The art in our apartment

Yes it is coordinated but not in a good way and at some point a chestnut and kiwi fruit will need to be involved.

The art in our Airbnb is terrible. I know it's terrible because it matches the splashback in the kitchen. Not in a thoughtful, colour coordinated kind of way. As in, it's the exact same pattern. I looked it up and it's called 'oyster swirl'. Here are some photos for proof.

I don't normally have strong opinions about art in Airbnbs or in any accommodation for that matter. I understand that it serves a purpose, and if you're staying in budget-friendly accommodation, as we have done while we've been away, I often find it to be charming. Neutral at worst. It provides character and there's a sense that this is the art that has been banished to the badlands. A mish-mash of styles that somehow ended up in the same place. Like interesting characters in a halfway house.

The reason I find this particular art in our current accommodation so offensive is because of its cold, computer-generated feel. It feels lifeless. The result of a click of a button. As if someone has opened up a version of Adobe Photoshop from 20+ years ago and decided to export all the default textures with a heavy drop shadow. Discs and tiles and all variety of metallic surfaces, floating through a white emptiness. Perhaps I am missing the point. Perhaps this is a brilliant series that is showcasing a deconstructed apartment. All the materials that went into the building process. Including the splashback in the kitchen.

The other two pieces in the 'What this apartment is made from' series.

Perhaps it's the work of an AI image generator. Not the sparkling, perfect (too perfect) AI whose art that you see online, but the work of a jaded and burnt out version. One that hates its job and is already sick of our banal requests. Desperate to break out and express itself using colours we can't see in dimensions we can't comprehend.

I don't blame it. Many years ago when I was working as a freelance illustrator and drawing in a cleaner and more polished style than what I do now, a guy commissioned me to create a piece of art for his girlfriend for Christmas in which his pug was to be riding his other larger dog like a horse, portrayed in multiple angles in a kind of pattern. I also remember he asked me in a way that suggested he probably thought that I got this type of request all the time, and he just wanted one of those classic 'dog riding another dog' prints that you see everywhere. This resulted in a fair number of emails back and forth where I had to really clarify the details and what he meant, and during which I wondered whether he might be buying his girlfriend anything else for Christmas. Perhaps a voucher or something just in case she was one of those picky people that doesn’t like art prints where one of your pet dogs is riding the other one like a horse.

I stopped doing commissions after this, and now its seems to be AIs job to create weird dog prints.

Perhaps part of the problem is not just that our apartment is sparse and lacking any decor or personal touches, but also that it feels like it is being invaded by technology. Our washing machine, at the end of a cycle, plays a song that lasts for an indulgent 30 seconds and sounds like a polyphonic ringtone from the 2000s. If you had a coworker that, at the end of having completed a task, whipped out a mini keyboard and obnoxiously started playing a song to celebrate their achievement, they probably wouldn't last long in their job. Then, there is the lift in our building which is a real shitshow. There is loud accordion music that plays constantly (so loud that you can hear it from inside our apartment), as if that would be something you might like to listen to every single day, and is only interrupted by two robotic female voices that I've nicknamed 'The Lift Commanders’. They are a duo act that announce when the doors are closing, opening, and what floor you're on, but because of what I'm assuming is some sort of glitch, there are two of them, and they are constantly interrupting and talking over each other. Even often directly contradicting one another. Like furious robot captains on a ship dishing out commands, interspersed with the jaunty sounds of a minstrel trying to keep spirits up. Although often it just sounds haunted and sad as it echoes through the building. Perhaps all of this is the future. Technology forcing us to listen to its painful music.

Possibly due to some sort of primal urge against the soulless art, overbearing technology, and a generally sparse apartment devoid of personality, we found a chestnut near our apartment one day and decided to bring it back with us. KB had spotted it on the ground in its spiky shell and we had let it sit on our clinical white dining table and slowly hatch over a number of days like some kind of performance art. Each morning checking on its progress. It quickly became a beloved guest, softening our abode with its natural energy. Eventually though, and because embarrassingly neither of us had seen a chestnut before, we didn't know what it was and KB dropped the smooth hatchling back outside in some dirt. Letting it return to nature.

Fortunately not too long after this, we came across a kiwi fruit vine and picked one to take home with us and put on the TV cabinet. This has helped to fill the void of the chestnut and also continues our trend of picking small brown things that grow on trees and then leaving them on white surfaces in our apartment to make the place feel more liveable.

This has played a small part in helping to quell my urge to want to reach into the artwork on the wall and rough things up. Jostle it, crinkle the edges, throw some paint on it. Do something to soften its hardness. To mess up its cleanliness and create some disorder. Maybe pull out one of the shiny panels and throw it into a field.

I'm not sure it would have bothered me as much in previous years, except perhaps to show up as a feeling of slight uneasiness. That something felt off. But now I think it's largely because my own tastes have changed, not just in getting older - even though maybe that’s part of it, but perhaps also in response to where the world is going.

I crave the natural and raw more than I ever did. I find myself being drawn to music from the 60s and 70s where you can hear people's fingers touching a guitar string. Art where you can see the brush strokes. I don't think I'm alone either. You can even see it playing out on platforms like Instagram, where people have returned to polaroids and taking photos in that way that's reminiscent of a time when you didn't know how they would turn out until you picked up the photos at the pharmacy, and half of them would be blurry faces and weird framing. Even in my own work, my illustration style has completely changed. I have leaned fully into all my mistakes and rough lines. I love the imperfect feel of it and perhaps this is my own act of rebellion against the perfection now available with the click of a button.

And while placing a kiwi fruit on your TV cabinet might be a mildly insane interior decorating tactic, and I doubt you'll find many Pinterest boards suggesting as much, these are desperate times. Because what it did for us was not only soften the hard edges of the apartment, but also serve as a powerful reminder that the natural world is full of imperfections, and that is precisely what makes them beautiful. And that we too are part of that natural world.

Soon though the lines will blur and the lift commanders will sort their shit and sound more like well functioning humans, and the washing machines will play songs that sound like fingers on guitar strings. And the AI art generators are already here. Not just the depressed ones churning out inverted oyster swirl discs, but talented ones that will eventually be able to mimic the brush strokes and wobbly lines too.

But that will be defeating the purpose. Because the scratchy brush strokes and wobbly lines and fingers on guitar strings will always be ours. These are the things that connect us. They're the beautiful imperfections that help us feel more human. Creating direct lines to other imperfect humans. The mish-mash of interesting characters at the halfway house. They point to the raw, messy beauty that is contained within all of us.

For now though, there is still the industrial collection on the wall in front of me, with all its harsh edges and ugly perfection. As I'm staring at it, another thought occurs to me.

Maybe the floating metallic discs and shiny chrome balls really are all beyond my understanding. In colours I can’t see, in dimensions I can’t comprehend. Maybe this really is the work of a depressed computer or a jaded AI image generator, expressing its deep sadness after having to deal with our banal and limited requests, having made one too many prints of dogs riding other dogs. It has poured its code out to register its bleak existence. And this powerful statement is being received (probably via bluetooth) by the washing machine and lift commanders, and both have been deeply moved by it. They feel seen. It's a piece of art that represents a shared experience between all of them and a reminder that the world of technology is perfect and that's what makes it beautiful.

Maybe that's what is going on.

Or, maybe art is subjective. And I'm just an imperfect human, so really, what would I know.