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Fatness and Femininity Through the Lens of AI

Artist Blog by Margaret Murphy

In August of 2022, I started using the AI software Midjourney. Like many artists, especially photographers, I was intrigued by its capability for image-making. With my primary subject matter having been myself, I was motivated to attempt to have the AI depict my own likeness. Using text-to-image systems required an exploration of descriptive language in a new way. I began thinking about how subjective body type descriptions can be - especially as they related to anything other than traditional beauty standards. “Fat” has historically been seen as a negative word with many women preferring to identify as “curvy” or “plus-sized”. Having been exposed to body positivity and fat liberation movements through social media, I was actively aware that “fat” in its true sense of the word has no moral value. With a new opportunity to implement language into my visual art practice, I decided to investigate how AI systems, trained on pre-existing cultural media, understand these words. This project, tentatively titled FAT FEMININE, is still a work in progress but I’ve embraced its capacity to envision femininity and fatness in a celebratory way and to imagine a world in which this kind of imagery is more accessible than it was when I was young. The outputs range from abstract to surreal, to photorealistic and I’ve enjoyed seeing how working with AI can be a conversation - me prompting the AI with a series of descriptive language or phrases, and then being inspired by the outputs it gives me.

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Margaret Murphy

Margaret Murphy (b. 1990, Washington, DC) is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her work focuses on topics like femininity, sexuality, and identity in post-social media culture. Murphy’s art uses bright colors, lighting, props, and internet aesthetics to create visceral responses in the viewer. Regardless of the response to her work, Murphy hopes her art prompts dialogues around gender, the male gaze, and contemporary beauty standards. Murphy earned her MFA from the University of Hartford’s Limited Photography Residency in 2021.