Vorstellung's interview

Vor·stel·lung

noun PHILOSOPHY

a mental image or idea produced by prior perception of an object, as in memory or imagination, rather than by actual perception.

Vorstellung sees himself as a revolutionary, a pirate, and a poet. Through this in-depth interview, he offers a revolutionary perspective and a fascinating glimpse into his mind. He cares deeply about real-world issues, the trajectory of Artificial Intelligence, and the role of AI imagery as art. More importantly, he challenges us to consider how we, as creators and as a civilization, can harness these groundbreaking tools responsibly.

This is the biggest account I’ve approached so far—with a staggering following of over 60,000—and I’ve always been excited about the possibility of engaging with him.

This interview is a deep dive into his psyche, yet his imagery exclusively features a serene and reflective medieval aesthetic: knights clad in gleaming, intricately detailed armor, often paired with elegantly adorned women. His compositions, blending realism with subtle grain and muted colors, possess a vintage, filmic quality that suggests both painterly and photographic influences (pleasantly reminiscent of Ocn/@OcnRivals’s work - AI Artist Interview #4).

Muted greys and blues dominate Vorstellung’s palette. Occasionally, striking accents like the deep red of a cape add drama and intensity. This use of subdued tones evokes nostalgia, timeless elegance, and historical depth. His knights’ postures—heads slightly bowed, bodies at rest—convey introspection, weariness, or quiet determination. Some of his backgrounds, like lush valleys framed by soft hills, add a sense of isolation and tranquility, completing the immersive atmosphere.

This is simply beautiful art, and Vorstellung’s overall compositions invite the viewer to wonder about his characters' stories. The juxtaposition of human-like repose with the unyielding, metallic armor of his knights speaks to themes of vulnerability and endurance. His work feels like a meditation on the tension between fragility and strength, the personal and the monumental.

This careful attention to aesthetics and detail is not just technical; it reflects a deeper exploration of human emotions, resilience, and the beauty of imperfection. In short, Vorstellung channels classic medieval fantasy imagery and romantic, dramatic aesthetics while incorporating modern artistic techniques, creating pieces that are both nostalgic and compelling.

…But does it all really matter in the end?

When asked why he creates, Vorstellung answers with profound simplicity: "In short, what inspires me is a primal urge not to be swallowed by darkness.” This ethos resonates in his work, where the interplay of light and shadow becomes a metaphor for enduring hope amidst adversity.

I am honored and grateful to have him join us for this interview.

Let’s discover Vorstellung together.

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Without getting too personal, can you tell us a bit about yourself?:

I'm a man, 24, and my interests include weight training/bodybuilding, combat sports, and ancient societies. I'd consider myself a revolutionary entrepreneur, and I have many interests.

Could you please tell us which country you live in?:

I am from England.

What led you to begin working with AI imagery?:

Well, it was part of a wider business strategy for an idea, which I believe is revolutionary. To accomplish this idea, there needs to be coalescence between imagery and the idea. In other words, imagery is the blood of the idea. The idea uses AI, so the link was immediately obvious and simple, and I knew if I created and shared compelling imagery, it would create the specific type of inspiration that I wanted to see - it sort of lays the groundwork for AI images regarding this idea/project.

The strategy, I admit, was not so concerned with any particular love for AI art but rather a love for the power of aesthetics and with the goal of using this power as a conduit or a vehicle to create something greater by building connections, inspiration, and a platform.

Any sufficiently complex or revolutionary idea will be seen as either crazy or of little use unless people are sufficiently inspired and energized. The legitimacy conferred by this platform and by the creation of compelling art will energize people to support the project. The project, by its nature, requires 5 things - innovation - hopeful beauty - community - inspiration, and production.

For such a project to be a success, people must FEEL the hope and emotion attached to the project. For me, there is no better way to do this efficiently than art - I aim to bring people together in a community of individuals focused on the 5 things I mentioned, and with this community established - one can change not only their own life, but the lives of many.

I will attach a writing that helps illustrate my philosophy.

"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for. Let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time will come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them. Men will say, as they look upon the labour and the substance wrought from it: 'See! This our fathers did for us."

