ABOUT

Concept:
What is human, and what is AI? What is real versus unreal?
Issue 5 of the Tamarind magazine was created on the cusp of artificial intelligence and virtual reality defying our understanding of what is uniquely human: creativity, knowledge, and just about everything that we experience with our senses. The issue featured short stories and essays that explored deeply on this theme. Guided by the writer's imagination and insights, the humans behind this issue hope to shed light in uncertain times.

I was commissioned to create a cover art that encapsulates this theme. The illustration features a woman who, upon contact with the light of the sun, strips away the artificial outer shell to reveal what's inside. Featured across multiple stories in the issue, the sun is a metaphor for knowledge enlightening the unknown. In a moment of reckoning, the protagonists were forced to ask what is real and not real, human and not human.

Execution
When illustrating this theme, I chose to combine hand-drawing and digital art. I used acrylic on black paper to create an original representation of a human morphed with artificial elements. When you search for images illustrating AI, you typically see a sleek, white, robotic shell. I purposefully designed a suit that mimics the natural body, with wires indistinguishable from blood veins and chest plates mimicking rib cages, blurring the line between artificial and human. Contrary to the cold, colorless robot, today's artificial intelligence creates colorful images and words that can be perceived as emotive art.

Results
The issue is published June 2023 in London and sold internationally, both in digital and in print forms.