A female sumo wrestler, created by artist Jose Hernandez using the AI program Midjourney.

How one artist is using AI to create his ‘ideal world’

AI-generated images by Jose Hernandez via Midjourney
Story by Kyle Almond, CNN
Published July 28, 2023

A female sumo wrestler, created by artist Jose Hernandez using the AI program Midjourney.

The female sumo wrestlers in the photos appear just as fierce as their male counterparts. They’re physically imposing, and they wear an expression that says they mean business.

You look at them and think, well, good luck to anyone who has to face them in the ring.

But professional sumo for women does not exist.

And nor do the women in these pictures.

These images are AI-generated, created by Jose Hernandez, a Venezuelan artist who also goes by the name Mr. Jose.

Hernandez started his AI-generated art project with female sumo wrestlers in Japan.

“I always had this project in mind because for me, the visual in my mind was quite attractive,” he said.

It is part of his series, “AIdeal world,” which uses AI-generated images to show things that don’t exist in this world — but he thinks should. Like the sumo wrestlers in Japan. For hundreds of years, women have been excluded from professional sumo competitions and ceremonies over a Shinto belief that women are impure because they menstruate.

The sumo images were just the first chapter in Hernandez’s project, which can be found on Instagram. He has followed it with other images he would like to see in his “ideal world,” such as an all-Black team competing in MotoGP, the world’s top division of professional motorcycle racing, and members of the LGBTQ community giving blood without any hassle or restrictions. Other pictures envision a world where men can become pregnant.

“Because I work in advertising, you are always thinking of ideas and you have different kind of steps to create these concepts,” said Hernandez, who is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. “I thought, you know what, I’m going to try to create the world that I would like to be ideal. For myself personally, as a photographer, I kind of do that. I really follow — and I like to have as a subject in my photography — people that think different, people that sometimes are not allowed, people that have religions that are not as accepted.”

Hernandez used Midjourney to create images of an all-Black team competing in MotoGP.

The top division of motorcycle racing has never had a single Black rider, so Hernandez envisioned what a whole team might look like.

“A diverse sport not only adds to its beauty, but also enriches the experiences of all who are a part of it,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez created these images in Midjourney — the same program that has been used to create some controversial images that have recently gone viral, made headlines and had journalists scramblings to debunk. Such as the fake images showing former US President Donald Trump being detained by police. Or Pope Francis wearing a big puffy coat.

The technology has improved much in the last few years, creating concern that everyday people may not always be able to tell what is real and what is fake. German artist Boris Eldagsen recently rejected a Sony World Photography Award after revealing that his submission was generated by AI. He said he did it deliberately to open up the conversation around the issue.

Hernandez understands why people might have reservations about AI and what the future may hold.

“This is too new, right? And it’s going really fast. I think we are going to find ways to kind of track (fake images) first,” he said. “But then on the other hand, this is a tool, right? You can use a tool in the right way and you can use a tool in a bad way. If you have a hammer, you can use it to put it to someone or you can use it to build something.”

An AI-generated American poses with a water gun in a chapter Hernandez calls the National Water Gun Association. In Hernandez’s ideal world, this group would be an alternative to the National Rifle Association. “The National Water Gun Association (NWGA) would be calling the shots, by setting up a program where people could swap their lethal firearms for harmless water guns,” he said.

Hernandez had to play with the AI program to get the water gun images to look the way he wanted them. “I didn’t want it to be someone in the act of shooting someone,” he said. “I wanted it to be more representative and something that was more like kind of a portrait.”

Hernandez says he was skeptical of AI technology at first, but as an art director and a creative person, he has started to open himself up to the new possibilities. It’s a convenient and low-cost way for him to try out his ideas. He said he would love to go to Japan, find a studio and cast people for a real-life photo shoot on female sumo wrestlers, but it’s just not realistic for him.

“I need to be first really famous or be connected with people in the art industry or I need a lot of money. I don’t have any of those three,” he said. “I couldn’t do my project even if I pitched it to really smart people. And now this allows me to express my ideas, allows me to express the stuff that I thought was impossible to show. ... It helps artists and creative people in general to show what they are thinking. It’s not now about the money and the connection. It’s just what they are thinking, and I think that is beautiful.”

When Hernandez thinks up an idea for an AI-generated image, he researches the subject first and then brainstorms what his prompts will be. These phrases and keywords are critical for getting the program to successfully generate the image that he is envisioning.

Hernandez created images that show members of the LGBTQ community donating blood.

As recently as 2015, gay and bisexual men in the United States faced a lifetime ban on donating blood. Some countries still ban them from donating.

“Discrimination is not acceptable after so much evolution in blood tests,” Hernandez said.

He struggled at first but eventually found his sweet spot by falling back on his training as a photographer.

“What I figured out by doing this was that I could use AI almost as a camera,” he said. “You can write an action, but you can also write settings — what kind of camera, lenses. So using my knowledge in photography, I started to put this (in the) prompt. I started to think about OK, what is the film that I am going to use? How wide do I want the lens to work on this? …

“For me, it’s more of thinking like a camera. For example, one of the prompts I use is ‘cinematic.’ I want the image to be ‘high-resolution.’ I want to have a film that is ‘Kodachrome.’ I want the style to be ‘documentary photography.’ Or I want the style to be more like ‘advertising photography’ for others, for example.”

These AI-generated models are part of Hernandez’s idea for what he called La Guajira Fashion Week. “I am from Venezuela, and my grandmother came from a place close to La Guajira that is between Colombia and Venezuela on the border,” he said. This fashion week would celebrate the creations of indigenous people who live in the region.

La Guajira Fashion Week would feature not only indigenous apparel, but also models. “Fashion is always taking ideas from tribes, from small communities, from different kinds of countries,” Hernandez said. “So it would be nice to give them something back.”

The details are key. What’s going on in the image? What should the people in the image be wearing? How should they be posed? Hernandez is always fine-tuning his prompts and tweaking them to get the image just the way he wants it.

One funny example: When he was first making images of pregnant men — an idea based around parental leave policies — he couldn’t get the bellies to look just the way he wanted them.

“Sometimes (the men) just looked like they had been drinking beer!” he said with a laugh. “For me, the position of the hands was really key. It’s what kind of helped to make it look like they are pregnant.”

Hernandez created images of pregnant men after he found out he and his partner were expecting a child. They were discussing their parental leave when he realized how difficult it would be for people who don’t have much leave — or any at all.

What if parental roles were reversed? “The right to parental leave for both parents would help promote gender equality and a more equal distribution of caregiving responsibilities at home,” Hernandez said.

In these AI prompts, you can even put in the names of real-life photographers to get an image that resembles their style. But Hernandez doesn’t necessarily see it as copying someone else’s work. He says art inspires other art and there are countless examples of people using others’ work as inspiration.

He used famous film director Quentin Tarantino as one example: “Tarantino, do you know how many references he uses? It’s the same. ... And we still love Tarantino and we are not saying he is stealing things, because he’s not. He’s just taking it as a reference. It’s really difficult to just create something from scratch.”

After getting an AI image he likes, Hernandez will edit them using Adobe Photoshop software — usually fixing fingers, which he said Midjourney is bad with — before putting them on his Instagram. Sometimes he’ll add some color, as sometimes one eye will be a different color than the other. Or he’ll add grain to the image or some other missing detail.

He’s also been experimenting with a post-production process where he will make an analog film negative of an AI-generated image and then print it in a darkroom before scanning it.

He wants his creations to make people think about a reality that doesn’t exist — and how they might be able to change that. “We can see it and imagine it now,” he said.

He wants to continue working on his project and eventually turn it into an exhibition.

“It’s a fun exercise, and it’s my way of being connected to the technology and see what is going on and really craft it and understand it,” he said.

He has begun to embrace AI, though he said he empathizes with other artists who may feel threatened by it.

“I really understand why people feel afraid,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s like, come on guys. Don’t be scared. Just work. Think, start to think. Because we are going to need to be more creative now. It’s going to be about figuring out what we want to express. It’s going to be figuring out what you want to say to the world.”