Joshua's Warren

AI is just a monkey with a typewriter

First off I'd like to make it clear that my goal with this blog is, in general, to promote my own work and talk about things within the world of art and entertainment that interest me, so I intend to steer away from these types of critical opinion pieces as much as I can. This article will be a (hopefully) very rare exception, but that I felt I needed to make as AI has not only become a controversial subject within the art community, but also one wrought with a lot of misconceptions that needs to be put in the spotlight. Also note that I will generally be focusing this article on Generative AI and text-programs like ChatGPT, since these are the only variants of this broad, and often vaguely defined, new technology that are actually affecting the art community.

Let's start with how the name itself, Artificial Intelligence, is a blatant misnomer. It's a marketing ploy. It sounds cool, like something out of a Sci-Fi movie, and it makes people interested in the product. It sounds futuristic. It promises progress. We may not have the flying cars that cartoons promised us when we were kids, but look! Here's artificial intelligence, just like they had in Star Trek and numerous other Sci-Fi movies, TV series and books. But when you look behind the curtains, you don't find some brilliant supercomputer that knows the secrets of the universe. There's no KITT, Data, or even HAL 900 waiting to greet us. Granted, there is no small man hiding behind there either. There is in fact a machine (in the broad sense of the word), but we must be honest with ourselves and look beyond the misleading and hyperbolic marketing and accept the fact that there is nothing remotely intelligent going on here.

So what's up with my strange title for this article? It is a reference to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which, in short, states that "a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare." The core idea is basically that if you type random letters for long enough you will eventually, by pure chance, produce complete words. Continue to do this indefinitely, and eventually you should get a complete text seemingly made with creative intent.

You might recall having seen this on an early episode of The Simpsons were Mr. Burns shows Homer that he has a room with a thousand monkeys chained to a thousand typewriters while proudly stating that "soon, they'll have written the greatest novel known to man." He then inspects what one of the monkeys has written and reads; "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times." Needless to say, Burns was not happy with the outcome of his scheme.

Before ChatGPT the best you could do was a room full of monkeys.
Copyright © 20th Century Fox Television

So what does this have to do with AI. Well, when you peek behind the curtain and look at text-writing software like ChatGPT or "art" software like Midjourney, what you will find is that so-called artificial intelligence is really just the algorithmic equivalent of a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters, typing for a thousand years until one of them accidentally, by pure mathematical chance, types out the entirety of Hamlet, or at least something quite similar. The only real difference here is that a computer, by the virtue of being a machine, can do this thousand year process in less than a second.

And since it is designed to store data, such as a complete lexicon and thesaurus, and receive feedback from its human users, it was from the get-go given plenty of proper words to assemble in a random order, thereby sparing its programmers of having to sift through complete nonsense like "blurst." Apply this same base logic to pixels, where instead of a lexicon it was simply given access to a vast library of images (and some times through social media platforms), it could, after many years of failure and feedback, create facsimiles of paintings, photos, etc.

And this is by no means some crazy theory of mine, this is exactly what has been going on for the past ten years, only that now that these programs have reach a point were they work to a mostly satisfactory degree, even compared to just a few years ago, the people trying to sell it to you tend to skip this part of the story and present the software as a borderline magic genie scenario. But if you've been paying attention to the development of this technology you might recall just how little AI imagery resembled anything at all less than ten years ago (as of writing this article in 2024).

AI imagery ten years ago was a blurry, warped, nightmarish mess that was more mocked than admired by the small percentage of the general public that was paying attention to it. A prompter might type something as simple as "man standing in a room" and the virtual monkeys would produce some vaguely human-shaped blob standing in front of a mess of straight-ish lines that was the closest it could get to depicting a room. But eventually these blobs began to take on more human characteristics, and the rooms became genuine rooms.

So how did this change come about? What was this software even doing in the first place? Well, as already suggested, it was simply fed a plethora of images and told what those images depicted. Then it was fed even more images and told what those depicted. And this went on and one until the thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters every second, storing the data provided by its human keepers what was right and worked and what didn't work, until it had eventually gathered enough data to begin to recognise patterns in the photos. The programs began to find commonalities that corresponded to the text being given by their human operators. So when the computer detected the word "mouth" there was always a thin slit within the oval shape with the two smaller shapes and the long thing in the middle. When the humans typed the word "nose" it was always underneath the two round things and above the mouth. When they typed "eyes" there were usually two of them and they were above the nose and the mouth. And so on, and so on, until the software eventually "figured out" what a face was. Though, even just a few years ago these programs could still not recognise what a face seen from the side was supposed to look like, because now there was suddenly only one eye, the nose was in profile, the mouth was a different shape, etc. so it had to accumulate this data as well. It didn't recognise it as a face, it simply had to accumulate a new data set.

