Written April 1st 2026
I am interested in how fine artists use genre tropes and visual motifs in moving image work, and in photography, and what the implications of working with AI to generate moving image work are. While artists have often worked with cinematic language in moving image work and photography, this appears to be an increasing aspect of works which use prompt based ai as a tool (for making images, voice overs, scripts) without acknowledging the that they are mimicking existing works, with exceptions (Duck by Rachel McClean for instance, Adam Cole). I’m exploring how use of cinema, literary and pop culture tropes function in the context of a technologically engaged practice. While generative text, footage and voice performances enable artists to convincingly mimic, there is has been less discussion of what these factors activate in combination with each other.
I’m interested in how artists approach copying, pastiche, homage, remix, appropriation, ripping etc. What are the borders between copying, remixing, reappropriation or ghost writing. What the practices of sampling, remixing, meming and theft, pastiche, fan fictioning do and what the differences are. There is also legal/copywrite implication that I am interested in exploring at a later point I think.
I’m also working to articulate my own practice which has a Magpieish relationship with style. For example I have made works which use tropes of gothic horror, copypasta, medical language, folk story.
Related to this, I’m also interesting in looking at how are artist’s essays and films disseminated, and via what platforms and methods. Why does it matter that these things are communal – this is an open question to me, but something about the intentionality of fan fiction to mimic a particular property or trope is interesting to me.
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I’m interested in understanding what the appeal is of using certain tropes, or memes, or rhetorical devices to emulate another person’s style, or the style of a genre.
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What does it mean to be inconsistent in voice, emulate voice?
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What can be generative about inconsistency?
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Why do we want to copy style, and what is there in a refusal to be the author in that way, a ghost writer.
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Who does it and why