Synthetic Me

Diffractive self-portraits

I am fascinated by how GenAI sees us.  After all, it only knows what we have told and shown it about ourselves, and we have told and shown it a very great deal. Hence its uncanny ability to re-present our likeness in any combination or distortion if feels disposed to generate.

I wondered what it might make of me. Since we're collaborators here, it seemed only fair to turn the mirror on myself and let the pixels mingle where they might.

This became, at times, an exercise in self-flattery, at others, a rather unsettling auto-examination. Self portraiture has a long and noble history: from hands pressed against the walls of neolithic caves to the instagram selfie, our sense of personal individuation relies heavily on visual evidence. GenAI offers yet another angle through which this instinct to self-reflect can emerge.  But here the reflection is more of a diffraction: where multiple waves of information and intention collide and form strange new patterns.