— John Ruskin

What AI tools do you use?:

The AI tools I use are Grok and ChatGPT. Some images I have worked on are made with Midjourney, which I think is probably the best for what you can produce.

What inspires you?:

Transmuting thought into its physical manifestation - people like Tesla, but also people like Dorian Yates.

The answer in this regard is vague, perhaps for most people, but certainly, for me, it's vague. It's like being asked, "Why climb a mountain?" People will give responses about achievement and challenge, but really, the answer for most people inclined to these undertakings is "Because it's there."

I want to create something better, that's, I suppose, what inspires me, but I think the closer truth is that there's nothing else to do, and I'd go insane, living in some shack in Chechnya if I didn't have something extremely difficult to do.

I suffer from a chronic sense of boredom. I've tried all the hobbies, and none of it seemed to work. The only thing that remedies the situation for a brief time is extreme physical exertion or creating something new and innovative, which is so difficult and frankly nonsensical that it can't help but occupy my mind. In short, what inspires me is a primal urge not to be swallowed by darkness.

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(One of @revelinai’s favorite images by Vorstellung)

In which other medium, if any, do you practice art?:

Other mediums are combat sports/bodybuilding. I'm interested in art in general, although I'm not a talented artist. I'm not doing anything particularly cool for generating images. My generation of images is just a way to inspire people to follow me and engage with my thoughts and philosophy, and I would encourage people to learn to paint in the old way rather than digitally or AI generations.

Would you consider AI-generated art true art?:

It's a tough question. I would say that the mere generation of an image does not constitute art. However, the energy of the thought is turned into something. I would consider that an art. In a similar way, I would consider propaganda an art form, and if AI is being used to create propaganda, not in the political sense but to create hope for a better world - I would say it can be considered an art. Although simply generating art for the sake of entertainment is not an art, it would be somewhat analogous to the VR headset. Genuine art - capturing the human essence and emotion, even if done so with AI, is real life. Computer generated fast food is nothing but creating a false reality to capture one's attention for no other purpose other than to be observed and is not real.

I think it's often the case that those who complain about AI art stealing from artists fundamentally misunderstand the game of WILLS in which they participate. In the same way that the purpose of knowledge is action, the purpose of art is action. It's a call to action.

Those who reject or fail to consider this are doomed to be replaced simply because they are exerting no will while the will of others is exerted upon them.

True art not only tells a story but disturbs the sane and comforts the insane. Complaining that AI is stealing art is an admission that their art does not transcend humanity and ultimately signifies a truly Liberal mindset that what matters is simply opportunity rather than a genuine love for the true nature of being - war, despair, hope, love, the shocking weight of life.

An illiberal view of such things is to see these qualities and exert your human will upon them. It is not to view art and say, "It’s not fair" - art captures and incites. That is to say, the truth of art is in the human circulating the art.

Who's to say that the countless minds and unbelievable genius that go into creating a computer that generates art is not in itself an art? Failure to adapt is death. Such a view is to surrender to the struggles of existence rather than to capture them in their work.

Da Vinci will not be harmed by AI. He has an immunity of SPIRIT. That which the common artist does not have because they fail, unfortunately, to see the genius that created their unique work.

An art student, of which I know many, is far too focused on the art itself. And not the unfathomable and intangible spirit that led them to create the art in the first place, nor are they concerned with what the art can spawn.

In short, a real artist creates art because they feel like it. It's who they are. They aren't picking up the paintbrush hoping to create something that must never be imitated - to do so is to create a form of capitalist market in which only they can deem what is acceptable. Never once considering that the point of art is emotion - authenticity will always be the blood of greatness, and if their art is authentic, which by its nature it probably is, they should not be concerned with computer generation, in the same way people are not offended by prints of famous work. Because the human spirit determines the value of art, not regulations created by mid-level artists who seek merely to earn a living rather than to create or capture.

Not to be too political, but among those who claim this, I imagine they are all very Liberal. I say this to illustrate that, in their minds, art is purely service-level commercialism. They want their bite of the cake - they want to be compensated for being outcompeted because they have set the parameters of the game not on blood, on culture, but on the individual. And so, to them, being an individual is what creates value, not the connection to the wider human community - AI strips them of this individualism, and so they are forced to compete or complain.

