Dreaming whales and affective solitude: Posthuman imaginaries in AI-generated visual ecologies

This study examines how AI-generated whale imagery circulated on Rednote (小红书, Xiaohongshu) makes solitude imaginable through spatial and compositional relations. Qualitative visual analysis, informed by affect theory and a posthuman perspective, focuses on twenty cover images from posts selected in July 2025 for their highest observed like counts within the researcher's whale-themed archive. Close description, metaphor interpretation and comparison support three thematic groupings: spatial suspension, companion presence, and objects and ornament. These configurations permit differing readings of freedom, exposure, accompaniment and sheltered withdrawal, while some scenes give greater prominence to sociability. Solitude's expressive possibilities depend on relationships among figures, objects and surrounding space. The analysis also identifies a tension between imagined affinity with whales and their adaptation to human expectations of comfort and care, which can make their marine relationships peripheral. Engagement records delimit the corpus without establishing viewers' emotional responses. The study offers a situated account of solitude's visual possibilities and the selective humanisation of nonhuman figures in AI-generated imagery.