The idea of illustration as a traditional art or craft is increasingly untenable when both the concept of an image and the subjectivity of the author have irrevocably changed. Illustration and illustrator are both increasingly embedded within online and animated environments that extend into the data sets used to train large language models (LLM). The results of this joint mutation can be seen to fit the theoretical shift from postmodernism to alter-modernism. This article presents the role of the illustrator in a transitional stage, to which we appear blind. Originality is becoming a rarity among seemingly ubiquitous and unique images that proliferate in the hyper-mediated environment that illustrators practice in. This third and final part of the extended article continues to explore the idea of originality in reference to AI’s ability to generate images with little or no technical expertise. Identifying an area of illustration research that seeks to observe and develop nascent forms of authorship designed to navigate and cut through visual noise. It is incumbent on illustration research to register this blind spot.
Pete Williams (Tue,) studied this question.