“Each time it gets harder to remember… that you still deserve to exist! That this part of yourself (your older self) still has value! That it is still important!” (The Substance, 2024, Fargeat).
This line from the film The Substance has led many people to reflect on old age, beauty standards, and bodily decay. But in my mind, these sentences triggered a very different fear: the existential crisis of our creative self and our humanity in the face of flawless algorithms rising from the Silicon Valleys.
Today, I believe that in the world of visual arts we are going through exactly this kind of crisis of “deserving to exist.”
With our limited and flawed human state, is it really possible for us to compete with a new “substance” that processes millions of pixels flawlessly within seconds—a young, fresh, and frighteningly talented new “prodigy”?
Two years ago, my stance in this battle was very clear. I even wrote a short piece titled “Human Made Not AI.” In it, through a simple doodled cat (a “stick cat”), I put forward a kind of manifesto. I argued that this extremely simple, anatomically very incorrect yet entirely my own drawing was more valuable than any masterpiece produced by artificial intelligence. The message had two sides: we would either be a talentless person who could only draw stick figures helplessly in the face of AI, or a resistor who chose that sincere stick figure over AI-generated art. I thought like this:
“Why would a human want to erase the creative capacity that is uniquely human? Why would one choose to die instead of live? TO BE OR NOT TO BE! that is the question! I believe that art is an act that arises from the human brain—with its limits and flaws—that is, from its feelings, emotions, conscience, consciousness, and all its faculties. It is precisely these limits and flaws that make each creative process unique and determine its value.”
Back then, for me, limits and flaws were the sole value that determined the uniqueness of the creative process. By asking, “Do limits not bring value?” I defended the uniqueness of the human being against the smoothness of artificial intelligence. Today, I still believe that limits and flaws bring value. However, I now think that the act of “choosing to die instead of live” does not happen by using artificial intelligence, but by forgetting our own self worth and our self esteem in the face of it.
That line in The Substance changed my perspective exactly at this point. The real issue is not technology replacing the human (replacement); it is the danger of the human abandoning their own existential presence. The problem is that people are beginning to forget “that this part of themselves still has value.” We are not losing to artificial intelligence; we are losing to our own self-esteem. Our fear may not be that the machine draws better than we do; it may be that because the machine draws better, we become inclined to give up on our own drawings. Yet artistic creativity is not merely the production of an aesthetic output. It is an existential act. By drawing, writing, carving, by working with colors, light, and shadow, the human being says, “I am here.” Yes, AI can imitate these outputs, and can even offer a technically much more “perfect” version in seconds, but it does not live through that “process of existing.” This is where the concepts of self-esteem and self-worth come into play. If an artist puts down their brush saying, “AI does this better and faster than I do, so what is the point of me doing it?” this is not a technological defeat but an existential suicide. It is forgetting the value of their own “former self,” that is, their human side. It is, as in the film, destroying what is essential for the sake of a “better version.”
Protecting our creativity is not achieved by resisting technology; it is achieved by respecting the human will at the center of the act of creation, no matter how advanced technology becomes. Let us not forget that art history is full of these fears of “being devalued.” Yet when it comes to human creativity, the issue can never be “perfection.” If it were, the art of painting should have ended the day the camera was invented. Think about it: a painter striving for hours to transfer a landscape to canvas suddenly faces a machine that captures that moment “perfectly” in one hundredth of a second. An extraordinary development. Of course, at that time as well, there were discussions about the human eye and hand becoming unnecessary. So what happened? Did human creativity die? NO. On the contrary, it expanded (augment). Painters said, “If the machine copies reality perfectly, then I will draw the impression that reality leaves on me,” and Impressionism was born. They went beyond reality, and Abstract Art was born.
Today as well, AI is not a substitute that will take the human’s place in the process of artistic creation; it can be a lever that excites the imagination and pushes its limits. For example, when Refik Anadol turns data into pigment and algorithms into a brush, he does not lose any of his self-worth; on the contrary, he reveals the dance between human and machine. By saying, “My vision is valuable enough to guide this massive computing power,” he challenges it through his self-respect.
In conclusion, my one-and-only “stick cat” is still valuable. Because it is a symbol of my courage to create. What matters is that, whatever medium we use, we do not forget that the source of that “moment of decision”, that aesthetic judgment, that transfer of feeling, is us. Otherwise, we will have chosen “to die instead of live.” Then, just like in that film, we will forget our own essence, lose our respect for ourselves, and disappear. Perhaps with each passing day it will become harder to remember, but if we forget, we must whisper this to ourselves: human creativity—flawed, emotional, volatile, and chaotic as it is—still deserves to exist. Our old-school paint-stained fingers, our mistake-prone minds are still valuable. Still important. Being defeated by the machine is not making worse paintings than it does; it is quitting painting just because the machine exists. We will either forget our own value and erase ourselves, or we will don our self respect and begin our own Renaissance with this new “prodigy.”
To be or not to be… That is still, and only, the question. I choose “to be” and to create, with all my abilities, all my flaws, and all my technology. Because now I can see that we have to coexist.
18.11.2025
Dilara Dolu Köksal 