After Wall: The Wood Wide Web and AI Art
By Ben Millar Cole
In 1993, Jeff Wall meticulously reworked Hokusai’s famous 19th century woodblock print A Sudden Gust of Wind at Ejri as a large-scale photograph, spending more than a year in his local vicinity constructing scenes and orchestrating actors to produce a seemingly spontaneous dramatic event. Compiled of nearly 50 individual photographs, A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai) (1993) is a mimesis of the real both conceptually and literally. Using the same unifying compositional strategies, it is a multi-layered photographic reconstruction, or what Wall (1996) refers to as a ‘re-enactment’, of the original work of art.
Three decades later, Artificial Intelligence (AI) image generators can create infinite variations of Wall’s carefully composed photograph in seconds. In my series After Wall, harmoniously balanced arrangements of individuals and objects are quickly transformed into organic, fungal-like tableaux. This evolution in the creative process signals a revolutionary shift in how we can understand authorship, artistic production and artistic value in the current age of AI. As we look into the future of AI’s relationship to art, the implications are profound. New technologies are transforming not just the speed of production but the complex nature of creative collaboration, inspiration and authenticity. What it means to be a creative human being in the age of AI is at the heart of my artistic experimentation and thinking.
In my ongoing body of work, Computers Can’t Jump, begun in 2017, AI has been my creative collaborator and playmate; its relentless evolution and occasional misfires grant me a free pass to experiment and provoke. To depart from the rigour and rules of photographic convention, with its darkrooms and copyright clauses, and to take a trip into the realm of conceptual mischief.
Embracing AI’s serendipitous potential, I delve into the liminal space between human and machine, seeking the spark of surprise. Sifting through images, tweaking prompts, and pursuing connections, I am experimenting with multidirectional strands. This is a journeyed experience. I am struck by Bridle’s investigation of what Alan Turing calls the creative mental act; the concept that, ‘intelligence might be multiple and relational…it might take many different forms…it might exist between, rather than within, beings of all and diverse kinds (2022: 31).
Since the advent of the first modern text-to-image model alignDRAW in 2015, we have been learning the language of AI image generators, which transform text prompts into visual representations. These prompts, essentially descriptive phrases or sentences, guide the AI to create images that align with the given description. Yet the role of the artist in AI image generation extends far beyond simple text input. Creating effective prompts requires a nuanced understanding of how AI systems can interpret and codify language, how they produce images, and how they can be used to combine technical knowledge with artistic intuition. Jon Rafman (n.d.) describes the role of the artist-promptist as being ‘akin to a conductor, guiding an orchestra of computational processes.’ I see this complex process as mirroring other artistic practices where a command of materials and tools is essential. Just as early photographers needed expert scientific knowledge of image development, today’s AI artists must develop fluency in prompt engineering and algorithmic behaviour. As a discipline, prompt-writing is an emerging artistic skill, one which blends intuition and deep familiarity with AI’s quirks (see, for example, Rafman). This process becomes almost meditative, requiring both technical precision and creative instinct to guide the computational processes towards a desired artistic vision.
The genesis of many artists’ work does not begin with the medium itself. Many of Wall’s photographic works pay homage to specific art historical works, synthesising material from other art forms including cinema, literature and painting. I am extending this chain of inspiration through AI technology, exploring how Wall’s compositions can be used as creative prompts for AI image generation. I am seeking to find the threshold of originality through ideation and play. In the process, the boundaries between authorship, homage, and reinterpretation blur, creating a generative dialogue between art history past and present. Like Wall (2022), I do not aim to critique ‘classic’ photography nor do I view AI as superior to it. Instead, my work emphasises how creativity and inspiration evolve over time, changing and adapting as new techniques and tools emerge. AI, in this context, is not an endpoint nor is it in opposition to photography that came before it. Rather, it is a continuation—a developing visual language that takes Wall’s work as a point of departure, a place for reimagining conversations about technology in the current moment. AI can be used to incorporate ideas about metafantasy – playing with and referencing familiar tropes whilst dreaming anew to break new ground.
The visual motifs I am focusing on—fungi, mould, and spores—resonate deeply with themes of decay, regeneration and transformation. Just as fungi symbolise cycles of organic growth, AI image generation embodies a rotation of reinterpretation. It ‘blooms’ by combining, reshaping and evolving images and text into new visual forms. By recasting Wall’s human-centric, ordered compositions with the wild proliferation of organic forms, these ‘re-enactments’ move away from the concept of the sole creative genius, tipping towards a more collaborative, interconnected vision for creativity. The human narrative is replaced, leaving only the familiar iconic contours and shapes of the original artworks, transforming into new compositions where humans no longer take centre stage. Though Wall might view these compositions to be an ‘excess of measure, in the manner of caricature’, akin to his thoughts on Pieter Bruegel’s Renaissance paintings (Wall 1996: 141), I see them as something more primal and chaotic—an intricate dance between nature and technology.
Just as mycorrhizal networks create what biologists refer to as the ‘Wood Wide Web’, where fungi weave together entire forest ecosystems through microscopic connections, AI systems facilitate a vast network of creative exchange and influence. Bridle (2022) draws an analogy between AI and flowering intelligence, a view that aligns with my thinking. Using fungi as a metaphorical device in After Wall, I am drawing parallels between collaborative ecologies existing in nature and AI’s capabilities. This is a vivid reimagining of the world’s natural ecosystem—a superorganism spanning thousands of miles, sharing resources, communicating dangers.