Now this is all admittedly a gross simplification of the complex data gathering process that went on, but what I am trying to demonstrate here is that the software never actually "learned" anything. It can't think in terms of "this is a face," or "this is a hand." Especially not the latter, as AI still tends to add too many or too few fingers to hands. But when the humans type the word "face" it has merely gathered enough images to recognise similarities in the pixels and their arrangements so that it can copy/paste this into new contexts. There is nothing intelligent going on here, just a lot, and I mean a LOT of data gathering.

You know how when you text on your phone it will always suggest the next word? This can often be quite useful in speeding up the process, especially when you're on the go, but it can also be quite frustrating as it often makes really silly suggestions. Why is that? Well, it certainly doesn't have any clue as to what you are actually thinking, it's hardly a mind reader, but after having read through people's texts, including your own, the simple program installed on your phone will start to correlate the commonalities in your texting habits, again, not through any actual thinking process, but simply by logging the order in which you tend to type words, and then it tries to predict the most likely outcome whenever you type a word or letter it recognises.

AI is no more "intelligent" than the predictive text software on your phone.

For example; if you type "I" it remembers that previously when you (and other people) typed "I" it was followed up by words like "am" or "will" or "did" or "didn't", etc. And if you then choose "am" it decides that the next word, again based merely on frequency, is likely an action like "going." If you pick "going" the next word is usually a locale, like "home." And suddenly you can type a complete sentence like "I am going home" without initially having to actually type more than the letter "I". Of course, the moment you decide to write something out of the ordinary, that is something completely different from what you've typed before, not to mention something much more complex, then this program will always get stuck and can turn into more of an annoyance rather than an aid.

Whenever you see some AI "art" or some complex ChaptGPT text online, you are effectively looking at the exact same technology as the predictive text software on your phone, just far, far more complex. But at its core, it is the exact same thing. Give a computer enough data, be it text or pixels, and it can now create something very detailed and seemingly complex. That is, until you start scratching the surface.

AI is by its very nature incapable of genuine Creativity, it can only throw words or pixels together until it hits on something that resembles the real deal, and the more it learns to eliminate the undesirable outcomes, the more efficient this essentially mindless process will become. But, and this is a big but, it can never truly make something new. It can only imitate what has already been made.

So, if AI isn't actually intelligent but simply a very cleverly programmed copy/paste software, why are so many angry about it? Why all the heated debates?

Well, I can mostly just speak for myself and convey my own concerns about this technology, so here are my problems with this technology, or rather, how it's being used, as well as my concerns about the long-term consequences.

MISANTHROPY PEDDLED AS PROGRESS

Art may be a business, but regardless of any commercial aspect it may take on, it is still a form of human expression to some degree. We all know the cliches, and we have unfortunately begun taking them for granted, especially in today's social media world where we are exposed to more things than our brains can properly process. But unless you are extremely cynical about all of this, we all know, quite intuitively that art is meant as a form of expression as much as it can be simple entertainment. We all know that a good book, or a good painting, is more than just typed words on a piece of paper or globs of colourful goop on a canvas, or pixels on a screen for that matter. We all know that if its good it is not only produced with skill, but with passion, with intent, that it transcends the simplicity of the process or the material it was made on, or the tools with which it was made.

But then why can't AI simply be used to help speed up the process? Well, simply put because there is no process. There is no tool, there is no thought, and there is certainly no skill. Its just data. The only human aspect involved is the initial idea, usually in the form of a handful of types words or phrases. And anyone who has taken a creative writing class will have heard some variation of the phrase; "Ideas are a dime a dozen. The real value lies in what you make of it."

Claiming ownership of an AI image or text is a bit like commissioning an artist or writer, waiting for them to finish it for you, then slapping your name on it when you get the finished product. Of course, this has happened many times; ghost writers is very much a thing, and several famous historical painters have claimed the work of their students as their own. But at least in those cases, once found out, we can simply credit the real artists. With AI we have no such luxury. That is, unless we consider where the software got its data in the first place, but more on this later.

