Artificially Generated Clothing
We talked to New Zealand-based artist Field Skjellerup —the creative mind behind the Instagram page @ai_clothing daily— about exploring the juxtaposition between reality and technology; and creating fashion on his own terms.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist’s Instagram.
We The Cool: First of all, how can I pronounce your last name?
Field: “Skjellerup”, it's a silent “j”.
We The Cool: Tell us more about your beginnings…
Field: I guess my background is quite personal. I was raised around fashion but I can't really pinpoint a specific time when things happened because it was always around me in that way. I had quite young parents growing up and I think I was just exposed to street fashion culture, sneakers culture, music, and everything at such a young age.
We The Cool: Is there someone that influenced this early approach to fashion, music and arts?
Field: Yeah, it definitely started with my parents. My mom was working in vintage stores and I grew up going to the stores after work and looking at all the clothes. Then my step dad was collecting sneakers at the time, like Nikes and Air Max. Also around 2008 I was into blogging so I guess this is where it all really began. I was running an archival shop as well for three or four years which ended up being a full time thing in the last year and a half.
Photos: Courtesy of the artist’s Instagram.
We The Cool: How did you begin experimenting with artificially created digital images?
Field: That was like a year and a half ago, I have been following AI tools for a while, maybe for five or six years now. And then, in the last year, I discovered these creative tools that are quite accessible, so I have just been experimenting since then. I started my page and I have been posting on it for the last year.
We The Cool: Is there a specific designer or trend that inspires you the most?
Field: Definitely after my experience selling archival clothing I would say that the collections from the 90s and early 2000s. When working with AI tools I like bold collections where I can use colors and interesting forms to have the result I want.
Photos: Courtesy of the artist’s Instagram.
We The Cool: Your work operates mainly in the digital area. How have you materialized it?
Field: I’ve had two exhibitions. One in Chicago last year, consisted of a small selection of large prints as well as some other media. The second exhibition happened last July in New Zealand. I worked with these large full scale and full-body images made of paper that we printed out and suspended in the gallery space.
I have worked on physical clothing products as well like baseball caps through AI tools.
We The Cool: That leads to my next question, how do you visualize the future of garment designing and garment making?
Field: I think that with AI, the design process could become more democratic. Instead of fashion stylists or designers deciding what’s best as a product, I feel that there is a lot more collaboration in terms of consuming and producing.
We The Cool: How does Generative Adversarial Network work?
Field: It’s a learning model that takes a data sets containing between 300 and 400 images. Then it’s about processing those images in a way to recreate them. Inside the algorithm, you have two components: one is an image maker and the other one passes through this other checkpoint and this image gets more similar to the input.
Video: Courtesy of the artist’s Instagram.
We The Cool: How does it work in terms of intellectual property?
Field: The problem with AI is always the idea of ownership. I feel that a lot of those issues can really make us ask ourselves about our credits in anything. Whether it’s Artificial Intelligence or human intelligence, I think that some of those matters can just really be reflecting our own intelligence which I find very interesting.
We The Cool: What can you tell us about the creative scene and AI in New Zealand?
Field: I have never talked to someone who uses AI here, at least the way I do. It's kind of a weird thing. I feel that my page has made AI tools relevant for a whole group of people by exposing the possibilities of creating. There’s something about these tools that transmit a feeling of fantasy, something cinematical like Star Wars, the type of things that takes people into.
Photos: Courtesy of the artist’s Instagram.
We The Cool: Is there any international designer you would like to collaborate with?
Field: I would say McQueen, but honestly that’s impossible. I feel that he used to engage with technology very well when he was alive.
We The Cool: So what follows for you?
Field: I’m trying to move to London, so I'm busy with that at the moment. There are definitely a few designers I’ve been wanting to reach out to for a while, and I think that in Europe a lot of things will come, instead of being isolated here in New Zealand.