Remote Virtual Sanctuary: Exploring an Online Social Network on an Artmaking Generative AI Platform Post COVID-19

Introduction

What people might assume are common human needs after a life-threatening (and life taking) mass trauma like the COVID-19 pandemic may differ. Perhaps after so much health-based social isolation, such as “social distancing,” people are more needful of human (and social pet) social connection. Perhaps their sense of empathy for others has grown. Perhaps there is a need for distractions, like “common art,” aesthetic artful expression, and perhaps “show and tell” of such works. Perhaps there are all sorts of “revenge” sorts of individual and group consumption and profligate self- and mutual- entertainment. Social epidemiologist Nicholas Christakis predicted nothing less than a redux of the “roaring 20s” post-pandemic (Glenza, Dec. 21, 2020), given pent-up demands for living.

Or perhaps the social recovery will be much slower, given the years of rolling lockdowns. Perhaps people will need to get reacquainted with each other and to re-learn mutual empathy. Perhaps they will engage in a slow warming up. Perhaps they have gone feral and do not want to return to domestic harness? Perhaps the extreme savings rates of the pandemic will remain, and people will not take on the role of super-consumer? Perhaps people will continue to “nest” in their respective homes and not take on traveling. Perhaps there will be signs of social disorder and lack of commitment to a rules-based order, at the micro, meso, and macro levels (based on individual, group, and nation-state behaviors). Perhaps there will be roving gangs that will engage in mass-scale retail theft and violence, resulting in some $112 billion in losses (shrinkage) by retailers. What gives?

Various crosscurrents affect the present moment. Now, in early 2024, the return to post-pandemic normalcy is perhaps less vibrant than many may have assumed. There has been a shift from material possessions to experiential ones (travel, dining out, entertainment, and others). Economies have not rebounded with any vengeance. Changes in global trade have affected economies across the range, from developing to developed. Jobs have returned to the service industries, but many others have disappeared. The past year has been a season of labor strife and strikes in the U.S. As to higher education, many learners have chosen different paths perhaps not inclusive of higher learning. To combat rising inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates, making the cost of borrowing higher and putting a damper on personal (and non-personal) spending. Perhaps the residua from the pandemic has resulted in a variety of mixed outcomes.

A shared culture is seen to have played a core role in maintaining humanity in the time of deep isolation during COVID-19 (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, 2021:5, as cited in Lee, 2022, p. 609). That culture is both local and global, global given the interconnectivity of global social media and the Internet. People’s sense of universal and shared “everyday creativity” is seen to re-humanize creativity even in a time of mass harnessing of creative computation. This creativity is part of people’s everyday lived lives and part of human identity (Lee, 2022, p. 601). Artmaking is a “meta-language” for people to communicate with each other (Daniele & Song, Jan. 2019, p. 160), and to collectively face a complex future together in “emotionally experienceable” ways and to problem-solve around hard problems (Friess, 2021, p. 278). The artist has historically been inextricably linked with their art, with close ties between identity, personhood, personality; culture; language(s); historical period; learning (formal, informal, and nonformal); social influences; and other aspects.

Art has long held a vaunted respected place in human societies. It is a medium through which new ideas may emerge. Art is seen as a harmonizer: