I used AI art and got away with it

Reflecting on a performance for my ISP: innovation through art & design course.

So as usual, my winter break was not as relaxed as it should have been. I needed to create both a physical prototype with Arduino-controlled motors and a custom video animation of a timer that "slowed down" over time with my own formula.

The catch was– I had no fucking clue how to do either. I got an Arduino starter kit and opened Claude. "I have all these parts," I told it, "I want to eventually program some servo motors, teach me all the way up there." I was hesitant, but my time with Claude was what I needed – it became my personal tutor, starting me with basic LED wiring, then the Arduino IDE, then sensor troubleshooting. When concepts clicked, I'd request harder challenges. The "wiring diagrams" were shit, and it would hallucinate sometimes (maybe not ideal when working with electronics). I caught these errors thanks to some basic physics knowledge, and sometimes I'd call it out. It felt weirdly symbiotic. Having a tutor who tracked my progress let me build just enough knowledge to create my prototype.

The timer needed a different approach. I knew Processing was used for creative coding, but again - no clue how to use it. I broke it down into steps with Claude: basic timer first, then font, duration, and custom slowdown formula. Each parameter was a new prompt - test, verify, build. The final presentation worked. Not because AI solved everything, but because it raised the floor of what I could do. I still had to have the intention and vision for what I wanted.It's funny – somewhere between the LED wiring and the custom animations, "I can't" turned into "here's what I have in mind." And reiterating that till I got what I wanted – or close enough.

By Karan Paranganat
Augmented with Claude Sonnet 3.5
<3

Jan 2025