THE SOUL & ART

The concept of the ‘Soul’ has astonished the human race since our existence. It questions the very fabric of our physical reality. I believe in a ‘soul’ and that each animal and even object has its own ‘soul’.

My case study and soul reference are my two dogs. Louie sadly passed away last year. When he left i felt him leave, i was present at his death and one moment he was asleep breathing onto my face and the next, with what i can only discribe as a deflation of his last breath, his soul left and zoomed up into the sky. He then became an object, the untangable energy and love that connected us was no longer present in his physical body, he was somewhere else.

This brings me to the ‘Soul’ in Art. This is highly likely to be objective based on personal experience, but I am very aware when (to me) an Artwork has a soul or energy stored within it. Souls are stored in objects; we are all objects. I am also aware of when an object/Artwork doesn’t have a ‘Soul’.

To me, AI art very rarely has a ‘Soul’. When I feel AI art has a ‘Soul’, it’s because a human being has become so connected to the AI process and has fed it enough human experiences and emotions that it has absorbed some of that energetic force. I am extremely supportive of any tool that human beings can create to foster the nourishment and connection of the ‘soul’.

I think reading ‘Souls’ becomes a skillset enhanced by practising empathy, intuition, love and honesty. When an artwork holds all of these qualities mixed with human history and experience, to me, that is when the artwork has a ‘soul’.