Trending right now are these AI apps that transform our ideas, words and even emoji into complex conceptual art or photo-art dreamscapes, so why do event planners and brands keep hiring us?
In the past several months we’ve received request after request for “superhero” themed portraits at tradeshow booths and live events, ranging from the Ben Day dot-printed graphic style reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein and mimicking the golden age of comic books to superhero accessories and elements to transform an attendee into their favorite Marvel or D.C. Hero, lending them an image of power, authority, and magic.
Whether sketching someone in cape and crown or just “Photoshopping” by taking 10 years off, augmented portraiture is nothing new. In centuries past on the royal dating scene, princes and princesses would send (sometimes extremely) improved versions of themselves as paintings to broker marriages and alliances.
Even after receiving a ‘more accurate than usual’ portrait of his 6th wife-to-be, Anne of Cleves, King Henry the 8th of England complained that “She is nothing so fair as she hath been reported” (Schofield, 2011 p361) or in other words, she wasn’t as attractive in real life as her painting made her out to be.
Our desire to play heroes comes from the dream of a better, stronger, faster, more powerful and more attractive version of ourselves. While we appreciate all the ingenuity of these AI’s, remember that the added advantage of live portraiture drawings is that it gives us an augmented experience of reality, allowing us to reimagine ourselves- not just how we look, but who we really are- our personality, essence and unique quirks captured by artists in the moment: real people, in real-time. Real heroes! At Drawing Booth, we are keeping our eyes and digital tools on the lookout for potential collaborations and integrations that could weave the artificial with the human as we continue our journey into the art-tech landscape in catering to live events. Yet, in a world where imagination is fast becoming the only limit, the human to human experience is still irreplicable and irreplaceable.
