What to expect from creative merging with artificial intelligence? A conversation with Roberto Rigon, the creative director that already uses it in editorial design
Roberto Rigon’s background and biography
Somewhere underneath the mainstream side of creation, there’s still tribalism and mysticism to be explored. It involves technology and artificial intelligence, a way of overlapping different layers of society. Roberto Rigon explores this side of creation as a visual choreographer and creative director collaborating with different brands and studios. Without any artistic studies or background, he started in the world of events, when making graphics for posters.
Roberto is originally from Vincenza but has Ghanaian origins which he explored through a brand he launched when he was sixteen called From the Roots. Even if he grew from those initial creative explorations, Roberto keeps underlining esoteric curiosity in his works. Now a Burro Studio partner after six years of collaboration, the Italian creative also curates the CapsLock magazine and continues artistic projects that involve music, research, and event performances.
CapsLock magazine
Maria Hristina Agut
How did the Caps Lock magazine emerge in an era of editorial digitalization?
Roberto Rigon
Caps Lock was born as a physical editorial project. We are seven young people, all working in creative fields, each living in different cities, with a blend and mix of culture, and influences. The only thing we have in common is a love of technology and the creative world. For this reason, we have done a process in reverse in the sense that now it seems useless to think of creating a physical independent paper project for technology lovers. Because it seems counterintuitive – the simplification that the world of the web gives you is also fundamental for our work – but for us, having a product that could be on paper as our main asset bound us to say it has a cost, it has timings that are completely different from those of digital publications. When we have to create a product we want it to be a product that remains over time and therefore this was our mindset in trying to create a product that is as qualitative as possible. We want to create volumes that in ten years will remain if not yet relevant from the point of view of information (because we deal with technology that moves quickly), at least from the point of view of a physical object. The book is like the vinyl of publishing, that milestone that will always remain over time, which has its weight.
A collaboration with BurroStudio
Maria Hristina Agut
In your collaboration with BurroStudio, which project do you feel most attached to?
Roberto Rigon
I always want to specify that with Burro we have to do things that maybe sometimes come out of my work aesthetics, as I have always felt more like a person who looks for the experimental avant-garde in his process. The whole section of Burro Studio Radio, which is the record label we created five years ago was one of the most interesting jobs that I’m following because it makes the creative world coincide with the world of music, which are two worlds that must stay together. It allows me to work with many artists that I have always admired, it allows me to take up even slightly the job I did as an event planner, therefore following the artists on tour.
Maria Hristina Agut
In your opinion, how can one create a meaningful graphic language which can make people feel involved?
Roberto Rigon
Finding the meaning within a creative work is one of the first goals we give ourselves and it doesn’t always reach all people because people, rightly so, perceive the works in the way they want. When you manage to match a message that comes from a brief, a request, or simply from personal research with an artistic visualization that highlights this message, you have achieved your goal. Fortunately, the creative world is constantly evolving, from the simple graphics we did five years ago to the introduction of all our work in 3D, artificial intelligence, always experimenting, always trying to raise the bar job after job and still staying with the feet on the ground because you always have to look at the image as a whole, not being too close that you get lost.
Roberto Rigon – artificial intelligence and ethereal visuals
Maria Hristina Agut
Part of your work plays with artificial intelligence and ethereal visuals. Can you tell me more about your experience with AI?
Roberto Rigon
Artificial intelligence is something I’ve been dreaming about for about ten years. I consider myself first and foremost a nerd, before being creative. My passion for technology is what drives me to improve every day. I have always tried to study artificial intelligence over the last six or seven years in all its fields. For example, even with Caps Lock, we created the second edition two years ago and it was a book completely written in artificial intelligence, both in terms of the text and the images. And two years ago there was nothing that exists now from the point of view of artificial intelligence. I’m someone who if he could take off his arm to put on a bionic arm I’d go into experimentation because I’m fascinated by transhumanism.
