By José Gandue @spinning zone
Why we started illustrating with AI
This is an independent media outlet that has been around the web for over 25 years. We have gone through many stages: We were a weekly digital magazine with a Raygun-style editorial cover. —yes, that same one, the one that rearranged the texts with typographic fury— and then we became a one-man project: the one who writes, edits, designs, illustrates, answers emails, promotes, archives and survives.
There were times when web designers gave free rein to graphic art, and others when we simply adapted recycled images from other times. At Rock al Parque or for specific events, we had photographers whom we paid with transportation, food, and something more valuable than money: publicity, respect, visibility. But the visual aspect was always on the edge of the abyss: either we did it with passion, or we were better off not doing it at all.
Visual memory as raw material
The real change came with the pandemic. Between the lockdown, the diabetes that paid me an uninvited visit, and the need to keep creating, I started exploring new tools. In that process, the AI-generated images arrived: Leonardo, Midjourney, Photoshop with AI. At first, they bothered me deeply: they offered results that seemed straight out of stock catalogs, Hallmark cards, or pre-adolescent aesthetic fantasies. But I knew that was just the surface. The important thing was learning to fight with those tools, to corrupt them, to use them my way. To work with them as if they were collaborators with much to learn.
And what did I do? I activated my entire mental archive. The films that marked me (Blade Runner, Sex, Lies and Videos, Baby Alabama), the nineties music videos directed by Romanek, Jonze or Bayer, the magazines I collected for years, from Wired to Vogue, from Life to Número. My visual memory became fuel. My editorial criteria became my compass. My bad temper in the face of aesthetic mediocrity became my filter.
I never studied design, nor was I a good photographer, nor did I attend a fine arts faculty. My field was Political Science. But that never stopped me from imagining, or from having a clear vision of what I want to show. Sometimes, all I lack is time.
Now people who don't know me—some with good intentions, others with absurd moral superiority—are coming to say that I shouldn't use artificial intelligence to illustrate my notes. That it's disrespectful. That I'm taking someone's job away. That I'm degrading art.
Don't mess around.
Criticisms, prejudices and responses
Nobody knows the work behind each image published on Zonagirante: what I discard, what I retouch, what I edit for hours. What I think before I click. If they knew, they would ask me to take a vacation, not to stop working.
I don't use AI to avoid work. I use it so I can continue working. To continue publishing with dignity. To create images that support what I write, that don't ask for permission, that provoke, that don't look like any generic playlist cover.
I'm at the most creative point in my life, and nobody can take that away from me. Fortunately, there are people who have understood what I do from the beginning. They don't dwell on prejudices or clichés, nor are they intimidated by new tools.
And if you don't like it, no problem. You can go read something else. But if you want to debate, let it be serious. With respect. With arguments. Without weak slogans.
Because here, we're not playing at being artists: Here, we're creating something new every day with what we have. And what we have now, thanks to AI, is more than ever before.
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Zonagirante's principles for the use of artificial intelligence in graphic art
1. We reject the creation of images that maliciously replace reality.
Our commitment is to prevent anyone from confusing fiction with news, satire with evidence. We may mock, criticize, and play with symbols, but we will not lie.
2. The tool is not the author: we are.
This isn't about "pressing a button." Every published image goes through filters of criteria, editing, rewriting, collage, and redesign. AI is just one more resource within a profoundly human process.
3. Automatic bad taste will be combated with artisanal obsession.
We don't reproduce visual clichés or accept the "stock" aesthetic that AI usually offers by default. Our job is to disobey easy prompts and delve into the strange, the uncomfortable, and the expressive.
4. We don't replace artists: we replace shortcomings.
We work with what we have. We don't have the budget to pay illustrators, photographers, or designers every week. If we did, we'd happily collaborate. In the meantime, we do our best to give our pieces soul, even if the tools don't.
5. We don't ask for permission to explore.
We don't believe in technical nostalgia or creative purism. AI is part of the present, just as Photoshop, sampling, collage, and synthesizers were before. If it helps us tell our stories better, we'll use it.
6. We care more about impact than orthodoxy.
We're not interested in being part of a school of thought. We want our images to speak, to disturb, to shout if necessary. If someone is bothered by the fact that they're made with AI, perhaps it's because they work.
7. Our art is at the service of ideas.
Every image published on Zonagirante accompanies an idea, a note, a playlist, a story. It's not decoration: it's editorial. And as such, it contains an opinion.
