Art is breathwork. No matter the medium and the individuality of its creator(s), all art starts out as a series of inhales and exhales.
Breathe In
Punk duo Bob Vylan often begin their energetic gigs with time dedicated to breathing/meditation and stretching — inviting you to get grounded before the release that follows. Of course, art is more than just made of inhaling and exhaling. Yet art stirs us by expressing the sentiments of what it means to live and breathe. It asks us to turn inwards while also appreciating our interconnections and shared space. Art acknowledges and communicates layered ideas and complicated feelings, rather than glossing over them. It conveys our dreams and struggles.
On Deftones’ (2000) White Pony album cover is the pony’s silhouette coming or going, and why might the distinction matter? What is it like to touch the fabric of Faith Ringgold’s (1985) Street Story Quilt or the painted textures of Vincent Van Gogh’s (1888—1889) Sunflowers? How does Mavis Staples’ (2025) Sad and Beautiful World reflect the singer’s inspiration and activism, as well as the threads of our messy lives? There are countless cases of art sparking enriching contemplations about its meaning, materiality, and feel.
What makes art moving is knowing that someone chose to spend some of their limited time on earth creating and sharing it. An artist’s life may end, but their art and legacy live on — the poignant photography and writing of Maud Sulter; the whimsical and affecting drawings of Daniel Johnston that accompany his music; the strident songs and civil rights work of Nina Simone … and then some. Art’s urgency and resonance are rooted in care and commitment, even if artmaking practices ebb and flow. In the words of Sade (whose music shaped Deftones’) from a 1993 interview on Sade: Punk ‘n’ Soul: “We care, so we craft what we do”.
Art is nothing if not a reflection of the human condition and a desire to create and connect.
Art is not slop.
Crowning “slop” its 2025 Word of the Year, Merriam-Webster — dubbed “America’s Most Trusted Dictionary” — defines it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence [AI]”. As much writing, research, and campaigning point out, the supposedly endless possibilities of AI that Big Tech promises are made possible by the labour of people who are often exploited. Evidently, regardless of assertions of its “autonomy”, the (dis)functions of AI are not removed from human experiences. However, this does not mean that AI can mimic the soul that goes into really making art.
(He)art
Stories about its maker(s), how it was created, and the intentions behind it, are key to what art means to us. For me, this includes learning about the magnetic music of London emo/screamo/punk band incaseyouleave, such as their song “Arrhythmia”, which is one of 7 that comprises their first EP, “Dedications to a Devoted Past”. As reported by Idioteq zine (founded by Karol Kaminski), “Arrhythmia” (2024) is a song that “emerges as a reaction to the surge in overt white supremacy and fascism, a sonic lament for the rise in violence against black and brown people. It’s a mirror to our digital age, where the constant barrage of violent imagery on social media contributes to societal desensitization”.
Songs by other artists and bands whose work addresses the brutality of racism includes “Hands Up” (2016) by Blood Orange and “Where Is Home?” (2007) by Bloc Party: the latter responded to the murder of Christopher Alaneme in London in the UK, and the former includes the refrain “hands up, don’t shoot” — a chant called out at Black Lives Matter movement protests following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson in the US.
Clearly, understanding the origins of art and the motivations underlying it can be crucial to experiencing it as meaningful. Art is not just about perceived outputs — it’s about the journey, emotions, and impetus behind it. To once more turn to Sade’s words, from a 1992 interview during which creative processes were discussed, sometimes artmaking is about doing “…the most that we could do at that time; at that moment in time, we did our best…”.
Art with an air of mystery intrigues, but the illusion of AI-generated content should not be mistaken for the imaginativeness of enigmatic art that people gave their all to. Just as not all that glitters is gold, not all that is exhibited or performed is art. And not all art is visible or known. Still, art lacking origin stories can sometimes signal an absence of substance, as is the way with alleged “art” generated by AI: content devoid of tenor, purpose, and style.
Subversive art does not always lay everything bare, and its roots sometimes remain opaque, including when attempting to protect the safety and well-being of those who made it. Then again, unlike content produced by AI, subversive art challenges and subverts norms rather than upholding them. It critiques and diverges from dominant narratives and oppressive structures, such as by pushing against the algorithmically driven digital platforms and technological processes that aid surveillance and censorship.
