i've always thought that the intent behind how i use an AI tool is what defines the piece of art or anything else i am working on. it's what makes it resonate or fall flat. AI is a tool i use as an extension of my thinking, or as a way to finally realize things i've always envisioned but never had the skills to create myself. because intent is essential to me, i'm always looking for tools that preserve the emotional depth i'm trying to put into the work. that's why i prefer Midjourney over Nano Banana, which is what everyone seems to be using now. Midjourney allows for more personalization and i find it to respond to my prompting sensibility, interpreting things in ways i can shape and steer. the outputs carry my "flaws" rather than flattening them into something polished. none of my pieces are aesthetically perfect, and that's intentional. Nano Banana offers more perfection, which is sometimes useful, but it lacks emotional depth which is one of the most important things in my work. i see some tools as made for creating art, and others as designed for content. my point is this: AI art, when made with real intent, is art. and by intent i mean that the work reflects something that existed in me before the tool touched it. the AI executes, but i'm the source of the thing's meaning. that's different from typing a generic prompt and posting whatever comes out. AI gives people like me the opportunity to make visible what we've carried in our minds for years. it also allows for the creation of things that simply weren't possible before. whether we're making art or just content, that's up to us. and this has always been true of every tool that ever entered the creative space and changed what artists could do.🌹

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kindness is more interesting than taste. so what if we shift the discussion? "do they have good taste?" to "are you kind?" "i trust their taste" to "i trust their kindness" "that was in poor taste" to "that was in poor kindness" 🌹

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i think the aspiration or at least the one that should be is to be dependent on independence. what i mean by this is to be free, and sovereign over our attention and our time and even our inner life (though we may need something more to get that sovereignty). but the truth is that we are dependent on platforms, and on all the feelings that come with them. and i don't think most of us even realize it because it looks like being connected. and i keep thinking about this because i experienced it firsthand last week when i lost phone and internet signal for 17 hours and what i realized is that the thing i was afraid of missing, i was already missing it. and i've written more about this in this essay. i also want to give a shoutout here (as well) to @sxtvik and Offline Protocol as at some point this essay takes a turn into the reality that for some people this disconnection is survival and their work is something essential in those moments. link below.🌹 
https://thehiddeni.substack.com/p/we-all-need-to-lose-signal-for-a

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kindness >>>> 🌹

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i felt the need to add some more thoughts to this: 1. i don't think digital media will go to $0 because of ai. people won't stop buying digital because anyone can make something with ai. i would even say that ai enriches the digital experiences that we currently have. it's an extension of what we have now, not something that does harm to it. ai democratizes creation like any other tool that was brought into the creative realm. what's different than before is that ai allows for the creation of new things. to me creating is something from zero. making is something we make out of something that was already created. and ai gives us the opportunity to create new things. 2. the reason why i think on the short term it will go to $0 is because i believe people want to focus on the physical more. we are going into a phase where people are not sure whether they embrace or hate ai, and until they embrace it (because most will, just like they've done with the internet or social media) they will want to resist it in any way possible and focus more on the physical craft. the thing that we can now create anything at any time makes many things weightless. and when everything is like that people want something that holds more weight (in density, in depth). people are overwhelmed by the way algorithms work and they will want to disconnect more and spend more time with physical stuff. also why we are seeing the rise again of so many retro gadgets for example. 3. for now digital media has only had value to just a couple of people. if we are looking at the bigger picture and not just inside some specific places on the internet, people weren't willing to pay for digital art. they didn't understand the reasoning behind paying for something that you can "own" for free. and right now, with ai, they will find it even harder to do so, until they understand that ai is exactly the reason why digital media will grow in value. the infrastructure for digital ownership existed before the cultural readiness did. 4. what made a digital media artifact valuable for people was its cultural value, and this is why i believe that the cultural value an artifact has will be the reason why someone will want to have it and thus what will make it grow in monetary value. and the only way to make something digitally scarce and truly ownable is through the blockchain. thus why nfts. 5. the questions that more people will start to ask (because anything can be generated with ai) themselves will be who made this, is it real, and who owns it. and the only infrastructure that answers all three without trusting a platform is the blockchain. thus why nfts. 6. i have never been more excited about the future of nfts. i have never had more belief in the blockchain than now. there is no equitable ai future without the blockchain. people will consume digital art, they will want to own the digital media they are consuming, and thus why nfts. still reflecting on these. may be adding some more thoughts to this thread.🌹

