Posted in: Comics | Tagged: bradford, Bradford Literature Festival, Dave Gibbons

Bradford Literature Festival Slammed By Artists For Using A.I. Art

The Bradford Literature Festival's choice to use AI art to promte the event has seen a litany of criticism from artists and illustrators.

The Bradford Literature Festival is upon us.  Their social media account tweeted "Our star-studded #BradfordLitFest line-up is live! A mix of award-winning authors, renowned poets, inspiring activists, talented acts, insightful politicians & visionary sheikhs. This festival promises something for everyone! Full line-up: http://bradfordlitfest.co.uk ". Events include Dave Gibbons talking about his memoir Confabulations on the 24th of June and an Illustration Masterclass with Chris Mould for the 25th of June.

However, the choice of an AI Illustration for their promotion, when they are featuring actual human illustrators has not gone down well with a litany of protests on Twitter. Here are a few from comics illustrators:

Jen Bartel tweeted: There's still time to remove this image and hire a creative professional to illustrate and/or design you guys something that actually looks good and isn't a complete embarrassment to your event, just saying.

Kelly McKernan: This is unacceptable.

Joe List: You're literally running an illustration masterclass as part of the festival. What on earth were you thinking getting a soulless machine to churn out your hero art? With arts council funding!!

David Ziggy Greene:  Well that is a terrible art decision

Luke Hyde: I recommend taking this down, and supporting human art

Hamish Steele: Don't use AI art, it steals other people's work, yadda yadda, you won't listen because it's cheap.

Bengal: Yikes.

Scott Gray: I hope you've acknowledged that using an automatic image scraper – because that's all "AI" really is – to make your poster was a bad misstep on your part. This doesn't reflect well on your festival.

Dan McDaid: Horrible image, big mistake.

Keezy Young: This is a slap in the face to visual artists, who have worked alongside and within the lit community for just about all of time. If you were looking to inspire anyone with this image, you failed

Bonnie Branson: AI literature is next, please stop. This isn't art, this is theft. Supporting one art form while trashing another is extremely bad form.

Ben Haith-Bedford: As an artist who works in Bradford I find this incredibly disrespectful

The site also has more images that have been used for such promotional purposes. While the public may not care, can a body like the Bradford Literature Festival risk annoying the creative community so much?

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