Empty Plate
The hollowness of AI-generated “art” is among many points raised amid discussion of the portrait “Empty Plate”. Online coverage describes “Empty Plate” as being “an AI-generated print” which was spotted on display in November 2025 at the National Museum Cardiff in Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru). The piece was apparently hung without permission and depicts a young, weary-looking white child in a school uniform, solemnly seated and clutching an empty plate. The piece’s meaning is open to interpretation. However, what “Empty Plate” means can include a challenge to institutions and injustices — whether by symbolically rupturing the exclusivity of the art world or by visually alluding to the cruelties in countries where some children are left to starve.
“Empty Plate” provokes discussion and debate, although the intention and history of its creator (Elias Marrow) is unclear. Perhaps the piece simultaneously replicates and resists how AI and ideas of (in)authenticity are implicated in the art world and life at large. That said, without truly knowing who is behind something presented as “art” and what they may or may not stand for, it seems precarious at best to make claims about its subversiveness. When considering all that, my neurodivergent ways of associative thinking led me to recall the writing of late music journalist and member of the band Welfare Heroine, Dele Fadele.
In a 1993 article which hints at when aspects of shoegaze music can feel more like naval gazing, Fadele asks: “Is it enough just to craft gorgeous musical landscapes and keep a modicum of political silence?” In other words, is art absent of a clear position and substantial perspective, essentially an empty plate? In the decades since Fadele’s provocation, the terrains of shoegaze have shifted in some ways. There continue to be shoegaze artists and bands that skirt around political issues or try to silence them. But others thoughtfully tend to such matters. That includes the work of London shoegaze band, Whitelands, which, as the music writing of Huw Baines notes, involves “discussion of racism and imperialism”.
Looking beyond shoegaze and turning attention to hardcore punk soundscapes, Commitment — an anti-imperialist band from Philadelphia — calls for the freedom of “all oppressed people from colonial regimes”. Elsewhere, the work of DC hardcore band Drivel includes the songs “Pledge Allegiance to the Bomb” and “Distorted Perception”, which directly address the monstrosities of warmongering, xenophobic, and power-hungry governments. Such music and others’ expressions of creativity pierce political silences with vigour, distinctness, and volume.
Returning to ruminating on the “Empty Plate” print that appeared in Cardiff, it is an example of mimicry of “art” which some people might interpret as nonconformist. Others might dismiss it as an AI-related prank. On the one hand, the piece might be thought of as a critique of governments depriving children of free school meals and how that perpetuates destitution. On the other hand, the piece might be written off as a cynical gesture to inequality that does more to amplify AI than to admonish oppression. So even though “Empty Plate” can be deemed a defiant statement, it may also contrastingly be viewed as part of the slew of creations that, to draw on the words of Jason England on film and art, are “always subversive in presentation while vacuous in rhetoric”.
Art can be many different things. However, when AI is at the helm of something that has been made, it is not art we are dealing with, but artifice. Using AI to spit out hackneyed content will never replicate the graft and uniqueness that go into making actual art. Undoubtedly, not all art is subversive. Despite that, we should not overlook the subversive potential of art created by people, particularly when AI is being used to squash artists’ rights, decimate the integrity of creativity, and, in the incisive words of animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, act as an “insult to life itself”.
In an insightful account of post-hardcore music, POST: A Look at the Influence of Post-Hardcore: 1985—2007, Eric Grubbs writes of how “[e]veryday people seeing other everyday people doing something of their own often led to the epiphany of, ‘I could do that’”. That spirit is something AI can never reproduce. As the Cardiff post-hardcore/emo band Holding Absence has encouraged people to do, we can and should “oppose AI music” and other types of AI content repackaged as “art”. Advocates of AI’s use may argue that there is little difference between how artists throughout the centuries have drawn inspiration from earlier artists and movements. But how lineages of creativity flourish and seed new art made by actual people should never be confused with how AI depends on extraction, erasure, and exploitation.
The Horse is Coming and Going
According to the Chinese Zodiac, soon it is the year of the Fire Horse, meaning that 2026 should bring much momentum and energy that propel bold actions and change (here’s hoping…). Although it may feel as though AI’s presence is expanding at an accelerated speed, it will always be people who are behind art and the transformations that it makes and echoes.
There is still a lot of art that simply reinforces power dynamics. Nevertheless, many artistic creations and those who make them are dissenting, as documented by The Red Shoes Poster Archive, a not-for-profit archive of radical working-class and social movement poster art. Indeed, art can be resistance as well as catharsis, whether it is in the form of trans liberation banners and stickers, anti-apartheid and Rock Against Racism music gigs, disability justice zines, the intricate details and tactility of Palestinian tatreez designs, or other creative expressions of self-determination and solidarity. AI cannot manufacture that.