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3/4 artists i reached out to, asking if it’s ok to have their pieces curated in the first edition of the zine, accepted and i am so so excited!!!🌹

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whether it is art, people, moments, or even ourselves, we give them, and everything, half a second now. we move so fast that nothing has the time to land, and we’ve gotten so used to the speed that we don’t even notice what we’re missing anymore. we hold the most powerful tools ever created in our hands and have access to more art, more beauty, and more truth than any generation before us. and yet, we scroll past it because we forgot how to stop. the thing is, art never stopped working. a piece was always able to make us feel something. but it needs time, and it needs us to choose to stay instead of swipe. the screen is blank because we made it blank. the choice was always in our hands. it still is. but they are numb now. “numb”🌹

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as much as i wish this not to be true, i think digital media will go to $0 and what will matter more is physical stuff, experiences, things that are more tangible. this doesn't mean digital will disappear as i believe will still be really important, but as an additional experience rather than the main one, at least in the short term. and when i say digital media i have to think about nfts as well, whether people may like or not and even if they feel "dead" now, because the ideas and principles around them will affect business forever. we'll just most probably stop using nfts as we knew them. i'd even say that right now digital media is theoretically worth 0. and i know that it may have cultural value (cultural >>>> monetary imo) and even monetary (not all though), but at the same time you can only make something digitally scarce (digital media is infinitely copyable by nature), and can truly own it independent of any platform only through the blockchain. thus why nfts.🌹

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we used to keep and value things and moments of our lives because they mattered to us, not because they were culturally relevant or because other people validated them. now if something doesn't perform we treat it as it doesn't count. and i think the worst part is that the sacred became equal to everything else.🌹 https://thehiddeni.substack.com/p/what-does-it-mean-that-nothing-weighs

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just realized I missed posting my essays, curations, and some other casts inside /the-hidden-i i completely forgot to choose the channel but this will change. the hidden i is my silent protest against not feeling anything, and a place where I still believe that kindness is more interesting than taste. if my work resonates with you make sure to drop it a follow!!🌹

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i miss the days when social media felt different. i joined a few communities back in the day, most of them around streetwear (was the thing i was most interested in at that time) and people were there because they genuinely cared about the same things. nobody was farming metrics or talking about engagement. attention was the last thing someone wanted. they were all chasing connection and conversation even the idea of being an influencer the way we see it today didn’t exist (it was starting to take shape though) something shifted between then and now and it wasn’t ai as many may assume. i wrote an essay about what actually changed and why i think we got so used to it that we needed a new technology to come along before we could even see it. link below🌹 https://thehiddeni.substack.com/p/i-dont-think-ai-is-what-i-should

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the over-perfection, the manufactured authenticity, and the feeling that nothing online feels real anymore are things everyone is blaming ai right now for i understand why people point at ai but i think the conversation is incomplete as i believe the first place where these behaviors were existing is social media it taught us to think in captions, to package ourselves, and to ask “how should i share this?” before asking “do i even want to?” i look at social media as being the architecture and ai the element that makes it louder i am sharing more thoughts about all of this in my latest essay. link below🌹 https://thehiddeni.substack.com/p/i-dont-think-ai-is-what-i-should

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I never asked “For You”.🌹

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every now and then I come across pieces that shift something inside me and this curation is made of three of those pieces. one made me question the face i’ve been showing the world, another gave me back energy i didn't know I'd lost, and another made me almost cry. i curate because i believe that when art reaches someone at the right time, it changes something that nothing else can. my latest curation is now live featuring the work of @xohaku , @hurric4n3ike , and @erinhyvin 🌹 https://thehiddeni.substack.com/p/let-me-show-you-something

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this might be the last time i write about taste because the word will start being dead, even though it's the most in vogue right now i want to shift the conversation to the one who actually makes the taste, which is the person behind it, and whether they've done the "thinking" that makes it real or not🌹 https://thehiddeni.substack.com/p/this-is-the-last-time-i-am-talking

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