Beth Frey

My exploration into the intersection of photography and AI began with early AI generators such as VQGAN+CLIP and NightCafe’s “artistic” mode. As a painter, I was captivated by the results that skillfully balanced the figurative and the abstract – an aesthetic I often strive for as an artist. When I first experimented with DALL-E last summer, I was initially put off by its seemingly flawless output. However, as I discovered ways to harness its potential in the creation of a series of absurdist film stills, I became hooked. This experience gave birth to my project titled “Sentient Muppet Factory.”

Inspiration for the project stemmed from a talk I attended by Laurie Anderson, who used puppets as an analogy for new technologies. Imagining my AI-generated images as part of a late 1970s variety show, I began to develop the concept of “Sentient Muppet Factory.” Although the title humorously references AI discourse – as these muppets are not truly sentient – the term “factory” speaks to the mechanized production facilitated by AI, as I churn out new characters in a seemingly automated manner.

All the pieces in this series were generated using a bank of images stored on my computer, primarily consisting of the early NightCafe pieces, along with a few photos of myself in my studio. Purposefully utilizing disparate source imagery from the text prompts, I aimed to provoke an unsettling result, intentionally confusing the AI into responding in unconventional ways.