This was an experiment with the purpose of exploring digital fluency and the potential for Ai in art. For this project, the idea we came up with was a challenge to compare human made art with that made from AI.

While trying to think of a subject matter for the human made piece, I thought of the American folk hero John Henry. John Henry's story parallels that of many people, whose occupation is currently being impeded on by automated technology, which can often times complete tasks much faster than humanly possible. Speaking on art specifically, AI image generation programs can generate prompt based images quicker than any artist, sometimes in less than a minute! Similarly, the "steel-driving machine" introduced in the John Henry story is build with the hopes of outsourcing the labor, effectively removing the jobs of those working on the railroad. In an attempt to overturn the situation, John Henry wagers that if he can build the railroad faster than the machine, that the workers can keep their jobs. John Henry does beat the machine but dies from a heart attack, leaving his wife and child behind. This story always rubbed me the wrong way because in addition to the death of the protaganist and the repurcussions of this, there is nothing to stop the machine operators from coming back with attempting to outsource the labor again.

Playing off the American folk tale, I made a piece themed around a "happy ending" for John Henry. Rather than fighting and dying to technology, Henry instead learns to use technology to his advantage. Now Henry is able to hang up his hammer and work from home, spending time with his wife and children. 

I started with a pencil and ink sketch, later coloring it with brush pens and markers

I later took scans of the original drawing and colored them digitally.

I then used Midjourney to try and create a similar piece, without using reference images.

Finally I used Midjourney and uploaded scans of the drawing for the AI to reference, and tried the process again.