Sad Shrimp Noise

Sad Shrimp Noise began with a terrible AI-generated image I found on Pinterest. It showed a highly realistic three-dimensional amigurumi shrimp alongside a visual crochet “pattern” that was partly gibberish and clearly could not produce what it advertised.

In protest of AI trying to replace artists, I followed the visual pattern as closely as I could. Wherever it failed to convey any real information, I improvised using my best judgment about the overall shape. As you can see, the final piece is flat and barely looks like a shrimp.

I embroidered “[sad shrimp noise]” onto the canvas to express the sadness I feel when people think AI can replace artists, but also to acknowledge the goofiness of the result. A real artist’s pattern would have produced something very different; many well-designed patterns for realistic amigurumi shrimp already exist.