The third year Arts student has a passion for making things - not just building objects and furniture but anything creative. He loves music, making videos, art, and currently electric guitars.
Zach recently created a short film for his Independent Project, where he explored the creative process and the effects that artificial intelligence is having on the creative process and industry alike.
We chatted with Zach about the project and his thoughts on art and artificial intelligence.
What was your inspiration for the project?
I had to make this project for a class - I had to force myself to start (which is a good thing and I need that sometimes). The ideas and inspiration for the project came from everywhere. I would see, hear, or think something and I would write it in my notes app as a video idea. This video is just a compilation of a lot of my ideas that I wrote down. I also got creative inspiration for visual storytelling from YouTube channels like GAWX, Answer In Progress, and Digital Spaghetti.
In the video you highlight the process of creating art - can you explain your creative process for this project?
I don't understand how my brain works, so in my video I had an order of how the creative process goes but in reality my process was all over the place. For example, I filmed the scene about procrastination before I wrote that part of the script. However, for the most part I tried to show my process as I was going. Apart from some small things my process was as I showed it in the video.
You said you don’t like AI - can you expand on why?
I love technology and that includes ai but I don't like how everyone has become reliant on AI (specifically LLM's like ChatGPT and Gemini) from small things like choosing where to get dinner to big things like using it to come up with ideas and then execute those ideas. I think with the rise of ai comes the fall of genuine, human made ideas, creativity and products. As a Christian I believe that God gave us the ability to be creative and that is like a muscle that we need to train, with everyone relying so much on AI, there is no longer a need to train the creative muscle.
Is the commercialisation of art undermining its impact?
I don't think the commercialisation of art is undermining its impact because someone can make something and sell it and that's fine, it’s still art and it doesn't reduce the quality of it. I think the commercial problem is social media and the monetization aspect - this is encouraging people to make their accounts view and retention farms just so whoever made it can make a quick buck.