My Avatar’s Avatars: A Visual Exploration and Response to AI-Generated Avatars

Abstract

This article investigates the potential of avatar-making to challenge stereotypical, hypersexualized, heteronormative White Eurocentric standard beauty and representations of femininity in avatars. With the rise of AI-generated avatars and the questionable gender representations amplified by these avatar images, a critical engagement with AI avatar-making is vital. The study explores alternative strategies for avatar creation using AI and art strategies to counter the often narrow representations of womanhood in avatars that circulate in the visual culture generated by commercial AI products. By employing art strategies such as exquisite corpse, glitch, and remix, I aim to extend avatar pedagogy in art education to reflect the new technology and the digital materiality of avatars. The avatars created through combined strategies and AI demonstrate the possibility of avatar-making that defies gender binaries and normative constructs. The result is a critical engagement with AI for avatar-making to advocate for resistance to the commodification of avatars and reimaging the body and identity.