Creative deviation: Reclaiming agency in the age of generative aesthetics

Laidler, Paul

Abstract

This paper examines the evolving relationship between human creativity and technological derivative creation through a practice-based research project inspired by Philip K. Dick's "Pay for the Printer" (1956). In this speculative work, Dick portrays a society where advanced technological manufacturing has rendered human invention obsolete—a prescient metaphor for contemporary concerns about generative AI systems.
This research interrogates how AI's generative transformation processes parallel Dick's narrative of progressive degradation, where copied forms become increasingly unstable and distorted. The project connects Marxian concepts of alienation—where humans become divorced from the means of production—with Brechtian aesthetics that deliberately disrupt the passive consumption of technologies that aspire to seamless, immersive experiences. By exposing AI's constructive mechanisms through visible gaps, anomalies, and hallucinations, the work employs Verfremdungseffekt ("alienation effect") as both conceptual framework and aesthetic strategy, simultaneously addressing technological mediation and revealing the apparatus behind AI-generated imagery.
The project embodies three methodological strands: First, it aligns with poetic design principles that transcend market-driven approaches, seeking alternative languages for creative expression. Second, it explores "trace" as a value-based mechanism that challenges established boundaries of creativity and authorship. Third, it employs parallel narratives that evoke the uncertainty present in both Dick's story and our contemporary experience with AI.
Rather than positioning machines as either adversaries or mere tools, this work situates AI as an agent of productive deviation—an apparatus that simultaneously extends and unsettles human creativity. By embracing imperfection and iterative transformation, the project repositions AI outputs not as perfected end-products but as evolving artefacts within a creative ecosystem where human and machine agencies intermingle.
This research contributes to critical discourse around illustration's relationship with technology by asking: When machines can seemingly replicate our creative voice, how might illustrators reclaim agency by exposing and exploiting the entropy inherent in technological reproduction?

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Abstract
• Conference Name: APPARATUS: The role of technology in illustration
• Start Date: Nov 21, 2025
• End Date: Nov 22, 2025
• Acceptance Date: May 6, 2025
• Deposit Date: May 12, 2025
• Journal: Journal of Illustration
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/14414836
• Publisher URL: https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-illustration
• Additional Information: Conference Theme:; Machines, appliances, gizmos, and contraptions have always been a part of illustration, enabling illustrators to transform their thoughts into real-life forms. The machine’s abilities, aesthetics, and impacts on humanity have always been a source of inspiration and concern. With the discussion raging around artificial intelligence as a game-changing technology, and when computers seem to inextricably serve as parts of creation and of our lives, perhaps it is time to take stock and consider the long-established but fluctuating relationship between illustration and the machine.