AI Art and Propaganda
As I write, Trump has just been elected king of the United States. In terms of verbal rhetoric, his campaign leaned heavily on fascistic elements, from comments on immigrants “ruining the blood” of the nation, to open antisemitic conspiracy theories being pushed by him and his right-hand-man Elongated Muskrat. In terms of visual rhetoric, however, the campaign made heavy use of AI-generated imagery, a trend that has been widely adopted by many in the alt-right. Why is that?
Historically, fascism has always been obsessed with aesthetics. This is in part due to its inability to deliver on the material well-being of the populace, it can only sell the aesthetic of success, of purity - of beauty. In his 1935 essay, Benjamin Walter points out how the mass reproduction of photographs and film in the early 20th century has allowed the stripping of art from its “aura” and its authenticity. He points out that art, at least in its pure form, comes from a place of critique, it reflects meaning upon the society which creates it. Stripped of this aura through mass dissemination at the hands of a mechanical regime, art may no longer provide meaning - only emotion. This allows the visual illusion of power, eternally reproduced, to be sold to the masses. Is it possible that AI art is simply the next step in this evolution of reproduction? As Walter points out:
“The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.”
AI art serves the only next logical step for fascism - with no original, there was never any authenticity to be stripped away. AI art is here the spiritual purification of truth from art. Unfettered by human artistic constraints of labour and lived experience, AI is able to produce a million images to be tested on a million audiences in real time. The Ministry of Propaganda could not have dreamed of a better machine.
In his 2007 work Modernism and Fascism, Roger Griffin discusses fascism through its core tenet of palingenesis - the desire to rebirth a nation in its “great” ancestral form. As he points out, this palingenesis is often fictive, as there never was a mythic greatness to return to; the majority of the populace in the past lived poor lives in some of the most unequal and segregated societies. Lacking a realistic foundation for its vision of ancestral greatness, fascism therefore must create this mythos through visual symbolism and propaganda.
Is it possible that AI art is ideal at serving such an aesthetic? AI art comes off as unsightly to most reasonable minds due to its uncanny-valley polish and lack of soul. Faces are unblemished, airbrushed to the point of farce while nature is “beautified” beyond reason with oversaturated colours. If Roger Griffin is right, then this is the one and only aesthetic desire of fascism. A world where there are no blemishes, no difficulties, no cloudy days. The promise of fascism is an idealised purified world, which has and will never exist, yet which AI is bizarrely trained to represent. AI is here the perfect artist for fascism - unfeeling, unable to dissent, inhuman enough to be ruled over and to invent mythical “beauty” at will.
Whether or not Trump will end up delivering on his fascist electoral mandate is a question for future historians to answer. As things stand, AI art, both in its aesthetic qualities and unique ability to spread disinformation at hereto unseen rates, may just be the future of the fascist aesthetic. And what a shame that is - at least grant me the dignity of a visually interesting authoritarian takeover.
