What does not kill you makes you stronger". A motto that Stephy Fung has engraved in fire. When it came time to choose a university career, he opted for graphic design. "I thought I would dedicate myself to the world of advertising and work for brands." The pandemic changed everything. “Being at home 24 hours a day, there was little room for fun. I felt that I had already done everything and that overwhelmed me. I set myself new challenges and with the knowledge I had as a 3D artist and learning new ones, I started designing clothes online for avatars and video games and delved into the world of digital fashion. I found my place. I became strong", explains Fung, who these days is starring in some of the presentations at the OFFF festival in Barcelona, which brings together until tomorrow at the Disseny Hub the main voices of the creative industry from the five continents and who once again hangs the poster of sold out.
"The OFFF is a space that invites you to jointly analyze creative trends and that predicts quite accurately where things will go in the following years", says the artist Joshua Davis, who has been attending this event since 2000. to the point of being presented as one of the godfathers.
"If last year what was most talked about was artificial intelligence, this 2024 we can ensure that it is consolidated as a creative tool", says Pep Salazar, co-director together with Héctor Ayuso of this event which "has become a point of reference in Europe" and which sets itself the goal of "being global". In a sense, it is, since visitors from 85 countries and more than 70 internationally renowned speakers in the fields of creativity, design, visual art and digital culture have come to the Catalan capital, to more creative young people from the main schools in Catalonia willing to present the projects sponsored by The Next Us platform, focused on the training and dissemination of emerging talent.
Of all of them, Noa, the digital avatar who greets you at the entrance, offers information to the visitor. "She is educated with AI and is able to hold natural conversations and answer questions autonomously and coherently", explains Sebastián Soriano, co-founder of Lowkeymoves, the company responsible for its creation. There are several who approach to ask what time certain talks take place. A small percentage, on the other hand, look at her suspiciously, like Joanne, who claims "squeezing your mind as the most effective method for obtaining new ideas". In fact, at the stand he shares with a few colleagues at the festival's street market, he claims with a sign that the products sold there are "made by real humans and not by AI".
Borja Martínez, director of the Lo Siento studio, which specializes in identity, packaging and publishing, is also in favor of everything that is cooked over a slow fire. “We represent a style of visual identity creation and digital design that is very artisanal, because we do much of our work by hand. We are very aware of the new technologies and we do not lose sight of them, in case we can take advantage of any of them and not to be left behind, but, for now, we dedicate ourselves to doing what we call artisanal intelligence ".
For New York designer and muralist Timothy Goodman, who has populated packaging, shoes, clothes, books and galleries around the world with his art, “AI is a challenge because it cannot feel love or pain or loss or suffering. That is, he cannot feel what it means to be human and there is a real burning desire for connection in the world at this time. I think the greatest joy you can have as a designer is to connect with another human being through your work."
Mike Alderson, of ManvsMachine - studio responsible for the creative campaign of OFFF 2024 -, does not think that this is incompatible and sees it more interesting to approach AI as "another tool from which we can extract a profit, as we have been doing for years with other technologies, software, cameras and even digital pens". Of course, although he is in favor of "not spreading panic", he is also very aware of how important it is "not to lose the north", nor to dehumanize the creative process.
Jessica Hische, a renowned artist specializing in artistic calligraphy, admits that "she has the issue very much in mind". He doesn't use artificial intelligence in his work, but he does use it to generate brainstorming. Although there is one thing that worries him and that he will discuss on stage in the coming days: "That less and less is paid for the work done and fewer specialists are hired. AI will get better and better at creating images, that's undeniable. And if the budget is getting lower and lower in companies, and this is something that has been happening systematically in recent years, things will end up being solved internally, without even assessing whether it is necessary to hire any workers. Of course, if the most extreme prophecies and conspiracy theories do not come true, then we are saved. Any change is scary. It made the calculator itself in its day. But let us be fruitful and know how to take advantage of the opportunities that are given to us. Maybe we'll be surprised."
