Truthfully, I woke up quite sick, and my eyes were crusted over, but I still couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Or maybe I could… I saw this post. (insert screenshot). 

My initial reaction to it was confusion. I thought maybe it was an advertisement which essentially it is… Even though it’s free. But then I realized it was posted by (insert name of artist residency) his residency recently popped up on my radar when I saw Amanda Manitach right about it and Susan, Rob and (insert name of other artist here). Where are the recipients of this new residency. The intersection of art and technology has been talked about extensively and is at the pinnacle of it nuance here… And it’s also at a crossroad so with the interference of conversations around AI. So once I realized it was this legitimate new fancy tacky artist residency posting about this new online critic… I thought what the fuck? Pardon my French, but as somebody who obsessively writes and talks about art, even though I’m not regularly putting out writing like I used to… This sort of feels like a slap in the face. It sort of feels like it negates the need for actual real human feedback to your art. The residence is asking that people respond to how this program works. So far I’ve seen two artists to use it and say that they appreciated the platform, one being posted to the residency stories, but I’m gonna tell you this :) you will never catch me using something like this. And I would love to know who agrees with me? My line of reasoning is if there is funding to create a program like the pocket critic, isn’t there funding to pay some actual art critics to have a conversation with artists in person? Couldn’t there be funding to host critiques and open conversations about things like AI and art and technology? Maybe it’s the lack of art criticism here in Seattle that they felt like they needed to resort to this program. well, there are plenty of people as in professors art administrators curators who use critical thinking skills every day to curate art shows that I would choose over AI to talk about my work. I would love to talk about your work and give constructive feedback from my perspective. I would love to host critical talking sessions with many artist artists and offer feedback from multiple perspectives. The last thing that I think anyone needs, it is for AI to be talking about their art. I’m not super verse on where all the research came to develop such a pocket critic, but regardless, the framework makes me completely distrustful. it reminds me of a story. I saw recently posted by Charles Meade, the post about the gigantic blundering screen taking over a kinetic sculpture and pacific place small? Did you read that? This gives me exactly that feeling. Replacing something with evidence of human interaction with gigantic screens demanding your attention. It also feels sketchy in the increasing rise of AI Hallucinations. Let me know if you used this program if you would use this program or any other thoughts you have about it. If you’re interested in live critiques via studio visits, PowerPoint, presentations, or some other roundtable discussion discussing your work in your peers work, sign up for my newsletter. i’m starting it today.