Welcome back to another episode of ‘What Horrors Can We Make With AI?’… Today, we will be talking about marketing departments that seem to have no real concept of what it is they are meant to be marketing and why they perhaps should still be using real-life photographers.
The Queensland Symphony Orchestra management has managed to completely annoy all their members and audience members in one swift AI-generated image. It’s a visual car crash and too funny not to share.
According to Slipped Disc, the image in question was part of the Brisbane-based orchestra’s marketing campaign for their 2024 season. The image was accompanied by the slogan “Experience the Orchestra”. The image, however, depicts an orchestral experience that I’ve certainly never had, at any rate. Even after working with professional orchestras for 20-odd years.
Prompt: two people having a date at an indoor classical music romantic concert
Too many hands
The image shows a young couple apparently on a romantic date at the symphony orchestra. The longer you look at the image, the more horrific it gets. The woman’s left arm looks like a mannequin’s, and there are altogether far too many hands and fingers involved. The man seems to have part of the woman’s dress detached and lying across his lap. There is an odd black box in front of them.
And now my favourite part: the couple is surrounded by the orchestra who are seated around them in the stalls. I think most people would expect the orchestra to be on the stage and not clustered around the auditorium. And then there are the weird cloned faces of the musicians, and let’s not even get started on how they are holding the instruments.
The concert hall doesn’t even remotely resemble that of the Queensland Orchestra’s actual home.
Contempt for artists
In short, it’s a hot mess, and according to Slipped Disc, the musicians were furious. When they raised concerns about the image to their Marketing Director they were allegedly told to ‘stay in their lane’ and it’s ‘no one else’s job to market’.
One of the patrons of the orchestra posted, ‘What is this disgusting AI image that you are using to advertise? Do you not support actual artists?’
Which is an incredibly good question. Arts organisations, particularly those that use public funds to keep going, should support all people working in the arts, including those who work on their marketing campaigns. They should not be cutting corners by using AI-generated images, and sloppy ones at that.
If budgets are small, I can still guarantee that they could find a photographer willing to do the shoot and do a far better job than this marketing department has done. It’s simply lazy arrogance.
Creatives need to stand together on this if we are to survive the coming AI-onslaught. As a videographer, I am not going to use an AI-generated piece of music to accompany my videos. If I must, I will license a track from a music library similar to a stock photo library. I hope that theatre and musical operations will also do the right thing and continue to hire photographers and videographers when they need them.
Now I think it’s time we give the Marketing Manager of the Queensland Orchestra a sarcastic slow round of applause…with all three of our hands.
