Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries?
In a world where the line between technology and creativity is blurring faster than ever, how do we define “art”? Is a painting more “authentic art” than a photograph, or vice versa? And if a storyteller uses Artificial Intelligence to bring a vision to life, does that make them any less of an artist?
Recently, video producer Bill Knowland met with Rena Nicole—writer and “prompt artist” —to discuss her immersive journey into AI filmmaking, her experience with the now-defunct OpenAI Sora, and the controversy of being “banned” by the traditional art community.
From Script to Screen: The Power of Words
For Rena, the transition from storytelling to AI video production was a natural evolution. While traditional filmmaking requires massive budgets and crews, tools like Sora allowed her to translate the “movies in her head” directly into visuals using nothing but the power of words.
“As a storyteller who enjoys acting… pulling that all together, putting it into a prompt and saying, ‘This is the story that I imagine in my head: now generate something that’s kind of like it’—Sora was able to do that in such a beautiful way.”
Rena’s process isn’t just about technical commands; it’s deeply spiritual. She incorporates “Akashic Records” prayers and her own “mythopoetic cosmology” to guide her AI video process, treating the technology as a collaborative partner in her imagination. Prompting AI is like tapping into a universal frequency where all possibilities already exist, and the right “prayer” (or prompt) is what pulls a specific reality into view.
Digital Twins and Aspirations
One of the most striking aspects of Rena’s work is her use of digital twins. By scanning her own likeness into the AI app, she was able to cast herself in roles that were previously inaccessible:
- Historical Exploration: Wearing haute couture from 1910 or 1960.
- Genre-Bending: Performing as a jazz singer in a vintage nightclub.
- Virtual Travel: Placing herself in Disneyland on its 1956 opening day or inside the world of Edward Hopper’s famous Nighthawks painting.
Her virtual actor can be an avatar that allows her to bypass the “gatekeepers” of the industry. She doesn’t have to wait for a casting director to give her a role in a 1950s noir film; she can cast her “twin” in that role instantly, exploring her craft without the physical or financial constraints of a traditional set.
For Rena, this is also more than just “playing dress-up.” It is a functional vision board, allowing her to visualize her goals and embody the archetypes of wisdom and peace (like the goddesses Sophia and Irene) that she studies in mythology. Rena’s use of Sora turned the vision board into a living simulation. Instead of just looking at a picture of a house or a career path, she used her digital twin to “embody” those aspirations. It wasn’t just a goal; it was a rehearsal for a possible future life.
The Controversy: When “Real” Artists Push Back
Despite the creative depth of her work, Rena faced a significant hurdle. After planning a presentation of her book, The Goddess of Peace, The Epic Journey of Rena Nicole, at a bookstore gallery, the event was abruptly cancelled via email.
The reason? Local artists felt threatened. They argued that because the imagery was generated by AI, it wasn’t “real art.”
It seemed like some painters and other artists felt, ‘Oh, that’s not a real artistic creation, she just pressed a button.’ However Rena’s art is more than that–expressing things like emotion and connections to mythology—and it’s not like it magically happened on the first try.
AI is simply a new toolkit, just as the camera was to the brush or Adobe Illustrator was to traditional illustration. Disqualifying the AI video process because it’s AI is like disqualifying photography because the artist didn’t manually apply a graphite pencil to paper or apply pigment to a canvas.
Rena views AI not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a bridge—especially for writers who have struggled to find illustrators who truly “see” their vision. AI acts as the perfectly compliant illustrator. For writers who have a “movie in their head” but lack the drawing skills to manifest it, AI video functions as a high-speed translator that turns their internal vocabulary into a shared visual reality.
The Hero of Your Own Story
As tools like Sora face strategic shifts and shutdowns, Rena remains an advocate for the democratizing power of the medium. AI allows the “everyday Joe or Jane” to become the hero of their own story without needing to “play the game” of the Hollywood industry.
Just as a film director doesn’t physically build the sets or act in every role but is responsible for the vision and “prompting” the crew, the AI video creator user orchestrates the elements of storytelling, emotion, and mythology to produce a cohesive work.
While the art world continues to debate the merits of pixels versus paint, Rena Nicole is busy building Avoria—a mythical realm of light she co-created with AI to help overcome her grief for the world. In her eyes, technology hasn’t taken her creativity away; it has finally given it a home.
What do you think? Is a prompt artist a “real” artist?
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