Written By: Cate Alexander
Abstract: Through a survey of four YouTube channels, I examine the use of AI to colourize, modernize, and add movement to historical paintings and photographs. My analysis of 19,984 scraped YouTube comments reveals how audiences discuss these (re)animations as “real” or “relatable,” facilitating affective reactions and relationships to historical figures. However, these AI programs homogenise, flatten, and add contrast to features based on the racialized and gendered norms established by their training data. The resulting altered portraits reinforce modern gender normativity and fetishization of whiteness — devaluing diversity and accuracy in digitally mediated public history in favour of a simulated intimacy with “attractive” bodies.
Keywords: GenAI, digital history, visual social media, content creation, beauty, digital ethnography, research-creation, image manipulation
Video:
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyITiZMLog&t=107s
Video Reference: DigestXAi (2022). Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, 1914, Brought To Life. [online] Youtube. Available at: https://youtu.be/PuyITiZMLog?t=107.