves of Europe that are thousands of years old. It’s not the Sistine Chapel or anything (recommend visiting from my own experience), but it proves that we have a desire to commemorate our activities and achievements.

Building a digital heirloom is a natural thing that is innately part of our being.

As such, you’ve been doing it all your life in some way, shape, or form. This week, we’ll munch on ideas and explore what forms of artistic expression you’ve encountered and enjoyed that enhances your own digital footprint.

Time to tap into your creative self that you may or may not think too much about.

What art really is

When I refer to art, I’m not just referring to doodles, sketches, and the use of pencils, pens, and paint. I’m referring to any type of artistic medium that ranges from the visual arts to music, dance, theater, and writing.

These are the furious, fabulous five aspects from which all of humanity’s wonders persist throughout time.

Gems like Bob Ross, Taylor Swift, Keanu Reeves, Alexandre Dumas, and Michael Jackson come to mind in each medium (yes I know MJ can cover both, but he’s MY dance inspiration).

The arts are a magnifying glass for your inner self. It’s the way in which we take everything we’ve got balled up inside of use and put it out on blast for the entire world to see. With the power of the internet and all the progress that’s been made in technology, it’s not hard to share everything that we create in any of these areas with the entire planet now.

With the power of AI, the potential to iterate and refactor art is now also staggering. Just take the most recent meme-level movement of Ghibli-fying everything. What takes a studio an incredible amount of time to animate and capture before, AI can do in an instant. The same phenomenon happened with “Toy Story” as one of the prime examples a few decades ago with fully computer-generated feature films. If nothing else, amplification, duplication, and imitation at scale has become easier than ever. With examples like Dall-E and Sora now in existence, it’s tempting to say that art is easy.

That’s not what I’m getting at here, though.

Prompting isn’t art

Creativity is about emotional release, a reflection of your identity, and has a story that is connected to it.

AI generation has none of these characteristics. It’s a powerful assistant and teammate to be sure, but claiming that you are making art using prompts is like taking credit for writing a book you commissioned. It’s like the Medici’s saying they were responsible for directly painting the works of the Renaissance.

If you create something, you are sharing some aspect of yourself. You are expressing an emotion, a piece of who you are with tendrils that are connected to your visions, beliefs, and values. When someone comes up to you and asks about where the inspiration comes from for writing that powerful piece, painting that powerful image, choreographing that dance, making that acting choice, or improvising that phrase in jam session, there is a story about the process, who your heroes are, where they stem from.

Not “Here’s the prompt I used to generate it. Try it out for yourself!”

AI content is like a Christmas tree. Yes, it had roots from humanity, but people come along and chop it down at the trunk so that they can take it home and dress it up for display for a few weeks before chucking it out to the woodchipper. The thing that used to be alive and connected is now rootless and propped up by artificial means.

A digital heirloom includes artistic expression

Don’t tell me you aren’t creative.

If you’ve hummed a tune or sang a verse or shook your butt at the club, then you’ve done something that nobody else has or ever will. You created something based on your experience, beliefs, and values. When you speak your mind in conversation, you are expressing yourself.

Communication is art. Art is communication. We use technology to capture what we express, not to express it for us.

Artistic expression is a vital legacy generator, and your digital heirloom packages it up for others to enjoy.

Think about it for a bit. Reflect on the last time you expressed yourself in any form that made you feel seen, understood, or grounded in your identity.

• Was it an post you wrote on social media?

• Was it a monologue you gave about why the Flash could take Superman in a fight?

• Was it you doing your thing on dance floor at your sister’s wedding that is now forever memorialized on Google Photos?

• Was it that doodle depicting a bully as a stick figure being pummeled by the Hulk?

• Was it that song where you changed all the lyrics to being about poop as you hunted around your backyard after your dogs did their business when it was 14 degrees outside?

It’s all art because it all came from within you.

Next time, we’ll dig into the source of all that craziness.