This week, we had the opportunity to watch all the wonderful mini-documentaries created for Assignment 1. While watching, I reflected on how differently everyone approached their videos within the creative constraints of the assignment brief. It was interesting to see the varying degrees of AI used as a collaborator, with some videos displaying creative AI-generated images and videos to enhance their documentaries. I was initially unsure how my peers would approach the requirement of using generative AI, but watching their videos in class allowed me to see how different individuals addressed creative constraints.
I thought about the aspects in which my documentary differed from my peers’. Some provided more insight into how they use AI than others, and I was initially worried that I might have approached the task incorrectly, despite following the assignment guidelines. It wasn’t until I realised that the creative processes of individuals are what make our outcomes so unique and individualistic, especially when we ‘challenge and sometimes even displace existing constraints’, allowing ourselves to embrace chance and improvisation (Feiten et al., pp. 316-317).
The assignment restrictions forced us all to think outside the box in our approach to creating a mini-documentary, and seeing how these constraints led to unique and entertaining works was truly inspiring. By acknowledging our limitations and constraints, whether resource-related or creative, we gain a stepping stone to understanding what we can achieve, rather than focusing on what we cannot. I believe this process takes time and practice—learning to view constraints as a creative enhancer rather than a hindrance—but mastering the ability to embrace chance through creative constraints is something I look forward to developing in my academic career as a media student. Not only is it a personal journey, but observing how my peers create within these constraints is also enlightening. It allows us to see things from new perspectives and create in a more collaborative environment, which I find exciting because it enables us to build upon the ‘complex processes of interaction between different numbers of agents and varying sets of material, cultural, and social constraints’ (Feiten et al., p. 321).
The varying types of intertwined constraints revealed themselves in ways I hadn’t considered before, such as genre existing as a creative constraint that creators can build upon to improvise and mix themes to create subgenres. The way in which genre is continuously being shaped and reshaped thanks to transmediality (Freeman and Smith, 2024) became apparent when we wrote down all the genres we could think of on sticky notes in class. This exercise made me realize how genre is truly expanding and evolving, given the sheer number of sticky notes we put on the board—many with genres I had never even heard of. Addressing genre constraints with prompts and generative AI was especially interesting, as it showed how each group member brought their own ideas to the prompt generation, resulting in different AI-generated photos. This demonstrated how we can learn to embrace and work with the technical constraints that often come with creating AI, allowing us to welcome unexpected outcomes.
References
Feiten TE, Peck Z, Holland K and Chemero A (2023) ‘Constructive constraints: On the role of chance and complexity in artistic creativity’, Possibility Studies & Society, vol. 1, no. 3. https://rmit.instructure.com/courses/139133/pages/week-5
Freeman M and Smith AN (2024), ‘Introduction on: Why We Still Need Genre’, in Creative Convergence: The AI Renaissance in Art and Design, Springer Series on Cultural Computing, Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-15583-3_1