Subversive art does not always lay everything bare, and its roots sometimes remain opaque, including when attempting to protect the safety and well-being of those who made it. Then again, unlike content produced by AI, subversive art challenges and subverts norms rather than upholding them. It critiques and diverges from dominant narratives and oppressive structures, such as by pushing against the algorithmically driven digital platforms and technological processes that aid surveillance and censorship.
As scholar Tressie McMillan Cottom has emphasised, in the face of ardent claims about this being The Age of “Artificial Intelligence”, we can and should refuse AI. One of myriad ways that we can do so is by nurturing analogue media and DIY creative practices, including independent print and recording cultures — liberationist small presses, indie comics, and other subversive approaches to documenting, publishing, music-making, archiving, and creativity.
The evergreen reflections of Billie Holiday remind us that originality anchors art: “No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music, or it isn’t music”. The relentless public relations messages that promote AI and try to pass off AI-generated content as “art” may keep getting louder, but we must accept no substitutes.
Real art has heart. It is not hardwired.
Arrhythmia — incaseyouleave (2021)
Augustine — Blood Orange (2016)
A Walk in the Wind — Daniel Johnston (1985)
Backlash Blues — Nina Simone (1967)
Blankspace — Whitelands (2026)
Chosen Light — Whitelands (2024)
Distorted Perception — Drivel (2025)
Hands Up — Blood Orange (2016)
Hellraiser — Commitment (2025)
Here Comes The Sun — Nina Simone (1971)
Her Wings — Holding Absence (2023)
In Circles — Holding Absence (2021)
infinite source — Deftones (2025)
Is It A Crime — Sade (1986)
Kiss of Life — Sade (1992)
Knife Prty — Deftones (2000)
Passenger — Deftones (2000)
Peace in the City — Welfare Heroine (1990)
Pledge Allegiance to the Bomb — Drivel (2025)
Sad and Beautiful World — Mavis Staples (2025)
Sad Sick World — Bob Vylan (2025)
Spellbound — incaseyouleave (2021)
The Sweetest Taboo (Live) — Sade (2011)
The Very Thought of You — Billie Holiday (1939)
They Can’t Take That Away From Me — Billie Holiday (1957)
True Love Will Find You In The End — Daniel Johnston (1990)
Waiting for the 7.18 — Bloc Party (2007)
Where Do You Go To My Lovely? — Welfare Heroine (1992)
Where Is Home? — Bloc Party (2007)
References
Baines, Huw (2024) Whitelands — ‘Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day’ review: London shoegazers’ debut comes alive in the details. NME, 20 February. Available at: https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/whitelands-band-debut-album-review-radar-3589524
England, Jason (2025) ‘One Battle After Another’ Isn’t Up for The Fight. Defector, 30 October. Available at: https://defector.com/one-battle-after-another-isnt-up-for-the-fight
Fadele, Dele (1993) Slowdive: Pitta And Twisted. New Musical Express (NME), 12 June. Available at: https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/slowdive-pitta-and-twisted
Gonzales, Michael A. (2015 [1992]) Interview: Sade. Red Bull Music Academy, 17 July. Available at: https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/07/sade-interview
Grubbs, Eric (2008) POST: A Look at the Influence of Post-Hardcore: 1985—2007. New York: iUniverse.
Hunter, James (1993) Sade: Punk ‘n’ Soul. L.A. Style, January. Available at: https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/sade-punk-n-soul
Idioteq (2024) Navigating the complexities of survivors’ guilt and racial violence, through “Arrhythmia” by emo screamo band INCASEYOULEAVE. Idioteq, 12 June. Available at: https://idioteq.com/navigating-the-complexities-of-survivors-guilt-and-racial-violence-through-arrhythmia-by-emo-screamo-band-incaseyouleave/
McMillan Cottom, Tressie (2024) Urban Consulate: Jason Reynolds & Tressie McMillan Cottom. Urban Consulate, 19 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwwnjdXMhco
Mills, Matt (2025) “It’s shocking, it’s disheartening, it’s insulting — most importantly — it’s a wake up call”: Rock band speak out as AI-generated ‘artist’ modelled on their music gets more Spotify listeners. Louder, 5 October. Available at: https://www.loudersound.com/news/holding-absence-speak-out-ai-bleeding-verse-overtakes-spotify-listeners-2025
Nayyar, Rhea (2025). Prankster With a Cause Sneaks AI Artwork Into UK Museum. Hyperallergic, 12 November. Available at: https://hyperallergic.com/prankster-with-a-cause-sneaks-ai-artwork-into-uk-museum/
