Some artists argue that AI image generators aren’t creating anything new. Others, like USF professors McArthur Freeman II and Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, enjoy enlisting AI as a collaborator.
The Freemans used AI to explore Blackness and Black representation in a new set of works on display at the Gallery at Creative Pinellas this spring.
Afrofuturism’s been around ever since Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence on March 6, 1957. “We face neither east nor west… We face forward. We face the future,” Nkrumah spoke.
More than 60 years later, in a 2019 lecture at The Kennedy Center, Augustus (Gus) Casely-Hayford, then director of The National Museum of African Art, described Nkrumah’s speech as “the soil upon which Afrofuturism was planted.”
At its heart, Afrofuturism encompasses any Afro-centric art form—literature, music, visual art, film—that focuses on the future. This can take many forms, from sci-fi to AI.
In case you haven’t noticed all the AI selfies made by Facetune and Lensa on your Facebook feed, the future is here. And an Afrofuturism revival has come with it. Thanks to recent innovations, AI is more sophisticated than ever. It started creeping into Tampa Bay art galleries and museums around 2019, bringing Salvador Dalí back to life in St. Pete.
Now it’s “creating” artwork from a few words and a collection of images ripped from the internet. You can see it in action at The Dali through April 30 , or at home, if you’re a Washington Post subscriber. Or, you can go to Creative Pinellas and see what an Associate Professor of Video, Animation, and Digital Arts can do with it.
As Kevin Kelly pointed out in Wired, AI generators require prompting, and there’s an art to that. “Combining exceptional artistic talent with technology and sociology, McArthur Freeman II and Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman have created a panoply of Afrofuturistic images that "propel us past the challenges, injuries and pain entangling us today, enabling us to craft and experience new realities that are more expansive, beautiful, and just,” Creative Pinellas Director of Arts and Cultural Programming, Beth Gelman, said in a press release. “This is the power of art. Art can open minds to new ideas and ways of thinking which have the potential to truly transform our community and world for the better.”
"Imagine Blackness" is up now through Feb. 26 at The Gallery at Creative Pinellas, located at 12211 Walsingham Rd. in Largo, but that’s not all Creative Pinellas is up to.
Through Feb. 13, artists who “have a history of increasingly successful work on the local, national, or international stage” are invited to apply for Creative Pinellas’ unrestricted, $5,000 professional artist grants, which aim to support local creatives and promote the county as a cultural destination.
There’s one more virtual grant workshop on Monday, Feb. 6 from noon-1 p.m. Registration is happening now at creativepinellas.org, and more is available via @creativepinellas on Facebook.
The Freemans used AI to explore Blackness and Black representation in a new set of works on display at the Gallery at Creative Pinellas this spring.
Afrofuturism’s been around ever since Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence on March 6, 1957. “We face neither east nor west… We face forward. We face the future,” Nkrumah spoke.
More than 60 years later, in a 2019 lecture at The Kennedy Center, Augustus (Gus) Casely-Hayford, then director of The National Museum of African Art, described Nkrumah’s speech as “the soil upon which Afrofuturism was planted.”
At its heart, Afrofuturism encompasses any Afro-centric art form—literature, music, visual art, film—that focuses on the future. This can take many forms, from sci-fi to AI.
In case you haven’t noticed all the AI selfies made by Facetune and Lensa on your Facebook feed, the future is here. And an Afrofuturism revival has come with it. Thanks to recent innovations, AI is more sophisticated than ever. It started creeping into Tampa Bay art galleries and museums around 2019, bringing Salvador Dalí back to life in St. Pete.
Now it’s “creating” artwork from a few words and a collection of images ripped from the internet. You can see it in action at The Dali through April 30 , or at home, if you’re a Washington Post subscriber. Or, you can go to Creative Pinellas and see what an Associate Professor of Video, Animation, and Digital Arts can do with it.
As Kevin Kelly pointed out in Wired, AI generators require prompting, and there’s an art to that. “Combining exceptional artistic talent with technology and sociology, McArthur Freeman II and Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman have created a panoply of Afrofuturistic images that "propel us past the challenges, injuries and pain entangling us today, enabling us to craft and experience new realities that are more expansive, beautiful, and just,” Creative Pinellas Director of Arts and Cultural Programming, Beth Gelman, said in a press release. “This is the power of art. Art can open minds to new ideas and ways of thinking which have the potential to truly transform our community and world for the better.”
"Imagine Blackness" is up now through Feb. 26 at The Gallery at Creative Pinellas, located at 12211 Walsingham Rd. in Largo, but that’s not all Creative Pinellas is up to.
Through Feb. 13, artists who “have a history of increasingly successful work on the local, national, or international stage” are invited to apply for Creative Pinellas’ unrestricted, $5,000 professional artist grants, which aim to support local creatives and promote the county as a cultural destination.
There’s one more virtual grant workshop on Monday, Feb. 6 from noon-1 p.m. Registration is happening now at creativepinellas.org, and more is available via @creativepinellas on Facebook.
