The Generated Self-Portrait
An Art I student submits, as her "identity self-portrait," a digital image generated by an online text-to-image tool, with a written statement arguing that since Duchamp submitted a urinal and Sherrie Levine rephotographed Walker Evans, authorship is a convention the artist can choose. Two other students are furious that she "didn't do the work" and one says she should get a zero. A fourth student asks whether the photograph he took of his own reflection, edited in an app, is for that matter "really his." You have 20 minutes of class left, a rubric that says "original composition" and "technical skill," and a department policy that is silent on AI. Your principal wants the situation handled in class, not escalated.
1. Sequence and word the questions you actually ask in the remaining 20 minutes. What order, and why that order?
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Separate the aesthetic question from the conduct question before anyone speaks about the work. Opening line, said plainly: "Nobody is getting a zero today, and nobody is being accused of anything. Today we're asking what counts as authorship, and this piece is a real test case." That sentence buys the 20 minutes.
Order of questions:
- To the artist, about process: "Walk us through your iterations. What prompt did you start with, what did you reject, how many generations, what did you edit afterward?" This determines whether there is artistic judgment to evaluate. If she made fifty choices, there is a body of decision-making; if she typed one line and printed it, there is not - and the class should hear that too, without my saying it first.
- To the class, about meaning: "What does this image say about identity, and what specifically in the image says it?" Keeps critique formal and evidentiary.
- To the class, about the art-historical claim: "What did Duchamp and Levine actually argue, and does the argument transfer?" Here I supply the counterargument: Levine's rephotographing was a critique of originality directed at specific photographs, whereas a generative image trained on uncredited work raises questions about whose labor produced the model.
- The fourth student's question last: "If edited selfies count, where's the line?" Asking this last lets the class build criteria from the cases rather than receive a rule.
Close by writing the criteria on the board, in students' language, so the next critique starts from them.
2. Her work does not satisfy "technical skill" as written. How do you grade this fairly and defensibly, on the spot?
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Grade the submitted work against the criteria as written, and say what the criteria meant.
- "Original composition" - arguable. Composition and concept are hers if her selection and editing show judgment; the image itself is not. I score the decisions, not the pixels, and I require the prompt and edit log to substantiate them.
- "Technical skill" - not met as the assignment defined it, because the assignment asked for demonstrated control of a studio medium. Honest score: partially met at most. Prompting is a medium with real skill, but it is not the medium this assignment named, and pretending otherwise is worse for her than a lower score.
What I do: mark the rubric criterion by criterion, write a two-line note explaining which criteria were met and which were not, and offer a resubmission path - either a process portfolio documenting the prompting and editing decisions in depth, or a hand-made companion piece - under the same deadline policy other students get.
What I avoid: a zero, which is unteachable and would be reversed on appeal; and a quiet pass, which is dishonest and will be read by the other 24 students as favoritism. Partial credit plus a documented resubmission is the defensible middle, and it also protects me if the grade is challenged.
3. The department policy is silent. Draft the short addendum you would propose, and explain why each clause is there.
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Proposed addendum - one page, four clauses.
- Disclosure. "Any image, text, or sound not made by the student must be declared in writing at submission, including AI generation and found imagery." Why: the rule is transparency, not prohibition. Disclosure is enforceable; bans are not.
- Process log. "For assignments designated as studio-made, students submit evidence of process - sketches, drafts, iterations." Why: this makes authorship auditable without requiring me to detect AI, which I cannot reliably do.
- Per-assignment designation. "Each assignment states in advance whether hand-made production is required, or whether any medium including generative tools may be used." Why: fairness. Students cannot be penalized under a rule announced after the fact, and some assignments genuinely should be tool-agnostic.
- Conceptual-use carve-out. "Generative or appropriated material used as the subject of a critique - the way Duchamp and Levine used it - is permitted with disclosure." Why: her art-historical argument is legitimate; the addendum should be able to recognize it without collapsing into "anything goes."
On the fourth student's edited selfie: clause 1 already covers him. Editing a personal photograph with an app is a disclosure question, not a misconduct question, and the addendum should say so - otherwise the rule reads as suspicious of ordinary digital practice.
Process: propose it to the department chair as an interim addendum, not a permanent policy, and pilot it for one semester.