can AI art be surreal?
the AI race is ridiculously funny
I’ve never been to the US, but the US lives rent-free in my head. Even though TikTok is banned in India, I still know all the trends because the whole internet is so Americanized. It annoys me when YouTubers I watch use content from TikTok as a part of their videos, and it’s impossible to avoid.
Lately, all the social media platforms are starting to feel the same because they are bloated with features copied from each other. After TikTok was banned for less than the time I sleep each night, it ruined everyone’s Instagram grid forever. I once had three of my posts with mountains coincidentally aligning their horizons perfectly, and now it’s gone.
Meanwhile, America has found a new Chinese app to worry about. While the emotion devoid tech broligarchs can work 120 hours a week, pouring billions into AI investments and blaming DEI for every disaster, DeepSeek being a cheaper and better Chinese AI, wiped off $1 trillion from US stocks. It’s ironic how Trump brought TikTok back, and his tech bros are now concerned about DeepSeek.
When was America truly ever ‘great’? It doesn’t look like they’re making any progress considering WFM and DEI are officially over, and it looks like the 21st-century great depression is approaching. Of course, America being the most entitled nation in the world, is also causing drama with Greenland, Mexico and Canada. This kind of nation narcissism isn’t what the planet needs right now.
I used to instantly lose respect for people who used AI-generated images that looked obviously AI-generated. But AI has improved so much since then that it’s now nearly impossible to tell what’s AI and what’s human-made art—unless you’re an actual artist. Pinterest is flooded with bad AI images and it’s now hard for beginner artists to find reference photos with real-world details and accurate anatomy.
What if AI slop evolves into its own aesthetic, a distinct art style? The internet has already diluted words like “aesthetic” and “core,” but why don’t we have AI-core yet? AI art does have a weird resemblance to surrealism—even if it’s often ugly and stuck in the uncanny valley. How different is AI art from surrealist art, really? Or how much difference is there between a human hallucinating and an AI hallucinating? Sure, AI can spit out trippy nonsense, but it’s coming from nowhere. It has no meaning, no emotions, no soul. It’s just noise.
Before surrealism, there was abstract art, and Hilma af Klint created some of the earliest abstract paintings. She infused colours and shapes with meaning, tying them to real-world ideas and spiritual concepts. AI, on the other hand, can’t associate meaning with anything unless we tell it to. That’s why I don’t see it as a threat to talented creatives. It can ghostwrite for you or help translate your thoughts into images, but it won’t replace a creative person. AI has no physical body, no lived experiences, and no emotions to pour into its work. It can never be original.
When I was a kid, I had this realisation: the colours I see and associate with their names might be entirely different for other people. My “red” could be someone else’s “blue.” The thought that people could go through life seeing the world in a way entirely different from mine without ever knowing it terrified me.
I recently read this Nature article about finding the building blocks of life on an asteroid, and it brought back that same feeling. I can’t fully articulate it, but it gave me the same existential dread as Lovecraft’s cosmic horror.
I also had an identity crisis right after I decided to change the name of this newsletter. I’ve been reading Anaïs Nin lately, and in one of her letters, she describes exactly that feeling but learns to embrace it.
I ended up rebranding my entire online presence last week. I changed all my usernames because I finally felt like I had found myself. I finally simplified everything. Speaking of rebrands, OpenAI should probably consider one and start calling itself GatekeepAI.
things I loved this week
books:
This week, I’m reading Murakami’s short story collection—Desire. I bought it in Shimla last year but haven’t read all the stories yet.
music:
I’m loving 070 Shake’s Petrichor. Once again, Dani delivers with the ethereal, angelic production. Song to The Siren is my favourite track on the album, and it’s officially the song that cured my insomnia.
The Live Performance Film with the ballet dancers is really beautiful. Lately, I’m loving the artists who are blending music and choreography.
I once went on a trip with only two of her previous albums downloaded, and she kept me sane.
movies:
Right after I watched Nosferatu, I felt such a dopamine rush and rated it a 4.5. Lily-Rose Depp and Willem Dafoe were amazing. Turns out, good movies with great stories are supposed to make you feel this way. But then I downgraded it 2 days later because I came to my senses. (my Letterboxd review with spoilers for context). Also, Instagram was annoying me with the reels of this movie out of context, making it seem like it’s a romance movie when it’s not.
Lily and Dani gotta be my fav celeb couple of the year.
It’s always been difficult for me to decide what film to watch next, but I usually just pick the one referenced by someone or something I consumed over the week. I also made lists on my Letterboxd to help me pick the vibe (not genre) of the film I want to watch.
I also watched Detachment, and it destroyed me. I’m obsessed with Adrien Brody and I wanna watch The Brutalist so bad I can’t wait.
internet finds:
Since Pinterest sucks now, I found Cosmos to be a really good alternative. It has no ads and random AI images. But this app has images that are so pretty that it feels almost impossible to hoard them all, like on Pinterest. It feels like an actual digital art gallery that gives you instant inspiration rather than allowing you to save things for later. But the app occasionally goes down.
Lomography’s daily newsletter has beautiful photos that make me want to go out and take more pictures. I swear, the moment I graduate and move to a city, my phone screen time will become less than 1 hour.
art:
I started using my 14-year-old digicam to take photos of flowers. It creates a soft grain and lovely red highlights. Also, the first photo I ever took was with this camera, and here’s the photo:
I posted this on Substack Notes, and it’s got 1k+ likes so far!
loved reading this, great post Vaanya
Detachment, after watching that, you are going to think about the movie again again!!