Can creating digital art create something positive?

The Generators are an ongoing experiment in my digital studio.

I am actively pursuing ways that creating digital art can create something positive and be green, while using extraordinary new technological advances to visually display an artist's mind.

It's an experiment.

I don't know yet exactly where it will lead. But I believe it is possible, with conscious intention and effort.

The Generators begin digitally, but the digital presentation is only the first stage of the development, creative process and research.

Some may remain digital. Others may develop into virtual or physical installations, participatory or performative works, or experiences in which a viewer participates remotely or in person.

I am interested in what participation itself can create.

A Generator might create a poem, an image, a sound, an intention, a question, an action, a connection, a collective experience, or something that eventually affects the physical world.

Some things may be spiritual, contemplative or experiential. Others may be measurable.

I don't want to confuse the two.

If something creates a measurable positive effect, I want to be able to measure it.

painting with
your mind.

Digital image creation feels like painting with your mind.

I get flashes of imagery all of the time.

Having the technical ability to make those images visible gives me a way to record an image while it is still alive in my mind, as a digital sketch, a real visual record of what I am seeing.

I can then go about the task of how to create.

The digital image does not have to be the finished artwork. It can become a log, instructions, or a sketchbook of ideas that can eventually be executed by an artist's hands.

An idea can arrive in seconds. Physically making it may require time, funding, materials, collaborators, fabrication, installation or studio space.

The digital studio lets me catch the idea first.

Time passes and my ideas sit.

Running a small art business is historically an all-consuming project.

I create the art, but I also manage the business, pop-ups, exhibitions, social media, the website, fulfillment, staffing, travel, manual labor, load-in and load-out, and many other jobs that would ordinarily be distributed among many people.

Meanwhile, I have a constant flow of ideas.

I can't possibly physically make all of the ideas I have as quickly as they arrive.

The digital studio gives me a way to feel creative in everyday life and on the go, while also protecting the very precious time I have in my physical studio.

I can capture an idea instead of losing it while I wait for the time, money, materials or space to make it.

I am the artist.

The ideas, visual direction and creative decisions begin with me.

AI does not create my ideas. It can help me research, orchestrate, visualize and actualize them, including ideas I may later choose to develop, fund and execute with an artist's hands.

Artists have always researched. We look at images, fonts, colors, materials, different periods, landscapes and other visual information. We collect references and make mood boards while an idea is developing.

Digital tools expand that research and allow me to move through it at extraordinary speed.

That speed is exciting to me because it lets me work closer to the speed at which ideas actually arrive.

But I do not want the technology to replace my imagination.

I am the artist.

an evolving ecosystem.

I don't see the Generators as isolated digital projects. I see them growing into an ecosystem.

One may begin with poetry. Another with sound. Another with nature, intention, contemplation, movement, participation or a question.

A digital experiment might eventually become an installation. A virtual participant might eventually affect something physical. A work might remain on a screen or move completely beyond it.

The digital studio gives me somewhere to begin the research and creative process without deciding in advance where an idea has to end.

What happens when imagination becomes almost limitless on a planet whose resources are not?

Almost everything we do now involves computing. AI, websites, email, images, video, storage, hosting, maps, networks and the infrastructure behind them have environmental costs, even when we cannot see them.

I do not want to call my digital studio green simply because its intentions are positive. I want to know.

I am actively working with AI and other research tools to find actionable ways to make my art and digital use create positive change and become greener.

This is where quantifiable responsibility matters.

I want to measure what can actually be measured. If something is an estimate, say it is an estimate. If something is an experiment, say it is an experiment. If we don't know yet, say we don't know. And then keep researching.

I want the research to continually change how I work.

Can creating a digital artwork itself create positive change?

Can participation lead to something measurable in the physical world? Can art, technology, research, community and environmental responsibility support one another?

I don't know yet. That is why I am doing it.

I believe it is possible with conscious intention and effort.

I am actively researching actionable ways to make this possible so that I can continue to expand my digital studio.

If I cannot find an appropriate pathway to good, I am prepared to rethink it or close it.

Research + Partner Map →   Virtual Studio →

This is not a finished answer.

It is the experiment.