A classical European view is to say that we are fundamentally a product of what came before us, rooted into the soul. We are a mosaic of all those who came before us. Someone of this nature sees that when they look at art, whether it's a sculpture, painting, rocketship, and so on. They would immediately recognize, this is me, this is us.

The critic I have mentioned of the spiritually Liberal disposition only wants the title of artist along with its money and to cut away at the roots of art. To hack away at the past and the future, leaving only them to remain, and therefore, only amongst them must they share the economic reward.

Forgive this deranged rambling; I'm going off the cuff here, and I'm also 24, so perhaps I lack sentimentality.

Please share one or a few of your favorite images with us.:

That's a tough one; I'm not really one to have favourites of anything. I'll have to think on that one. Maybe I like this portrait below a lot.

It's true that glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Do you title your AI-generated art? If you do, what inspires you to come up with these titles?:

I don’t really title my images, but in some cases, I'll use a quote either from someone or from my journal.

When do you tend to be the most productive, and do you work in long sessions or short bursts?:

Honestly, when it comes to AI art, it's short, of course, because it only takes a few moments to generate images. If thought and philosophy are considered an element of this work, then I work all day.

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What type of prompts do you prefer: text or AI-generated descriptions through fed images?:

I'll usually generate the prompt and then edit it. I create the image with a specific tone in mind, and so it always has to be edited.

When prompting with text, do you write simple text-based prompts or complex ones?:

It really depends on what kind of outcome I get; I just play around with it until it looks like I want.

Do you think text-based prompts should be shared within the AI art community?:

I think if people want to share, then that's okay, but I'm not really interested in this idea of making it a formula-based thing where there are rules and a right way to do it. I think people should either learn to write in a compelling way, or they shouldn't really be in the business of creating anything that requires words. They'll just pollute the space. If AI becomes accustomed to the kind of new-age idiot talk people do, it will not distinguish between a well-written prompt and...not a well-written prompt. The AI, I imagine, will consider both equally and therefore the same when, in fact, those who write well and those who don't are not equal when writing is what is in question.

But ultimately, I don't care a whole lot. I think creating something genuine and real is far more important, and there's no perfect prompt script for that. It takes the human spirit, the human will. That which only great writers can convey and is almost always remaining unsaid, but manifest through great works.

What is the most unconventional method you have used to create an image?:

My mind, I suppose. I have an idea; I try to make the AI create it. Usually, whatever I'm doing pushes the limit because the tools never quite create what I want. Honestly, I just have to tone down what I ask of it because it doesn't do what I want, so I just make basic content that it knows how to do and wait until the technology improves.

I just keep the end goal in mind. The creation of the state. I briefly made a magazine, so I'd make covers for that. Another example of this, if I had the power, would be to fundamentally redesign cities and agriculture. I employ AI to help design the imagery for this, but it doesn't quite get it because what I'm asking it to create simply does not exist in the world. Therefore, it has nothing to reference. So I post knights, ha!

How many images you have generated using AI technology?:

I have no idea; I have little focus on the images themselves. I always focus on the idea. I’m genuinely not sure, maybe thousands. Some of which I don't post because I'm not happy with them. So, I'd say thousands.

Please share your X (Twitter) handle with us.:

@Reginacht (was @MensurMuse before)

Tell us a bit about your X handle and X username.:

(This answer is based on Vorstellung’s previous X handle.) My handle is a German word for idea, and the @mensur is a school of German fencing; pretty cool. And muse is just muse.

How many X followers do you currently have?:

I'm not sure, 60,000 or something, I think.

How many X accounts do you currently follow?:

Following around 170, but I'd like to follow more like-minded people.

How long have you been on X (Twitter)?:

My X account is 2 years old, although, for a portion of that time, I was not active.

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Is there any other online platform where we can view all of your previous work apart from X?:

Nope, but sometimes my posts do appear on Pinterest somehow.

In this world of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are you currently selling your digital art on any platform? If so, which platform are you using?:

No, I'm not. I don’t know how. I would if I knew.

