Assignment 3: Drawing Boundaries

For this assignment, I must produce my own personal creative manifesto to highlight what I'm comfortable with working on or with, and where my personal boundaries could be crossed.

Most of my work is narrative-driven and the subjects are usually fictional, I have worked on sensitive topics within fictional work for story-telling and awareness. I enjoy creating stories/artwork that reflect some of my values and thoughts but I should also be open to creating a space where people can have their say too-- without discriminating of course.

I have worked on topics involving political events/contexts but felt uncomfortable after doing so, since I was worried about upsetting anyone or my audience.

With rising AI too, I've seen a few companies priorities AI over human-made work (cough, cough, coca cola, cough cough); and because of that I would feel extremely uncomfortable working anything related to said companies of such.

My Creative Manifesto

I will decline projects that involve companies that release AI over human-made work.

I will prioritise projects that involve story-telling, and open to sensitive topics such as mental illness/health, social and personal issues, etc.

I will not accept jobs that involve current political events or contexts-- unless necessary.

I am open to projects that aim to educate its audience on issues such as mental health, the environment, etc. (excluding political).

I will decline projects that aim to prioritise money over the needs and wants of its audience.

Reflection

Creating my own personal creative manifesto felt affirming to me, I was able to draw a line and understand what I'm comfortable with and what I wasn't.

There was one line that I was unsure of, 'I will decline projects that involve companies that release AI over human-made work.' A lot of companies nowadays will use some elements of AI in their workflow.

Recently a video game caught some fire over AI textures, Clair Obscur Expedition 33, a highly-acclaimed game that won many awards, used AI as texture holders that ended up in the finished product; someone spotted this and the indie company quickly fixed the texture to its intended human-made texture. Word went around recently of this incident and it ended up getting a lot of hate, despite the fact that it was only a place-holder to allow for game-testing whilst in development.

Because of this recent incident, I have seen how AI has been used (even for a small indie company), which makes me apprehensive on shutting down a lot of job opportunities over the use of AI. I personally disagree with the use of AI in any creative aspect, but its important for me not to jump straight to hating without having context.

It's an on-going subject that will surly unfold as time goes on for better or worse, but for now companies that will predominantly use AI over hiring an artist/specialist will be in my bad books.

For the political manifesto I made, I didn't want to complete exclude political work-- only necessary because there are instances where being silent over something is more harmful that saying something, whether or not you're liked for it, such as the genocide in Gaza, I've seen awful things happen to innocent people and I couldn't bear being silent (thus reposting/sharing important facts, and spreading awareness).

Moving forward from this, I would say that I will be mostly drawn to fictional works; touching on subjects of variety but not relating to real-life itself.