I’ve been wrestling with something lately—something that cuts right to the heart of who I am. I’m an artist. I’ve always been an artist of one kind or another, be it visual arts, performance art, craft or writing. It’s not just what I do; it’s how I make sense of the world.
For years, I poured myself into visual theatre—movement, dance, mime, clowning, music, and making masks, costumes, and props. It was this beautiful, chaotic fusion of everything I loved, and it sustained me for two decades. But life shifted, as it does. I moved into creative arts teaching, then writing, editing and publishing. Through it all, I’ve held onto my visual arts practice, not just because I love it, but because I need it. I’m autistic (level 1) and it’s one of the supports I have in place in my life that helps keep my nervous system regulated–nature immersion and meditation are others.
While writing and learning editing and publishing, my creativity found its place in making full-faced decorative masks and decorating hats. And then along came generative AI tools—tools that let me create stunning visuals, bring them to life in video form, and set them to my own–deeply meaningful–songs. Suddenly I could do the visual theatre combination again but with better visuals and no need to find venues and other people to help bring my vision into the world. I recognised it immediately as the perfect medium for me as an artist, and my first foray into the medium of AI art video was a kind of art therapy as I explored what affect my neurodivergence had had–and still has–on my life.
And yet, it’s complicated.
The Weight of Ethical Questions
We all know the debates about AI art. The tools I use were trained on artworks that, in many cases, were used without the artists’ permission. That doesn’t sit well with me. It’s not right. And then there’s the environmental cost—the power, the water, the data centres. It’s all growing so fast, driven by corporations that care more about profit than people or the planet.
So I found myself asking: Should I stop using these tools? Should I walk away from this medium that feels so perfectly suited to me?
After a lot of mulling it over, facing prejudice for my art medium of choice and hearing others’ ideas, here’s where I landed:
Me not using these tools won’t change how they were created. It won’t pay the artists whose work was used without permission, nor will it stop the corporations from pushing forward. It won’t make the data centers disappear or slow the pace of AI development. And since I live off-grid with my own power and water supply, I have a bit of carbon currency to spare.
What it would do is take away a form of expression that feels deeply right for me. It would leave me apologizing for my art, for the tools I use to create it. And that doesn’t feel right either.
A Story of Struggle and Prejudice
I’ve been minimizing my AI use, trying to be conscious and careful. I don’t use it for writing—I don’t need to. But my video art wouldn’t be possible without generative AI. AI art music video is a brand new art form, a kinetic audio-visual medium that simply didn’t exist until generative AI. But I’ve felt this pressure, this need to justify myself, to explain why I’m using these tools.
I’ve felt the weight of prejudice from people who refuse to look at what I’m actually doing with the medium because they can’t see past the AI part. They are completely dismissive of my work with no understanding of it or the medium. And they are not interested in finding out. They prefer to rip shreds off those who use generative AI, even those who are genuinely artists exploring a new medium. And I am not the only person with a traditional art background working with these tools.
And that’s what they are to me, just tools, artistic mediums that I use to create what is essentially a digital mixed media work.
The AI art generator, the video generator, and the music generator I use don’t make the art.
I do.
I control and direct them.
I use the styles I’ve created in Midjourney like a painter uses a palette, mixing and matching to create new styles and variations.
And I make up the songs and sing them into the music generator.
‘Get a pencil,’ is a common refrain from those sitting high on their noble horses, those who have clearly never felt the power of inspiration when a medium opens a whole new world of creativity. Some give me long dissertations on how I should learn to draw or paint. As if playing with these other mediums would magically make me stop using AI, as if they would somehow be a comparable medium, and as if I wasn’t already using traditional art forms as well as AI tools.
As an artist of other mediums, I know what a genuine artistic process feels like, and so I know that what I make with these tools is art. Plenty of people will swear that art is not possible with AI tools, but they can’t see through their prejudice enough to learn what is actually involved in what I do, nor do they notice that though there is a lot of AI slop about, it isn’t all slop.
There are AI artists doing interesting work. Not every photograph is art, and neither is every painting.
It’s what you do with a medium that makes it art, not the medium itself.
At one point, I caught myself apologizing for my art. Apologizing! What kind of artist does that? It felt wrong.
Artists don’t allow others to dictate their art form.
Though they may suffer for sticking to their new form.
But then I’ve never fit neatly into boxes. I’m autistic, I have ADHD, epilepsy, and I have all of Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities as well as hyperlexia—I’ve always lived in the spaces between. And now, here I am, an AI artist who’s painfully aware of the ethical and environmental concerns, beating myself up over it.
I’m not going to do that anymore.
What I Realized
Here’s what I’ve come to understand:
- Not using these tools won’t undo the harm or change the system.The responsibility lies with corporations and governments to address these issues.
- And it’s the investors who are driving the building of these huge data centres, not the ordinary users.
- I can support ethical practices without abandoning my medium. I’d gladly pay more for tools that compensate artists fairly.
- Using AI tools doesn’t diminish the artist value of my work. My art is still mine, shaped by my vision and creativity.
- Minimizing my AI use is enough. I live off-grid, collect my own water, and have a low carbon footprint. I’m already doing my part.
- I don’t need to apologize for my art. It’s okay to claim my space, even if it doesn’t fit others’ expectations.
Why This Matters
This isn’t just about AI art. It’s about the tension we all feel between our values and the realities of the world we live in. It’s about finding ways to navigate that tension without losing ourselves.
Art has always been a reflection of the times, shaped by the tools and technologies available. Generative AI is just another tool—a complicated one, yes, but still a tool. And like any tool, it’s up to us to decide how we use it, how we engage with the systems that create it, and how we stay true to ourselves in the process.
Claiming My Art
So I’ve decided to stop apologizing for my use of AI art, music and video generators. Together these make the medium I use for one of my art forms. A medium that, though not perfect, is perfect for me. And if someone doesn’t like it, that’s okay. I’m not here to fit into anyone’s idea of what an artist should be or do.
As Carl Jung said in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, “A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his daimon.”
My daimon is creative inspiration, and sometimes her demands require AI.
Me stopping making AI art music videos wouldn’t solve any of the issues around AI; it would just deprive me of the most exciting and inspiring medium I have ever explored.
What do you think?
Here’s one of my favourite pieces.
