BALENCIAGA POPE
Originally painted in gouache, digitally edited and animated
Exhibited at FutureArt.io X VIVID Sydney 23'
The story behind the original Ai generated image of the Balenciaga Pope..
Ai and misinformation On November 16 2022 Balenciaga published their “Gift Collection” for their spring summer series, the advertising depicted children holding bondage bears, scenes with open alcohol on coffee tables and to everyone's shock court transcripts of cases involving paedophilia. Global outrage against the brand led to protests at stores and celebrities distancing themselves from the brand whilst also expressing their disgust.
Moving forward to March 26th 2023, a mid journey forum is greeted with a mix of generated images of the Pope wearing a Balenciaga puffer jacket. Reading through the thread everyone seemed very aware that images like this where detailed and realistic enough to be able to fool the average person. From there a celebrity twitter account posts a picture of the Pope wearing Balenciaga hours after the image was posted to the forum and what followed was 24hrs of social media and mainstream media believing the image to be real.
Advances in Ai have changed the world forever, Midjourney has been available to the public since July 2022 and has advanced at a dramatic speeds. I welcome this new world of Ai, but am also weary of the consequences of our advanced tech.
Lambie :)