How AI has changed creative identity forever

For Love and Design, the podcast. Welcome to For Love and Design, the podcast that explores the world of design, innovation, art and creativity. I'm Ross Lovegrove and together with Illa Colombo in this episode we'll be talking about cultural belonging. And if there's such a thing, that personal creativity is influenced by where we come from. But before we begin, if you enjoy our podcast, please be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. And don't forget to follow us on social media to stay up to date. Now, let's get started. Today we're going to venture into the rich terrain of cultural belonging and its influence on creativity. In a digital age, is belonging still a determinant of artistic perspective and success? Ross, how do you see cultural belonging influencing creative processes? What do you mean by cultural belonging? Well, cultural belonging is taking ownership and not only taking awareness, but dress your own culture and have your own culture influence how you design or how you create. If you're African creative, you make the African culture an intrinsic strong part of your creativity. So whatever you create feels very much of and from Africa. And the same is true of any other European country or other Asian country. We know artists that feel very British. We know architects that feel very Japanese and so on. Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting question, certainly for me, because I come from a nation which has always been marginalised and has had a very predefined identity and not a lot of outreach. So to come from Wales where to be a designer, there's no relationship whatsoever. I mean, that's why I don't have any cultural national belonging whatsoever. And of course, you come out of Wales, which you can't really relate to, and then you move. I mean, I went to other countries, but then eventually living and working in London for 30 years, but not being English, so not really fitting there either, but being more interested in a sort of global participation, if you like. So entering into other cultures and assimilating that culture. So there's something about the culture that you're working with or within and try and bring something together, something from me as an individual, non-representative, meaning that I've got my own thoughts, my own ideas. I know it all sounds like me, me, me. And I don't really want that to be, but I am a product of my situation. I am not representing Australia or Germany or Italy at the Olympics. It's not like that. So in fact, you fall down a hole where you become a great expression. Cultuous. But how do you turn cultural-ness into an advantage? It's quite an interesting thing, isn't it? Very, very, very interesting. Well, if I analyse from a distance the creative successes within the creative field, I see very much strong polarisation between the two. Like, I see individuals that made success through cultural belonging and making that aspect of their design or their practice a strong part of it. As an outsider, you become a sponge that filters and absorbs all kind of differences around you and then you create your own uniqueness. So do you relate to this? 100% again, because I think somebody like McQueen, his focus was on this incredible, higher dimension of femininity and detail. And as an art form, I think he really was aware of it being an art form and non-referential to a particular decade or a particular place. It's very just particular to itself. And it wasn't really not like Coco Chanel selling French fashion, which very, very, you get an image in your mind the moment you say that. Or even somebody like Paul Smith, who's a merchant, who's selling pretty much the same product over and over and over again. But only selling mainly into those cultures that are kind of obsessed with British-ness. I think McQueen was not selling into cultures that were just obsessed with British-ness. No, it was very much a global, diverse, unilateral universe for all of those kind of uni derivatives. I do believe that culture does shape our own perceptions. So every culture comes with its own stories, aesthetics, struggles, histories and triumphs. And those elements inherently mold our creative voices. I do believe that. But then it's only with adulthood and maturity that we either make those something strong or less visible and less strong within our practice. Well, you've got to have enough meat on the bone. You've got to have enough within your culture to go back within and then maybe translate that into a form of modernization. I mean, you can look at that whichever way you want. If you take David Chipperfield, who's incredibly successful. If he changed his name to a Japanese name, you would probably feel there was a better fit because David is not selling British architecture. He's selling a particular art form in his architecture, which is derived more from Louis Kahn or even a parallel with Tarando in the material and the geometry that he uses. But his first main building was in Tokyo. So that that sort of registered him in a particular cultural artery. I find that really interesting. You know, whereas somebody like Kengo Kuma, Kengo, who's a friend for years was experimenting with postmodernism, a bit of this, a bit of that and never really found the recognition that he wanted. And then he just cut it. He just decided one day that he was going to become Japanese, fully Japanese, understand his history, the whole cultural dimension of it. And the success has been quite magnificent. It's quite radical. So yes, I think in those cultures, there's so few doing anything and they reference this whole kind of love of material ethics to some degree. The beauty of craft, it's true of people like Yoji Yamamoto and so on. It remains modern. It doesn't remain retrograde or old fashioned. I mean, think about where we in Westwood is totally old fashioned. She was radically disruptive. And I think that's one of the aspects of British culture, you know, coming out of rock and roll and music, like the Rolling Stones. You know, it's like you have these polarized differences between nostalgic, traditional British and then the totally disruptive rebellious British. So Vivienne Westwood, you can align