Sometimes a dream leaves behind a feeling long before it leaves behind an explanation.
I should probably admit that I do not even like sport. I know that probably sounds un Australian, but it is true. I have always struggled to understand how billions of dollars, endless attention and entire weekends disappear into watching other people chase a ball around while artists, musicians, writers and makers often fight over the scraps left on the table. Maybe that is unfair. Maybe sport brings people together and gives them something bigger than themselves. But part of me also sees it as one of the great mass distractions ever invented, a giant shiny thing designed to keep attention pointed somewhere else.
The funny thing is social media ended up becoming exactly the same thing. Different technology, same basic mechanism. Keep people entertained. Keep them arguing. Keep them distracted. Keep them scrolling. Keep them busy enough that they never stop long enough to ask who is benefiting from all this attention and where all the money is actually flowing.
That is what the stadium represents to me in this image. Not sport itself, but attention. The giant spotlight where money, power and influence tend to gather. The old ruined building behind me represents something different. It represents craftsmanship. It represents time. It represents human beings spending years learning how to make something beautiful. The sort of things society claims to value right up until it is time to pay for them.
How are you feeling right now?
Part of me is genuinely excited by AI. Without it, my Visual Dream Journal would not exist. Dreams are slippery things. You wake up, brush your teeth, make a coffee, get distracted by life and half of the dream has already evaporated. AI gives me a way to grab those fragments before they disappear completely. It acts like a strange photographer wandering around inside my subconscious taking snapshots while the images are still fresh.
At the same time, I cannot ignore how we got here. The entire thing feels built on a foundation that many artists never agreed to. Artwork after artwork was scraped, collected and absorbed into these systems without permission, without credit and without compensation. The companies behind these tools became worth fortunes while many of the people whose work helped train them received absolutely nothing in return. It is hard to look at that arrangement and call it fair.
Artists have spent decades being told to give a little more away. Give away your work. Give away your attention. Give away your audience. Give away your time. Give away your knowledge. Then maybe, if you are lucky, something good will happen later. AI feels like another chapter in that story. A story where creative people create enormous value while somebody else figures out how to package it, monetise it and build an empire from it.
That is probably where the anger comes from. It is not really about the technology itself. I am not wandering around shaking my fist at computers like some old bloke yelling at clouds. What frustrates me is watching the same pattern repeat over and over again. Creative people build culture. Creative people shape ideas. Creative people make the world more interesting. Then somebody else arrives with a spreadsheet and figures out how to extract the value.
The mistake, I think, is believing that AI is the creativity. It is not. Creativity is still the human part. It is the dream itself. It is the curiosity that led you there. It is the life experiences, observations, mistakes, obsessions and questions that only you possess. The machine can generate an image, but it cannot care about the image.
When I look at this image, I do not really see an artwork in the traditional sense. I see a visual note. I see the equivalent of scribbles in a sketchbook. Something quick enough to catch an idea before it escapes. Maybe it becomes a painting one day. Maybe it becomes a drawing. Maybe it becomes a story, a podcast episode or something completely different. Its value is not necessarily what it is today. Its value is in what it might grow into later.
The conversation around AI often gets trapped in arguments about whether it is good or bad. Most things in life are not that simple. A chainsaw can build a house or cut down an ancient tree. The tool itself is only part of the story. What matters is who controls it, who benefits from it and whether people remain conscious of the consequences of using it.
That is why I think artists should experiment with AI while keeping one foot firmly planted in the physical world. Keep drawing. Keep painting. Keep writing. Keep making things with your hands. Use the machine where it helps. Use it to capture ideas. Use it to reduce boring admin. Use it to save time. Just do not hand over the creative steering wheel and sit in the passenger seat.
For now, that is where I have landed. I think AI owes artists far more than it currently gives back. I think the systems around it deserve criticism. I also think refusing to explore it entirely would be a mistake. So I will keep using it as a dream journal, a notebook and a strange little window into my subconscious. The machine might help me capture the image, but the dream still belongs to me.
Andy C Marshall 