Flesh Wanting Blood

Whatever your views on AI and its use in the creative sectors, there’s no arguing with the fact that this is the way things are going from now on. From the very start of the creative process, anyone can now use AI to develop ideas from prompts and begin to create their new dream world, whether that be in prose, or lyrics, or music, or art, or any number of different expressive outlets. Far from it just being used to circumvent copyright law, stealing people’s voices for advertising and things like that, AI can be seen as another tool in the artists toolbox, which needs its own skill and investment to master, but which in the right hands can create new pieces of art or entertainment which could never have been achieved given any real-world deficits in the level of the artist’s budget, skill, environment, or equipment.

Entirely new worlds can be conjured up for nearly nothing, without the need for a huge production budget and crew, and narratives can be created from thin air, populated by ghosts of characters, who look and sound like the real thing but who are really empty, hollow masks that don’t quite move right. Anything can now be created for any purpose – and yes, we know that 98% of it will be used for advertising and porn – but there’s also the chance, that like here, in Diana Galimzyanova’s video for the track, Flesh Wanting Blood by Ioana dArk, that we’ll also get some creativity along with it that showcases how AI can help to create art.

Using the Luma Dream Machine AI, Galimzyanova creates her world of bloody horror to coincide with the music of Ioana dArk, following blood spattered women around and facing off against scarily masked men. The artist herself is cut into the narrative at times, using, at least to start with, what I can only assume is actual video, while the AI world around her tells its own story of dark machinations and demonic charades. Hooded characters, robed strangers, and bloodied brides walk around together in a dreamlike fashion, partaking in a twisted masquerade, as people switch places, morph into others, and disappear into the scenery as though they weren’t there.

There’s not what you would call a conventional plot to the music video, though undoubtedly there is meaning to what’s happening on screen. The themes of the video most likely coincide with the themes of Flesh Wanting Blood, although it’s difficult to tell when you’ve no idea what on earth is being sung. The music itself is hard to characterise, it’s hard to know what to even really call it – post-punk? electro-death? misery? – but whatever it is, Galimzyanova seems to get it and is able to direct her AI in exactly the right area to represent it visually to the audience.

The track goes on for about five-and-a-half minutes, so for anyone not interested in this genre of music or film, it might be a bit of a slog to get through the music video to the end. However, for everyone else there’s plenty of good imagery and inferred narrative from the characters on screen to sustain your interest, while the matching of the mood to the music really enhances the enjoyment of both, because it is done so well.

There’s always, however, the feeling that any AI production is an empty, soulless vacuum, as there’s no real craft or artistry behind the construction of it. There were no costume designers to make the dresses or create the masks, there were no builders or chippies to make the sets to film on, there were no cinematographers or lighting technicians to get the right look for the camera, there was no real hand in anything that got presented to us, and so it leaves us feeling cold and underwhelmed, and even a little bit patronised. That might change as we get more used to it, but in the meantime it’s good to have positive examples, like Flesh Wanting Blood, of AI being used effectively to complement art, and in so doing, becoming art in its own right.