her to Rolling Stones and then you can align maybe both more together with the Beatles, you know. Look, you know, when I was in the 70s, you know, I was studying in Manchester and I remember coming down to London to the Design Center. And the Design Center had on display a fire extinguisher, a bicycle, and I mean, a few other things which bored me to absolute death. And I thought, oh my God, am I entering this profession? Whereas I went back to college and there was a poster about the Brown Prize, Braun Brown Prize. And on it was a fantastic sort of video camera, black, really well defined. And I thought, gosh, that's where's that from? I mean, that's German that the continent had this really, it was cooler. It was something really much more interesting out there than in Britain, which has got this sort of monotonous, chocks away old pilot thing going on. And I just from that day on, I couldn't even relate to anything British. I sought out any content I could from an international perspective. I mean, you're talking about 77. So, you know, that's a long time ago now. And I realized there was just so much opportunity to join in and be fresh. Instead of being marginalised within your own culture, which is terrifying, you go out and you're celebrated because you're fresh. People feel that you are contributing to their culture, their economy, their sense of creativity. And that's an uplift. That's wonderful. And you learn languages, you engage. It's everything. It's new, new, new. New, new, new. Well, talking about new, we have a very obvious age difference between me and you and I'm a millennial. So I'm almost digitally native. I engage with technology and digitalness very early on. Do you think that today we can reinterpret and redefine cultural belonging as a digital belonging versus an analogue belonging? Well, they coexist, don't they? I mean, I think this whole idea of whatever's new replacing the old is not right. No, but there is an obvious distinction between the older generations and the newer generations. I mean, not even myself, but my younger sister and all of her generation, you know, they're born early 2000s. They're like totally different from someone like yourself and the culture belonging is inherently different. You know, it's like full on digital and shaped by their understanding and interaction with touch screens and digital programs and games and so on. Post pandemic, you know, with something like COVID-19, we started to be in remote workers or some of us have become remote workers. Therefore, we can be anywhere and still work. Does that migrating between not so much countries anymore, but migrating between workplaces and platforms like, say, from a meeting room to Zoom or from Zoom to Discord for conversations, that kind of digital migration can, do you think, shift the way we look at culture belonging? Well, you know, if you just look at it in terms of physical interaction or not, it takes something like me. I mean, I was always traveling. So it meant I was always distanced from my studio and I would work in an analog way on planes or a hotel room and then feed that information back in whichever way I could. So I used to use that time as a prep time. So when I got back, I knew exactly what I was doing with who I was doing. So that was a very physical interactive life. It was a hybrid between analog and digital. Do you think that what you just described is certainly an hybrid between an analog and a digital, meaning you were working analog while traveling and not belonging and then feeding back to your team working digitally. So that was an hybrid workflow. Do you think that that kind of hybrid workflow shaped your own design pieces? I mean, your design outputs and results, they definitely have a feel of digitalness. And to some degree, they have an understanding of what was the analog. That's why they're so unique. Well, I had a lot of time, a lot of time to really explore things in the way I wanted to explore them without really showing that to anybody until I was ready. But today, I mean, what I wanted to just say is that the new generation, they might feel that they have less to learn from my generation, you understand? Whereas my generation has a lot to learn from your generation because your generation is the now generation and we're not going back, are we? I mean, it's a full on digital world that we live in, work in, inhabit, and this is where it's going. So, you know, I think there are benefits to both where we are now with the way that we interact, even delivering this podcast, for example. It's putting information out there in a way we couldn't in the past, almost instantaneously. And I'm fascinated by that. I'm fascinated by the mood of that moment and everything that we're talking about within digitalization is not only about the three dimensional creative world that we see. It's also going into art, sculpture, architecture, every aspect of our life. It's being physically manifested, that digital aesthetic, the digital being. It's even affecting the way that we are made or how we deal with medicine, how we will biologically grow our intuition and the fact that a young child knows automatically how to expand an image on a screen. I even do that now with a newspaper. It's ridiculous. So it's embedded now and it's not going back. Well, it's a very complex subject, but from what I perceive now, it's that potentially the digital belonging or growing into a digital belonging can potentially free us from this notion of being strictly representative of a culture as seen in a nation as such. It could be that digital belonging democratizes success to some extent. For example, after Black Lives Matter, the movement, we've seen a big renaissance of black culture on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Those kind of tools have democratized and allowed black creators to showcase their art, storytelling, perspective and break in traditional barriers. And now we all know what African fashion is and I just love it. But I can relate to all of that because, as I said at the outset, I'm not cultureless in the way that that means, but I'm just a free entity. And I like the idea that digital is a free entity and you can have a name. You don't even have to have a physical