A collaborative series by Justice Apple and Mac Pierce
This series of work uses AI--specifically, Stable Diffusion--to create wholly fabricated, wholly fantastic sex scenes. Any time a new form of image-making is introduced, one of the first ways it's used is to create pornography. This has always been true: from the Venus of Willendorf to the painted nude at the height of the Renaissance, new forms of art mean new forms of porn. (In fact, it's impossible to say whether or not the Venus of Willendorf qualifies as such: she was a fertility goddess. Can we really say if her intended audience was to find her titillating?). Of course, AI is no exception--quite the opposite. With AI's transformative power come opportunities for the most insidious kind of abuse. One example of this abuse are so-called nudifying apps. These apps, which use similar technology to that employed by Stable Diffusion, create nudes of people who have in no way consented to appear in pornography, and do so in a frighteningly realistic way.
"Upload and create deepnude photos of whoever you want … [It's] free and fast, absolutely safe!"
This means they are all but designed to create non-consensual pornography, transposing the likenesses of anyone onto nude bodies to create pornography. As these apps claim in their very promos, such tools are free and can be used by anyone after watching publicly available tutorials. In this project, we use Stable Diffusion to create sexually suggestive images from photos of us: fully consenting, and fully clothed adults. Posed in front of recognizable landmarks, these images examine the historical context of the nude, and its uncertain, quite possibly unreal future.
- Essay by Ben Zitsman
In Justice Apple and Mac Pierce’s collaborative work A Third Act, they explore the intersection of new technologies, art, and pornography, emphasizing how image-making tools have historically served both purposes. From painting to photography, each technological advancement has been used to provoke viewers in unique ways.
Today, AI-generated imagery facilitates the creation of deepfakes, including non-consensual content through "nudifying" apps that map nude bodies onto fully clothed individuals.
In A Third Act, Pierce and Apple incorporate these tools into their artistic process. They photograph themselves in morph suits on detailed period sets, anonymizing their bodies. The AI then overlays completely fabricated bodies onto their figures, erasing any original features. The resulting images blur the line between reality and fabrication, challenging viewers to question what is authentic and what is artificially constructed within the composition.
A full catalog of works to date is available here - [PDF, 368kb]
Mythologies of AI Consent: A Review of “A Third Act” at Sulk Chicago - Frank Gieser for NewCity Art
