WILL 2023 BE THE YEAR YOU GO SOLAR & LOCK IN ENERGY SAVINGS?

“The smiling monkey that took a selfie has already laid down a precedent,” Crouch says. “The photographer who had that image on his phone wasn’t allowed to copyright it because a piece of art by law requires human authorship. Nobody can tie their ownership to it because it is not humanly authored.”

Eventually, though, Slater worked out how to monetize the image, at which point People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a suit on the monkey’s behalf. Slater ultimately settled in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and can make money from the image—he must also donate 25% of any revenue to groups that protect the macaque and its habitat in Indonesia.

Still—who owns what when we’re talking about artificial intelligence?

“It depends, is the answer,” says Talia Kosh, an attorney with Santa Fe’s Bennett Law Group and Albuquerque’s Blackgarden

Law who specializes in intellectual property. “If a user enters, ‘Civil War landscape’ [into an app], the ideas themselves aren’t copyrightable—there can be variations of Civil War landscapes. Are they substantially similar to other works?”

Kosh says it’s even harder to nail down AI art law when it comes to fair use—a tricky corner of the law that allows for the use of copyrighted material without permission for things like criticism or parody.

“If I’m doing like the artist Richard Prince did, taking somebody’s original work and putting my own commentary on it, maybe making a joke or a parody, that can be considered transformative use,” she says. “There has also been case law that says two photographers can take the same photo of the same landscape in the same place and at the same time of day, but it’s about the angle, the lighting, the choices in composition—those are elements of originality.”

Prince printed out large scale versions of random Instagram users’ photos and sold them in galleries for absurd amounts in and around 2015. At the time, critics raised questions about ownership, and now even more than then, there’s no easy answer.

“[AI art] is so new that the law is still catching up,” Kosh tells SFR. “As suits are brought, the law will develop. The courts are much quicker to respond than the government.”

Santa Fe oil painter Amanda Banker, who has dabbled in NFTs, emphasizes the role of existing artists. Yes, she says, anyone can use AI, but those who have trained or self-taught or even just have more artistic experience will surely create more meaningful work than someone entering prompts they think are funny into an algorithm.

“What I’m interested in seeing...is the artists—the real artists—getting ahold of it, because I think that that’s where the distinction is gonna happen,” she says. “If I know artists, they’re gonna take it and they’re gonna run with it, and things that we have not seen yet, really incredible things, are gonna start to come out.”

In terms of creative jobs and the potential AI impact, Banker notes, “I think the people that actually have good taste will keep an artist around. The people who want to have a cheap, easy product, they’re the ones who are gonna drop the artist.”

The question remains for many artists though, whether AI or not: What defines “art” in the first place? If a person puts a prompt into an AI generator and it produces an image, is this person an artist?

Deco, the collage artist, has doubts.

“AI can generate illustrations, which may be beautiful, but cannot, by its defi- nition, create to reflect the depth of the human soul,” she explains. “My art process is slow and painstaking and is entirely formed by hand. I am not afraid of technology; I do use a giclée process to reproduce my originals; I find this service expensive, but I pay for it willingly because it allows me to generate income. These giclée prints are beautiful and faithful to the original, but they are not ‘the real thing,’ not art.”

Banker takes the concept even further.

“What we think is going to happen is that it’s almost gonna be a Blade Runner situation, where physical art is going to be- come more and more valuable because AI artists are going to flood the market, and I think physical artists are actually going to end up being more valued,” she says. “I can go online and sign up for Stable Diffusion right now and generate however many images I ever want, could ever think of, and then print them to aluminum board—and they’ll look good, but it’s kind of like buying a poster at Cost Plus. These are millions and millions of prints made, so there’s really no individual value.”

Even if we consider human touch a necessary aspect of creation, Breeze points out how accessibility can be problematic, too. Who can afford access to the materials to regularly participate in physically created art?

“As a person and as an artist, AI is right now absolutely on the table,” Breeze says. “I’ve been talking about it here in rural Ghana working on a huge sculptural project in a foundry using these old techniques, and we’re talking about AI art, me and the other artists here—artists who work with their hands and traditional methods. I think that when we harness it, especially under-represented artists, artists of color, artists who don’t have a lot of accessibility to all of the tools of the world, when we are able to utilize some of the capacities of AI art, it’s basically a new language. It’s something we can harness.”

And, it seems, artists might have to learn how to do that. When it comes to AI art and generative apps, Pandora’s box has been opened—and there’s no shutting it now.

“I think it’s just a creative tool and I see it very similarly to photography, the computer, the resistance that people have against new technology. I think the power is the issue. Human beings tend to like to surrender to power,” Amster says. “So people have to stay on top of it if they care, and not surrender to the power of AI.”