voice, but you can be present globally at the time doesn't even come into either or gender or background or anything. I mean, I'm enjoying this moment. Of fluidity. Yeah, I am. I've had a lot of black friends for years and I think it's amazing that there is a recognition now of a voice and how that recognition of things that really are true to that culture are coming out and they're transforming different areas like architecture and fashion. It's bringing something new. Exactly. And I think there started to influence other spectrums of creativity like I've seen it in my own personal explorations with generative AI. I mean, I'm mixed race. So I have some kind of blackness in me through my black Brazilian father that for obvious reasons was coming out of Africa. There is very much influencing my own generative AI content. You know, I not only use black female models, but I also feel like what I create has some sort of some tangibility influence. You know, and the thing is in my case, being Welsh, I mean, that's as far from exotic as it gets. And you know, coming from a marginalized culture nation, I get how the others feel. I really do understand that. And every day, in fact, one is fighting for some form of recognition. And I like it because what happens is you step up. You become much more alive in your thoughts and your ideas because you're not sinking back into some comfort zone of a culture that's going to form that nice feathery cushion for you. You've got to go out, you've got to forage and you've got to make your mark. Yeah. And even if you look at this comeback to black culture, what's beautiful now is, you know, I saw this documentary on Quincy Jones. I mean, what a beautiful looking man, you know, so it's less exaggerated. This blending that we're getting through the digital is fascinating. Fluid inclusivity. I like that kind of definition. Well, digital platforms don't have borders by definition. And yeah, it's the richness of individual culture and individual backgrounds that make our own story shine, regardless of whether you came from a particular nation with a rich culture or not. Now, going back to what you were just saying, and to the fact that we're becoming more and more global, global citizen, global player. How can you, how can you nurture if you're a young comer? How can you nurture your own culture, like not necessarily attached to where you come from, but, you know, your own field of action and bubble? Well, you can, I mean, you still can do it to some extent through education. So if you go and study directly and directly with a like-minded group of people, of course, you're going to evolve and grow within that particular microcosm of a culture. And then that'll help you when you get beyond that because it's a really reinforced, concentrated nugget of an idea. I like, you know, if you can't relate to particular, how can it anthropological culture, you can relate to a creative culture and you will rest upon that connectivity to grow, grow within it, but also nurture and support those around you. So you form a kind of movement within it. I think that's really interesting. It is. I mean, the only fear that I have is that the more we interact with generative AI platforms and softwares and those are mainly coming out of U.S., we're going to have some kind of weird inheritance of what it means to be American. I mean, I experience it daily when I play around with mid-journey and, for example, that it is very much referential of American language. So, for example, if I use a word that is more British than American, the AI software is not giving me what I want. And I think this is something that Neil Leitch also picked up. And it's very interesting. And could that be a threat? The fact that the majority of the new coming platforms and softwares are mainly programmed and trained and coded out of the America. So therefore, they're more American than anything else. By definition, you know, American language has a lot of slang, which means it's not nuanced. It's speeded up. I think the generative AI is not nuanced. It's not nuanced yet. It's very direct and simplistic. It gets the message across, as does American slang, but it's not sophisticated in the secondary or tertiary layering of its content. It's instant fix. It's 10 seconds at most on Instagram. Whereas if you want something longer retention, I think you need more input. You need a very sophisticated language that could be inputted into that. So it doesn't become an American-dominated phenomena. You know, we're not even talking about Mandarin or anything. The thing is that you have two of the big powerhouses of this world, not communicating and not co-creating AI. You either have the Asian AI or you have the American AI. So whichever you use, you are going to be, by definition, slightly more American and slightly more Asian. But on this point, do you fear at all some kind of globalized aesthetic language that loses culture? No, we just started. It's quite the opposite. I think once we ride this through within the next few years, then I want to be part of that. You know that I would love to be part of that guidance and exploration to see what comes next. It's not a replacement theory. It's just something really powerful that we need not to fear in any sense. But as you were speaking, I was thinking about languages based on characters and pictograms. Will that influence the way that language is perceived through generative AI? I mean, just that idea alone. I think if we run it through hyper-nuanced languages, we will get more diversity and we get more cultural perception. Interesting. So you believe that the next great artists and creators won't just belong to one location by obvious definition, but will resonate universally while echoing potentially a distinct cultural voice. Well, there's the difference being global or provincial. What would you prefer to be? Where would you like your influence and outreach to penetrate? You want it to go far and wide. So yes, I think the next generation, the next sort of civilization of creativity will be absolutely interconnected and global. You have immense global impact. Fantastic. Well, so in a way, we're moving from cultural belonging then to cultural blending. The narrative of