In this post, new [cloud] contributor, Sarah-Jane Field explores AI imaging as ‘kitsch.’

It is perhaps a little too easy to dismiss so-called AI images as mere kitsch, and their presence in the world undoubtedly raises several pressing ethical questions. To simply turn away from AI images may feel satisfying to some, but it’s probably an ineffectual response. We might also argue that, whether one is focused on AI or not, all of us are already buried within its architecture since we and our activity are the information that feeds the apparatus out of which words, sounds, pictures and directives emerge. So, when we judge AI images or texts as kitsch and/or unethical, perhaps we recognise something about ourselves and our world.

In his influential 1939 essay Avant-Garde and Kitsch, Clement Greenberg was concerned with how propaganda was easily disseminated via popular media, requiring little thought to absorb. His definition of kitsch sounds eerily familiar, and one could almost simply replace the word kitsch for AI Art in the following:

Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money — not even their time. The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hand of a fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries, acquisitions, and perfected self-consciousness kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends.[i]

Greenberg later revised this because it was too simple. Nevertheless, ‘kitsch’ is being dug up and thrown at prompt-engineered images, not only by random voices on social media but also by people who we would hope knew better. People on the other side of the argument, including those who one would expect more from, have been just as polarising. AI art is harmful to ‘real artists’ and is nothing more than theft; it’s embarrassing; AI art is not real art; AI art is nothing but the result of a mindless algorithm. In the opposite corner, we are told that people dismissing AI images don’t understand how it works; they have no art education and don’t see how this technology fits into art history; its presence challenges the notion of originality and perhaps even the status of the individual. Either it’s the end of art altogether or it is the beginning of an exciting new cultural era. In both camps, the word kitsch appears again and again. AI art is only ever kitsch or it is kitsch because the people using the technology don’t know how to employ it without avoiding kitsch.

What and whom should we believe? The different statements expressed about technology may be less important here than the fact that so many authors have an opportunity to voice their views with varying degrees of conviction on social media, either directly or through a mediator. Respected authors, such as Greenberg, were afforded that opportunity before social media arrived, but their reach will have been relatively limited when compared with the reach of social media today. More critically, modern technologies have created a world dominated by a tussle for attention. In this environment, the appeal of information must constantly be matched and exceeded, thus raising the stakes on hyperbole and spin.

It is this hyperbolic and partisan spin and its relationship to the generation of kitsch that I explore, along with the biases and distinctions that are implicit in the word itself. My intervention is not a celebration or a condemnation of AI. It is not a defence of kitsch or even a justification of it. However, I question any view that is stated with absolute certainty using a few characters on social media. Not only does this potentially come across as hyperbolic and partisan spin, but it could also be argued that such actions are themselves kitsch and contribute to an aesthetic that correlates with what we see in AI. While the aesthetic we associate with AI isn’t quite as predetermined as some suggest, its recognisable features are undeniable. Since the 2022 release of DALL-E and Midjourney, we’ve become familiar with a distinctive look: ultra-refined, highly processed, neo-digital, hyper-real, high-contrast, super saturated, ornate and plastic. But this aesthetic isn’t merely a visual style — it reflects the very landscape we construct and inhabit.

This landscape is often characterised by kitsch, not just in its visual form but also through the patterns of behaviour that have become commonplace. Think about how we express ourselves digitally: responding to tragedy with a yellow tear emoji, performing outrage at online comments better left ignored, or when authoritarians SHOUT IN CAPS, or their opponents seemingly build entire political campaigns around insults and/or cuteness. These too may well be described as expressions of kitsch — emotional and political gestures that lack substance, come across as vicarious, and may be the epitome of all that is spurious. We may blame technology for this state of affairs, but that feels one-directional. However, if we recognise that these behaviours might be kitsch — and fundamental to our contemporary reality — then to deny this aesthetic exists is to insist on artificial boundaries between how things look, what they are, how we understand them, and what they mean.

Which brings me to the word ‘kitsch.’ It is a word that thrums with snobbery, class distinction, and an inherent sense of superiority. Even when it is used ironically, perhaps especially so at that point. When I look at AI images, and I find myself recoiling at the generic look, I can’t help but query my biases, the privileged position my education puts me in, and my status in the world as a middle-class white woman who had a relatively bohemian upbringing. (I am also a broke single mother reliant on Universal Credit living in London, so beware of any simplistic characterisations, which too might be considered a ‘kitschification’ of understanding and relating).

Perhaps the irony is that kitsch isn’t unique to AI — it permeates all contemporary art-making, even among those who claim to rise above it. This means that making sense of this aesthetic moment may prove more fruitful than denying its existence or assuming a position of superiority over others since all of us who live within this landscape are involved in its generation. Whatever the results, I suspect the typical aesthetic style produced by such images has much to tell us about our current condition.

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[i] Greenberg, C., 1971. Art and Culture: Critical Essays. New York: Beacon Press (Beacon Paperback, v. Vol. 212), pg. 9.