Kitsch, the apparatus and a dead theorist

Blending academic and poetic conventions, this text seeks to circumvent the formulaic patterns that current large language models are known for, as it examines the relationship between kitsch, AI-generated imagery and the digital apparatus through the lens of Vilém Flusser’s media theory. While flirtations with auto-theory are not new, what is novel is the self-conscious relationship with a programme that has the potential to write with as much technical proficiency as many humans. Beginning with personal reflections on photography and loss of a father figure, the work traces the evolution from analogue photography to machine-generated images, arguing that accusations of ‘kitsch’ levelled at AI reveal deeper anxieties about cultural production in our image-saturated age. Drawing on Flusser’s concept of ‘the apparatus’ and his warnings about technological fascism, the article argues that AI-generated images reveal something worth knowing about who and what we are, which is only discoverable by engaging with them. The piece suggests that in a world where technical images dominate, kitsch may be the primary material from which new aesthetic forms emerge. Central is Flusser’s imperative to play against the apparatus and the possibility of maintaining human agency within technological systems.