design will be shaped by diverse influences and yet will strike a chord with the collective. That's a very interesting proposition. Well, AI is blending because it's taking thousands and thousands of bits of information and blending them according to what you prompt. So, you know, the exponential power of that is radical. So, yeah, it's going to come and it's going to the blending aspect. We know that beauty comes from blending. So if you're going to come back to black culture, the blending is so beautiful rather than the distancing. And we know that blending is a form of unification and it overcomes a lot of things too. So I think that idea, promotion of a democratic open source blending of everything. Wow, we have nothing to fear by that. I think it will just change the world around us in a good way. Well, it's a new age of a new kind of biodiversity. In a practical sense, within a practical workflow of designing, do you blend? Do I blend? Yeah, do you think that while you're designing, you may be blending subconsciously? You know, I blend in other ways, meaning I blend thoughts on biomimicry with thoughts on 3D printing, new technologies. How do you invent maybe a new material function, aesthetics. So one naturally within the design process is blending, you know. But this blend I'm talking about now because we have so many different polarities now. When I did the show Convergence at the Pompidou, that was exactly what I was trying to do. It was the idea of converging everything and see what popped out the other end, you know. And that's my modus operandi. That could even be broader than I imagined. Especially if you get another mind that comes in or several other minds. That's why the discussion with like-minded people, you know, I'm having that now with people that I collaborate with who go in deep into some of my past. And what I've said, it's kind of surprising me and it's heartwarming because there are things that I'm aware of, which I've forgotten about. And for them, it's quite potent. So yeah, young, old, hot, cold, all of that, the blending of opposites. Wow, that's what the earth's all about. Fantastic. Yeah, it's like beauty lies in the intricate dance of individualism, globalization, different species, different background stories and understanding of different subjects. So if you had to give advice to young minds that may be listening to our conversation, what would be the best way to promote this blending within one's design profession and critique? Well, get over nationalism, get over the fact that you're trying to be part of a lineage, because there is no lineage. The lines are not, there's no arteries as they were before, the arteries are in the cloud. So there, it's pixelated, it's invisible, there are no arteries. So I think this is the key really for anybody young, that it's given them an opportunity that you would never have in the past where you have to go through these incredible cultural barriers to even be somebody. Thank God that's over to some extent. And it gives people in very remote places and in new emerging cultures quite a platform. How do you see the artistry of craft associated with digitalness and cultural belonging? If we're losing cultural belonging, we're entering a sphere of digital belonging and universal humanness within creativity. What will be left of individual craft? I mean, you can 3D print ceramics, you can do that now and you get wonderful results. There's a few people today who are doing really wonderful things, but does that take the soul out of an object? I mean, that's kind of, it's so detached. It's hard to promote a value in that that's higher than something touched by the artist. If you could have a piece of ceramic that was actually made by Picasso with his fingerprints in it, that's so amazing. I mean, it's close to the man. Craft fascinates me because craft is in art forms like painting or sculpture and I'm part of that because I draw. So I don't know where that's going to go. But also I want to create in the future three-dimensionally with my hands just to engage and feel and wrap my arms around something rather than have it always at a distance. So the craft thing, there is a trend right now, which I think is more than a trend, which is called craft tech. I coined the phrase years ago in the International Design Yearbook because I could see there was this potential for hybridization. Yacht building, for example, is craft tech. There are certain things which can exist because they're built at scale, but they're built with relatively handmade processes. Now it's hybridized. The other day online I found, I'd seen it before in Korea in Seoul. I don't know if you remember this. They said with these incredible lacquered shapes and the depth of the lacquer in these dark blood red shiny with this shape really touched me. I mean, moved me really deeply. They were fabulous. It was amazing and I came across them the other day and I just thought, oh my goodness me, would I love to know how to make that? And that emotion was very universal. That's what I like about what you're just saying because I suddenly remember that didn't feel particularly Korean or particular Asian. That felt human. That touched me as I was also part of. I don't want to render of it. I want it and I want to probably couldn't touch it, but if you'd lifted it up, it would have been so lightweight. All these physical tactile experiences which are being missed or even the olifactor, the smell of something. I walked in the forest yesterday and I couldn't stop photographing the forest, just the density and the nuanced colors and so on. So I think there is a need. There's a need for all these opposites night and day, hot and cold or whatever it is. And these need to move forward in absolute harmony so that we don't lose sight of where we are. The incredible planet that we live on, which is more inspiring than anything. I love it. So yeah, we're all going to become digital nomads, creating from various parts of the world. And our own personal artistry will be influenced by fluidity, blending and this beautiful craft tech. I love that. So we're going to go through some of the questions that you keep receiving from your audience and that touch upon what we just discussed. Culture