‘Everyone Loves Muscles’

In Everyone Loves Mussels, STChM interrogates the boundaries of AI image generation as a method of mirroring and reinterpreting the real world, drawing from Deleuze’s concept of “repetition and difference” to emphasize how intentional deviations produce unique outcomes in the AI’s interpretations. The project revolves around a muscular figure adorned with sea mussels on his face—an effect coaxed out of the AI through prompt manipulation. By introducing controlled “errors” into prompts, the prompt engineer guides the AI into generating unforeseen elements, positioning the AI as an inadvertent “co-creator” in a dialectical relationship with the engineer. This process, influenced by Derrida’s notion of différance, sees the AI both reflecting and deferring meaning, constantly evolving its interpretation through minor syntactical shifts.

In this way, the AI functions almost autonomously, becoming what Baudrillard might describe as a “simulacrum”—a hyper-real entity that challenges the distinction between the original and the imitation, rendering language and imagery in ways that blur the boundaries between intention and error, artifice and authenticity. Everyone Loves Mussels forms one pillar in STChM’s dual-project exploration: The Mirror Engine: Engaging with Benjamin’s aura concept, it examines AI as an “image mirror,” reflecting digital constructs back into tangible realities . LanguageCohesive: This project delves into how linguistic errors and deviations act as creative playgrounds within the AI’s rendering process, echoing Wittgenstein’s views on language games and Heidegger’s “worlding” as it generates new realms of meaning, ultimately supporting the experimental framework of the Mirror Engine.

COMING DECEMBER 2024 | Filmed in partnership with MERCY FILMS