I needed AI to make a video for my first novel. But I needed it to feel like me.
I've done a few things in my life. I've acquired knowledge, sometimes the hard way. I wanted the video to reflect that.
I designed a satisfying render and built the component parts by hand. I'm not a craftsman. The work would be full of imperfections. That was the point.
Materials: 3/16 matte black foam core board, self-adhesive vinyl, an inkjet printer, a bone folder, Bristol and an X-Acto knife.
The oil animation is artificially generated, but it's thematically relevant to the book so I allowed it. And I needed something glossy.
Here is one of them being made.
Artificially generated work feels weightless because nothing was ever there to begin with. So I made the physical object first and used it as the starting point. That's not a new idea — Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 worked because someone built the thing, and I've felt that since I was a kid. That's the thing about real, physical objects: you can feel them.