We arrive at the moment when Stable Diffusion begins, before ChatGPT there were Google GPT servers via Google Colab, which is GPT2, and GPT3, the language which then takes ChatGPT and makes it user-friendly. Before, there was no Midi Journey, there was NVIDIA or GoGan. There is a huge problem here with the mass arrival of artificial intelligence I am starting to see some problems, in the sense that this is certainly one of the most focal moments of this century but in my opinion, it is one of those achievements of the human species that we will be able to achieve and I’m afraid it is happening in a very complicated moment, in the sense that a capitalist society such as we are living in leads us to pursue progress in the fastest and most insistent way possible.
AI: the beginning of a revolution
Maria Hristina Agut
How do ethics and artificial intelligence intertwine?
Roberto Rigon
We don’t realize it, but we never think about ethics in certain things. We, as a human race, are not good at preventing things, we are good at healing. We don’t solve the problem of polluted water in the aquifers, we create intelligent features that remove the limestone from the water. In the same way, at this moment, with artificial intelligence, all the big tech companies control and develop them. Therefore, having this pressure from a social, capitalist point of view does not make an underlying ethical reasoning. They don’t ask Do I release this? Does it make sense to release it? The answer they get is yes, since if they don’t do it, someone else does it a month later. We are at a point where we can evolve and progress technologically as much as we want, but human ethics, our brain, and the speed with which we perceive and can adapt to changes, always remains unchanged. There will come a time when technological development and human ethics will detach themselves to such an extent that it will become impossible to go back. I would like for companies to stop for a moment, give people time to digest what is happening, and give people time to get involved with these innovations.
Then right there is a big marketing problem; when a new technology comes out, there is a curve where, as the technology booms, all people predict singularity. When listening to podcasts, and interviews with the AI chief of Meta, who is one of the people who created artificial intelligence as we conceive it now, (the AI chief of NVIDIA, OpenAI), we realize that the singularity is still a long way off. Real engineers say that if it ever comes, it will be at the end of the next century. For now, we are letting ourselves be fascinated by artificial intelligence. What the artificial intelligence we interact with does today covers less than 9% of everything that could be taken over to create a singularity. We’re talking to artificial intelligence between the ages of seven and nine, still very smart, but at the beginning of a great revolution.
Roberto Rigon – the problem of non-human origin art
Maria Hristina Agut
What about its use in creative fields? How do we attune to something that is not of human origin making art?
Roberto Rigon
I see it as a co-pilot of the product’s work. In my opinion, the real use of artificial intelligence is that it allows you to automate those processes that are long and tedious and you should use it to raise the bar of your work, search for the message, improve, try to break the rules of design and creativity in every area. Also, I partially agree with it not being human, but on the other hand, I think that artificial intelligence is almost the most human thing we have. It’s almost more human than us. It is designed and works exactly like a human neuronal system. It’s nothing but a child. A four-year-old learns what a dog is, and what a boat is, exactly by association like ‘artificial intelligence. It’s like having another human mind that can picture things that might have been lost in fantasy. It’s an extension of your ego and your synapses. In my opinion, artificial intelligence manages to depict your thoughts.
Rigon: design garments that allow you not to be recognized
Maria Hristina Agut
What are some of the projects you’re excited to be working on?
Roberto Rigon
For now, the project I’m working on will be one of the most significant ones I’ll do in the next period. It will be the new issue of Caps Lock which will probably come out next year and it will be called ‘privacy conspiracy’, a volume as a user manual to talk about privacy at 360 degrees. I see it as one of those topics that have been and will always be a focal point but that no one understands; no one understands why we accept cookies, or what cookies are. We don’t understand why there is facial recognition. They are areas that seem very technology related when in reality, all the solutions are purely creative. From facial paints and designers who design garments that allow you not to be recognized – my vision of design is this, to try to create applications that are useful in your daily life.
Roberto Rigon
Creative director, editor, and multidisciplinary artists playing with technology, music, fashion, and art in the digital culture. AI investigator and graphic designer working with BurroStudio, Roberto Rigon is also the curator of Capslock Magazine.
Editorial curated by Spring Studios for Lampoon
Photography Clara Borrelli
Production @Spring Studios
Creative Director Anouk Jans @Spring Studios
Sr Art Director Simone Lorusso @Spring Studios
Producer Carlotta Cannata @Spring Studios
Videomaker Andrea Dal Martello @Spring Studios
Styling Giulia Parenti
Grooming Francesca Rezzola