Are you selling tangible AI-generated artwork, such as high-quality prints like Giclée prints?:

Same as the previous question, no, as I don’t really know how, but I just did open a shop on REDBUBBLE, which has Art Board Prints.

Could you suggest some AI artists you like that we could follow?:

Is there anything else you would like to add or share with the AI community?:

I don't have anything to share with the AI community specifically other than they should create something genuine and real and for a purpose.

To create something of purpose, I mean essentially manufacturing, particularly in the US, where it's a service-based economy.

This doesn't really solve any problems besides the problems we create by prioritizing leisure. I support a combination between weird, wild, eccentric visionaries and manufacturing.

If people are seeking to produce AI art and gain a career as an AI artist, which they can monetize, they're essentially just providing base entertainment. There's nothing wrong with this. The problem arises because we have too much entertainment and leisure and not enough people genuinely trying to solve any real problems. You can actually use AI art to help solve these problems by using marketing by creating imagery that promotes a cause, builds a company, helps crowd-fund an idea, or even presents a spiritual ideal.

We are tribal entities, and I think largely the best way to live is within this tribal system. A sort of synergy between the core, ancient humanity, and the potential future (with technology and so on).

You see, my ideal situation, as I mentioned earlier, is to redesign cities fundamentally. They are concrete and steel economic zones made purely for that purpose. Even the very idea that everything is condensed and conjested is to reduce logistic time, materials used such as asphalt, for example.

The city itself, therefore, is an extraction system. Anyway, to keep it short, cities should be redesigned to spread out much further and should appear almost entirely green from space. Embedded with nature. It improves almost every metric of mental and physical health, the ecosystem, the supply of vegetables, water, and fruit - all while powered by solar and utilizing the pressure created by foot and vehicle traffic to transfer that pressure into energy using pressure plates.

I'm going off on a tangent. I'm saying all that because we have created an extension of this city design in entertainment form. Maximum capital gain, maximum attention, smaller areas, more ads, tighter regulations - all designed to keep your attention because it's profitable.

People don't create because they're busy being entertained, and they feel they must be entertained because everything around them is designed to essentially work and produce capital to maintain the economy.

This is why city people, when they visit the countryside, almost seem frantic. It’s because they've become accustomed to capital psychosis.

AI is a great tool for creating something that solves this (while removing the labour or deferral of labour) because it hijacks this attention economy. With this, it could potentially become harder and harder for people to become slaves to a corporation, a lifestyle, or a government because they are seeing the hope of a better world at a volume that they haven't seen before, and in a way that is not gatekept by artists or media creators. Within 10 minutes, you can generate a totally distinct new and hypothetical future - in a way, generating hope. It should, although I'm being optimistic, inspire new visions for how things look. New city design, new building design, and new technology.

So, I think AI can be used as a vehicle to generate new physical things and shouldn't really be used to simply generate images alone. In a simplified way, AI could allow for the collective generation of the future. You can generate schematics, business plans, logos, and websites with essentially no workforce, office space, labour required- it can inspire entrepreneurship for FREE - that's what I mean by creating something real. A means to an end. Sort of a long-winded way of saying it.

Oh, another advice for AI art creators. Make sure your work is supplemented with your personality. Not in the art itself but connected with the people. Don't just post images; write on the posts. Otherwise, you'll end up like me to some extent, where people only care about the images I post, they don't care at all about my life or any projects I'm a part of, or any thoughts I have. They follow for the entertainment of the image, they hit like, and then they go. I’ve tried to trigger engagement with meaningful conversations, but it just takes time because you essentially have to generate a whole new audience. People don't have the patience to expand to new ideas or see any process. They want quick specific content, hyperfocused.

So, in conclusion, I would say we need to make beauty and functionality the objective. Some cathedrals in Europe took 800 years to make. All of those people had the same standard, the same vision of beauty. Patience can be enforced by simply raising the standards. It would take a new state, a breakaway group of people. And so, my mission is not to change the minds of the masses but to create a new mass entirely.

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More fantastic imagery from Vorstellung

Follow him @Reginacht

The Vorstellung Interview

A conversation with AI Artist Vorstellung, aka @Reginacht on X