belonging versus digital belonging. We're all one species of creatives. So this account that sent through the question, can you please explain best ways of building an audience to share your own art within this saturated world? Well, awareness of what's going on is very important in order to be able to distance yourself from things which are so instant. That you get sort of dragged into the vortex that's what you're branded with. And that's why my work is a kind of slow burn meaning, I think a lot. So before I do anything or post anything or whatever, I do understand the meaning of what that is. So yeah, I think a bit of self-awareness, that's important too. Yeah, really understand what it is that you're putting out there. How to find people that are interested genuinely in your own work? Well, what you show is where you go and I've always maintained that meaning, you know, I put it out, I show it and hopefully the people who come back to you are like-minded people who want to be associated with you or they love what you do. You create your own seam, you lay down your own sediment if you like and then that's what it is. I'm not looking for zillions and zillions of people out there to follow me because then I probably mean I'm doing something quite stupid. I think you find your own niche, even if that was, gosh, if I could find a million followers then just that magic number would be very beautiful, especially on a planet with so many people. And I think that's possible. I do, I do. And I want to do that by staying true to self and absolutely moving shoulders to shoulder with what those possibilities are within the times in which we live. Great. How can you craft your own unique philosophy, especially in this new workflow of working constantly with AI? If you're a newcomer just working with AI, how can you craft your own philosophy? Gosh, that's tricky. You know, I always thought you've got to be two people. You've got to be somebody that nurtures tropical fish and is a heart surgeon. So you've got a dialogue. You've got a dialogue between what might seem to be quite opposite endeavors or interests. I think you should develop multiple interests like biology, science fiction, astronomy, and then feed that back in to the pulse of whatever it is that you're creating. If you're somebody who's a shoe designer, I think you would automatically be somebody you should be interested in. Human biology and motion, the evolution of us, anthropological issues. I think these are things which can make you a much more enriched person, but at the same time really give your design something that is really part of you. Love it. I'm going back to inclusivity and championing your own voice and crafting your own philosophy. Do you have any kind of feelings about us as a species, but as a creative community coming together potentially because the faster the technology is evolving and the more detached from us it will be, the more we can break down competition, for example, and become a more solid, united community? Well, we've all got to align with the same objectives. We're facing such uncertainty and a lot of these things need solving, these problems that we are creating, that are man-made, could be undone or solved by a massive collective of good minds. Even if they're not good minds, maybe they just throw something into the mix. If you think about the inertia of not seven or eight billion people, but even a billion people who are educated or interested in particular subjects, throwing their opinion and ideas behind something, then surely that could be a counterforce to a lot of the theological things which are happening in the world. So a design for me is not only design, it's something forming an opinion or helping us navigate issues which need good minds. Well, we talked about culture and culture'sness or the digital world potentially influencing one's expression of creativity. Do you believe, and we have this conversation many times before, I even poked Richard Dawkins to talk about this, I personally believe there is a creative gene. Do you think creativity is not just influenced by the surroundings, but it's also something that comes within as a genetic part? Well, a lot of it is context, isn't it? I think if you grew up absolutely fully immersed in nature, like the Yamamani tribe or whatever, you have a very different perception of life on Earth. We are talking about global consciousness right now. We need it all. We need the soul of those people. We need the intelligence of far-reaching scientific minds. We need people with massive instincts. So if you put all that together, you mentioned somebody like Dawkins. I was poking him too about the idea that if you throw the airplane parts in the air, would it land as an airplane? No, that there is a need for a higher level of intelligence to put all this together. So I wanted to talk to him about creation theory and all of that, whether things evolve or is there a creator? Well, it seems to me now, certainly because of AI and what we have unleashed, is that – don't sound too grand about this – but humanity has taken that position. It's taken that crater position at all levels, the manipulation of everything on Earth. So what comes next will be an iteration of us in that sense. So Dawkins would be really great to get back on now because of the way AI has progressed. That's a very thought-provoking question. Great. So to conclude, we agree that the tapestry of the future will be certainly rich, diverse and interconnected. We agree that culture of belonging is not necessarily an inherent part of success today, that you can create your own culture or your own digital belonging by being totally free. And that's the beauty of the time in which we live compared to the past. Yeah, that creativity may be a simultaneous growth of nurture and nature. Yeah, nurture and nature. I like that. Thank you for joining us on this episode of For Love and Design. We hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation. If you want to keep exploring the world of design, innovation, art and creativity, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes too. And don't forget to follow us on social media to stay up to date with our latest news and announcements. Until next time.