Jumoke Fernandenz is always in the flow of events: aware of trends months before they arrive and steadily pioneering new tools and resources. She started coding at the age of nine as a homeschooled student. The daughter of an art teacher and a musician/developer, she spent years exploring creative fields and professions, driven by her natural curiosity and passion for experimentation. At the moment, she works as an AI Art Director and synthographer. We talked with her about net art, post-internet, shitposting, AI art, and beyond.

You began coding when you were nine years old. Which was your first language? Do you have any cute stories about your early coding experiences?

I started coding using Scratch. At the same time, my dad taught me basic HTML and CSS. I made my first website when I was ten years old. I don’t have any documentation of it, but I remember it being very pink. I also loved Flash dress-up games and embedded lots of different games into the website.

Which was your first online community? When did you approach social media, and how did you end up in the post-internet community?

My first couple of years on the internet were spent on Scratch, a forum and dress-up game website called Cartoon Doll Emporium, FanFiction.net, and all that good stuff. I stayed friends with many connections from that era into my next digital migration to Tumblr. I didn’t find Facebook interesting until I started adding strangers. At some point post-Tumblr, it became my main social platform. It was amazing at recommending interesting people, and the discovery within curated groups resulted in content archives I still reference today. I can’t really remember how the post-internet stuff happened, but I’m very happy it did.

Do you think we are living through a renaissance of classic websites?

With AI, we have a bunch of new tools every day, and people are spending more time experimenting and getting comfortable with the medium, especially on browsers.

Do you consider AI an accessible tool for people outside of the creative industry?

AI has the potential to be a very accessible tool. I’m part of many Facebook groups where amateurs and professionals use AI to create images and videos. Many people come from non-creative backgrounds and find joy in making random pictures with tools like Microsoft Bing's DALL-E integration and other accessible image generation tools. There are Facebook mums asking daily how to get started, and people are helping each other get into it. In this respect, AI has definitely democratized the creative process.

AI can be simple, but it can also be very complicated. There are many different levels of engagement. Of course, this audience does not wish to, or necessarily need to, deep dive into Reddit posts to find workflows and train their own models. They are having fun with the tools, which can potentially act as a gateway to exploring more complex workflows or learning traditional creative skills. Not everyone who cooks is a chef, but that doesn't mean they can't enjoy cooking.

Sarina Nowak x TUSH Magazine x Catrice Cosmetics Germany

Photo: Armin Morbach

Al-Artist: Jumoke Fernandez

Talent: @sarinanowak BWM Communications GmbH

Beauty Direction: Laura Dunkelmann

Make-Up: @baurloni BALLSAAL ARTIST MANAGEMENT

using @catrice.cosmetics.germany

Hair: @reza.hair

Styling: @konstantinosthestylist

Digital Operation: @alexanderschreiter

Production: @sonniecash @howtodoproduction

Location: @studiogleis7

Final Touch: @studioreuter

Your AI experiments often include commercials; you’ve worked for McDonald's, Nike, and many other brands. While we are seeing more commercials with AI-mixed approaches, the early results were grotesque and cursed. How do you imagine the future of the advertising industry in relation to AI?

The hybrid approach is generally the best. I’m currently working on content for a mobile game, and I’m combining AI tools like ComfyUI with traditional 2D animation software like Adobe Character Animator. The results are indistinguishable from material made using purely traditional techniques. Hybrid pipelines are very powerful, but you need to have a solid knowledge of traditional tools and processes to execute them.

I haven’t openly spoken about this topic before, but during the AI hype, a lot of clients wanted the grotesque look and asked me to make videos more ‘AI aesthetic’ and flickery. I think the hype for that is over now, and we should start to see more emphasis on hybrid workflows.

On one hand, we have the inclusive potential that AI tools can offer; on the other, we see angered artists who fear being substituted with cheaper, AI-generated versions of their styles. As an art director, how do you feel about that?

At some point, photography was expensive and required a trained professional. Then it became accessible, and we saw an influx of photographic content. The same happened with websites: Squarespace, Wix, and all these super easy and cheap tools haven’t always been there.

In general, I see this as a positive development. Think about a guy making music with no record label and no budget. Using AI tools, he can easily create higher quality imagery and material. It gives everyone the chance to compete on a global scale. If you have an idea, you can make it happen.

I do not think creatives should worry about these tools. Our unique selling point isn't the fact that we can make the logo bigger; it's the general concept and experience that goes into every decision. You still need that expertise when working with AI.

So, AI is not something creatives should be worried about?

There are companies that have cut their creative spend and gone fully down the AI route, but there will always be a need for designers. At some point, accounting was done on paper; now, most of it is automated and digitized, but there are still accountants. As creatives, we should strive to work for clients who value our insight and concepts, not feel like we are replaceable by a machine that has no context.

The dystopia is not here. Creating an image using a machine is not dystopian. The real dystopia is coming when we have AI systems that can analyze all data on the net in real-time and make decisions on what the perfect image will be to optimize engagement. As a human being, I am limited in the amount of knowledge I can consume in a day and how much I can store in my brain. Machines don’t have this problem. AI will be a better decision-maker at some point, and that is the future we need to watch out for and push back against as creatives.

In another interview, you said, "What I enjoy most about creating with AI is that it is so unpredictable; I am always surprised by the results. For me, it is like working with another person." After COVID and isolation, we all started talking more and more with bots. Most of us are still working remotely, but we have integrated ChatGPT into our workflows. Do you think that, for some people, it is easier to communicate with machines that with humans?

It’s definitely easier to talk with a machine, as it feels anonymous. You know there is no judgment, and you don’t need to watch your tone or be nervous about asking a stupid question. When talking with people, so many factors come into play, including dynamics, social hierarchy, context, etc. With a bot, you do not have any of that. They have predicted the 'AI girlfriend' market will be worth one billion dollars, which is crazy. I personally think we need to watch out for social bots that talk like human beings and express emotions, since we have already seen disastrous outcomes from such services.

Writing prompts are almost like poetry. How has your language developed since you started communicating with AI?

Since working with AI image generation tools, I’ve definitely felt more confident in describing artworks. As an art director, your ideas are important, but being able to explain your ideas is equally necessary. If you work with AI, then you need to be able to talk about images. I have been interested in this since my teens, as I loved art history and art analysis. Since working with AI, I feel like my ability and confidence to describe and comment on images have definitely increased. I see it sort of like how doing chess puzzles makes you a better chess player; if you do prompts often enough, then when you need the words, they are right there—it's effortless.