Despite its creative, economic and social potential, there exist many valid concerns about AI. The environmental and ethical problems it presents today are proliferating; OpenAI’s recent human rights violations – exploitations of already marginalised communities – are just one bellwether of Big Tech’s profit-driven underbelly. We are using an incredible amount of resources for AI; there are issues with the energy required to store and process data, power servers and the water to cool them, the extreme carbon footprint needed for current training models, issues with resource extraction and the production of hazardous waste. There exists inherent bias in the building blocks of AI systems; sometimes apparent, other times a black box.
However, abstention of AI as a form of protest is not the right answer. The more we use it, the better we understand it, the better we are able to critique it. Rather than considering it as a nebulous existential threat, it requires redefining and individuating. From the early narrow focus of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) to ChatGPT and everything in between, this amorphous ‘creature’ is the sum of many interconnected parts that lack consensus and global governance. We need to move away from the concept that it is an abstract other, and see it instead as a practical collection of collaborative systems. By recognising AI as a form of ‘innovative social collaboration’ (Lanier, 2003) rather than independent intelligence, we can shift toward managing it as a powerful tool that amplifies human creativity rather than mystifying it and creating unnecessary fear and alienation. We need to use it and view it with intentionality. It is holding a mirror up to society and presents an opportunity to show us where we are going wrong as human beings.
The rapidly firing acceleration of new visual forms produced within AI art is already fuelling a crisis of meaning, what Amanda Wong (2023) refers to as, ‘a souped-up aggregate that challenges our ability to interpret and understand art.’ Recent legal debates around AI art’s copyright status echo historical scepticism towards new artistic technologies. The ruling against AI art copyright in Thaler v. Perlmutter (United States District Court, 2023), emphasising the absence of a ‘guiding human hand’, fails to recognise the vital role of artistic intent, curation and creative direction in the production of AI-generated works.
In a world where AI tools are increasingly capable of making photorealistic images, the concept of authorship is constantly shifting. Just as Wall’s use of digital technology invites viewers to question the authenticity of meticulously constructed scenes, I am attempting to challenge the perception of what a photograph can become. By replicating elements of Wall’s visual structures and infusing them with new narratives—biological, unruly and teeming with life—these images encourage a reconsideration of the boundaries of authorship, originality and creativity. In this evolving landscape, the dialogue between traditional and AI-generated photography is not a contest between authenticity and imitation but rather an ongoing conversation about the nature of art itself—its processes, its inspirations and its infinite potential for transformation.
As we look to the future of AI in art, AI-generated works compel us to rethink the value of artistic labour, the role of the artist’s intent and the threshold of originality. What role does intentionality play when working with AI, and how might Jeff Wall himself view these reinterpretations? Perhaps Wall might see a link between his own explorations of digital manipulation—AI as a tool that can extend the possibilities of photography.
As AI continues to evolve, so too will our understanding of art, authorship and the complex relationship between technology and creativity. Joanna Zylinksa (2020) proposes that we can perhaps adopt a post-humanist perspective; humans can be seen as quintessentially technical beings who have evolved alongside technology. Like the fungal networks that enable trees to share resources and information, AI systems create pathways for artistic ideas to flow, merge and transform. Avoiding an anthropocentric point of view that privileges humans above all other natural and artificial beings and forms, I am in favor of a different cosmic order; a harmonious structure where individual vision and collective intelligence can coexist and inform one another.
References:
Bridle, James (2022) Ways of Being. Milton Keynes: Penguin Books.
Lanier, Jaron (2023) ‘There Is No A.I.’ in The New Yorker, 20 April 2023 (online). https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/there-is-no-ai. Accessed 1 November 2024.
Rafman, John (n.d.) ‘Ebrah K’dabri’ in DIS.art (online). https://dis.art/jon-rafman-ebrah-kdabri. Accessed 1 November 2024.
United States District Court (2023) Thaler v. Perlmutter. Civil Action No. 22-1564 (BAH). United States District Court, District of Columbia. (online). https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-dis-col/114916944.html. Accessed 1 November 2024. See also United States Copyright Office (2024). ‘Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 1: Digital Replicas’ (online). https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-1-Digital-Replicas-Report.pdf. Accessed 1 November 2024.
Wall, Jeff (1996) Jeff Wall. London: Phaidon. See also Van Gelder, Hilde (2009) ‘The Shape of the pictural in contemporary photography’. Image & Narrative. Vol X, issue 1, March 2009 (online). https://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/Images_de_linvisible/Vangelder.htm#:~:text=In%20an%20essay%20from%201995,depicting%20that%20subject%20in%20a. Accessed 1 November 2024.
Wall, Jeff (2007) Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and Interviews. New York: MoMA.
Wall, Jeff (2024) ‘Near Documentary: Jeff Wall in conversation with Stefano Graziani and Bas Princen’ (transcript). https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/90412/near-documentary. Accessed 4 November 2024.
Wong, Amanda (2023) ‘How (Not) to Look at AI Art’ in Reboot, 4 June 2023 (online). https://joinreboot.org/p/ai-art. Accessed 1 November 2024.
Zylinska, Joanna (2020) ‘AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams. London: Open Humanities Press (online). https://openhumanitiespress.org/books/download/Zylinska_2020_AI-Art.pdf. Accessed 1 November 2024.