Aesthetics of Spectrality – Part 1: AI and Ghosts, the Case of the Series “On This Day… 1776”
1. The Return of Ghosts I don’t know whether it’s just my impression, but I find very strange the AI-generated images in Darren Aronofsky’s series "On This Day… 1776", produced to commemorate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence and released on Time’s YouTube channel. Of course, AI-generated images will continue to evolve, but in this series one has more the impression of watching strange figures moving before our eyes than of humans meant to embody George Washington or Benjamin Franklin. Put differently, the vacant gazes, the camera movements, and the overall atmosphere produce an effect of spectrality. An effect that is not specific to this series, since many AI-generated videos- and some of them are very beautiful - give the feeling of seeing a world haunted by spectes. And without wanting to advance an overly hasty thesis about AI, I almost feel that the very paradigm of this technology has something to do with spectrality. Whether it is in...