innovative vs institutional
As I stated in "sloptimism": Slop is always whatever media format is most dynamic and innovative in the present. At present, we are using the word to discuss the most novel media format of the present, generative AI. Being new, AI slop lacks any institutional bounds. We have no model of AI slop criticism to discern the relative aesthetic value of some slop creations versus others. OpenAI, creator of the generative video tool, Sora, recognizes this as a problem. For the relative value of slop to increase, some amount of institutional approval is needed. That’s why last spring, they brought a showcase of works created with Sora to Los Angeles and hosted a screening at Brain Dead Studios Fairfax theater. As the headline of the Los Angeles Times coverage read: "OpenAI takes it’s pitch to Hollywood…"
Even Silicon Valley, which is famously phobic of traditional cultural institutions, understands that the first major motion picture to use Sora that wins an Oscar will be a major moment for the relative status of their products.
Institutions allocates aura.
The outsider begins to gain aura as his work is discovered, in anticipation of institutional acceptance. When the outsider crosses the threshold of acceptance, she becomes the ingénue. This is when aura peaks. Outsiders which fail-to-launch either disappear or become objects of pity. Their aura wanes. The ingénue faces this risk as well, depending on the trajectory of her career. It’s the middle-term that is tricky, the long expanse between new and classic. Aura begins peaking again late in the creators again and surges once again after they die. Post-mortem, the creations become classics.
personalized vs individual
Individual works gain aura due to their scarcity. It is this scarcity which drives desire, and desire which generates aura. Aura is about longing. This is why institutions are essential to aura, as well. The institution places a cultural object on a pedestal, in a vitrine, out of reach. Longing is maintained because no one person can truly own it.
Slop is not individual. It is generic and all the same personalized, the Big Mac without the onions. We consume it alone, oftentimes in the dark.
generative vs creative
I believe artists can use generative AI tools to create art. I call these creations visuals. But there is still a creative act, a human intervention, that separates a work of art from all the other slop that was birthed beside it: the artists choice, his ability to say this an not that, his ability to frame his choice for an audience.
The creative act is choice.
But AI cannot choose. It is programmed. And while it maybe unpredictable at times, it is never choosing, only reacting.