And so it will go, in flux, at least for a time. Stable Diffusion is facing a lawsuit for using copyrighted artwork, and you’ll surely find many others in the works already; tech-savvy folks are already building new formats, too, such as ReachAI, which has an opt-out option for artists to request their work be removed from use in AI training. .

“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Banker says. “It’s gonna be interesting.”

WORKSHOP THU/2

How To Word Good

Normally we wouldn’t suggest attending an event outside city limits, but we know that so many of y’all went artsy during the pandemic, so we think the upcoming Writers Workshop at Corrales’ Circle Round Boutique is worth the short jaunt south. Take it from us—you want fresh ears and eyes evaluating your words and providing feedback. Otherwise you’re just writing in a vacuum, and that’s no way to improve at all. The workshop features a simple and doable plan, too, wherein you’ll help create a word list and then write a short piece to share with the gorup or not. Whatever you plan to do, just getting your piece onto the page is half the battle. Maybe you’ll pen the pretty OK American novel, even. (Alex De Vore)

Writers Workshop at Circle Round:

5:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 2. Suggested donation.

Circle Round Boutique, 4486 Corrales Road, Corrales (505) 897-7004

MUSIC FRI/3

The Still Of The Night

Though Santa Fe is no stranger to bands that claim genres like folk, bluegrass, Americana, et al, it seems we’re always glad to welcome bands of those ilks to our fair city. We like acoustic guitars and fiddles around here, and we’re not afraid to let the world know. Enter Durango, Colorado’s Stillhouse Junkies, a three-piece genre-busting act that culls from the aforementioned styles with a bit of narrative panache and a whole lot of pretty melodies and harmonies. For those who still love The Devil Makes Three or find themselves popping on the O Brother soundtrack, Stillhouse Junkies’ 2022 release, Small Towns, might just do the trick. Live, we hear, they’re even better. Plus, you get to support concert space GiG, so there’s literally no downside as far as we can see. (ADV)

Stillhouse Junkies:

7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 3. $25

GiG Performance Space, 1808 Second St., gigsantafe.com

EVENT MON/6

The Fix Is In

One thing us Americans are great at is simply tossing out our belongings that break, but a longstanding movement and commitment to lessening our environmental impact while learning a thing or two might act as a remedy to our struggle with temporary ownership. As if libraries weren’t cool enough, you’ll find the upcoming FixIT Clinic at Eldorado’s Vista Grande branch. There, you can bring in your questions and/ or broken devices, learn how they actually work and how, in many cases, a repair is quick, easy and effective. What’s that thing people say about doing things with your own two hands? (ADV)

FixIT Clinic: 8:15-9 am

Monday, Feb. 6. Free. Vista Grande Public Library 14 Avenida Torreon, Eldorado, (505) 466-7323

Guns N’ Radiation

Pedro Reyes morphs local nuclear history

Much like the disassembled and repurposed guns that form the body of his “Disarm Guitar” piece, Pedro Reyes’ artistic practice is constantly shapeshifting. Trained as an architect and well known for his work transforming donated firearms into shovels, the artist’s new SITE Santa Fe exhibit, DIRECT ACTION, sees him expanding his subject matter to encompass Southwest nuclear colonialism while adding video work to his extensive list of mediums. But as with the weapons he reworks and fuses, the exhibit’s varied subjects are welded together by an underlying ethos of disarmament and, as the title suggests, direct action.

In fact, the museum commissioned his new site-specific video “This is how it ends” to explicitly connect the show to ongoing work by local anti-nuclear activists.

“Thinking about New Mexico’s own nuclear legacy since the 1940s, it’s been kind of the elephant in the room,” curator Brandee Caoba explains. “And I thought, wow, Pedro’s doing this incredible work with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and I want to talk to him about that and imagine…what it might look like if we were to introduce something like that at SITE Santa Fe.”

As part of that dialogue, Caoba wanted to highlight New Mexico’s unique history with the nuclear industry.

“We laid out the show in a way where there’s kind of an anti-nuclear museum within the museum,” she notes, adding that visitors will be able to see a digital version of the famous Doomsday Clock and check out related books from inside the exhibit.

Still, Caoba emphasizes, the playfulness of Reyes’ process is central to the exhibition.

“This isn’t a show about fear; more so it’s about hope and empowerment. It’s meant to inspire and call attention to the agency we all have through direct action.”

In that spirit, SITE Santa Fe is kicking off the exhibit on Friday night with drinks from Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery, a DJ set by Luz Skylarker and a cumbia-punk guitar solo by Tropa Magica’s David Pacheco, performed on the “Disarm Guitar” itself.

(Siena Sofia Bergt)

PEDRO REYES: DIRECT ACTION OPENING 5-9 pm

Friday, Feb. 3. Free. SITE Santa Fe 1606 Paseo de Peralta, (505) 989-1199