One of my biggest issues with the way AI is being used to "create" art is that it is completely unearned. We humans intuitively appreciate hard work, we admire people with skills because we know it took a long time for them to get to that level. Learning, growing, improving ourselves, these are some of our greatest virtues. We admire people with skills, be they artists or athletes. Just as we admire someone for getting fit by rigorously working out, we admire the artist for honing their skills over time. With AI, however, this all goes away. All you need is an idea—by far the easiest part of the process—and with a bit of basic typing you can basically get to the finish line in seconds. To me this is effectively the art-world equivalent of using a cheat code in a video game, and is antithetical to the process.

If athletes started using mechanical legs to "improve" their performance, would you still care?

In recent months I've watched AI "art" flood social media, be it Facebook or art pages like deviantart. The frequency is obviously the result of how quick and easy it is to do. Some may be indifferent to this, but to me this is the equivalent of a scenario where gamers would have to endure streaming services like Twitch being flooded by anti-gamers who turn on every imaginable cheat code and employ a gaming algorithm that will play the game for them. Imagine if a "gamer" were to stream themselves simply turning on a game, activating a "play it for me" algorithm," then they simply put down the controller and lean back in their chair with a smug expression and stream themselves not playing the game. Image then if 50% or more of every gamer stream you scrolled through featured people like this. No challenge, no skill, plain and simply nothing. This is what it often feels like being an artist or an art appreciator scrolling through social media and art sites nowadays.

But AI isn't just unearned, it is simply a way for lazy people to feel accomplished while doing hardly anything, and at the expense of the art community at that. I have already seen several artist online lament that they can no longer make a living of art because people are producing similar imagery through AI programs (more on this later). Which brings me to my next point; commodification.

Social media set the stage for this.

Even before AI "art" became a thing I had noticed a disturbing trend online. Art was becoming commodified, it was becoming more and more generic and soulless. I couldn't quite put my finger on what precisely was wrong until I read a post by an artist who announced she would no longer post her work on social media. Her reasoning was quite interesting. She explained that the more she listened to the endless stream of feedback from anonymous strangers that her art had started to change, it had begun to morph into something that she eventually realised was no longer hers. She had let an autonomous collective dictate her style and output through likes, through comments, through which images got large amounts of views and which ones didn't, and in a strange way her art stopped being hers. Instead, it was made by the collective, and the result was that it started to become generic. It started to loose its soul, because she was no longer really in charge of it.

Social media has become as much a curse as a potential blessing to many modern artist.

Now lets remove the artist entirely, and let the algorithm take over. Let's replace the intuition of this individual and replace it with an algorithm that can scan the internet and combine elements from thousands upon thousands of images within less than a second, picking the "best" elements not from any real understanding of it, but simply from evaluation its popularity based on how many "views" or "likes" it has, and other arbitrary metrics, and then compiling it all into a facsimile that loosely matches a few typed words. What you get, is so called AI "art."

And what you get, though it seems elaborate and talented at first glance, once you look closely, once you start paying attention to the details, and especially if you're already someone who possess a scrutinising eye for art, you will begin to get an eerie feeling while watching these algorithmic imitations. I know I do, and I am far from alone in this. These images simply feel lifeless and generic in a way that I have never witnessed before. The overall sensation is quite uncanny, especially when you start to develop and intuitive response to it. If you're familiar with the concept of "the uncanny valley" you know what I mean,

This all reminds me of a rather sad comment I read online recently:

"AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it."

Now, regardless of whether you believe in a literal soul or not, I think it is quite tragic that there are those who are willing to sell humanity so short the way I've heard some people do recently by claiming, whether directly or indirectly, that creative thinking can be broken down to a mere algorithm.

This is why I have decided to be so bold as to call AI a form of misanthropy, because it is by its very nature anti-human, anti-individualistic, and anti-skill. It is a cheat code to life peddled as progress.

A PENCIL IS A TOOL, AI IS A REPLACEMENT

Some will obviously take umbrage with the accusation of AI merely being a way to cheat yourself to success, and there is one counter argument that is consistently, and I must say, often reflexively, brought up in response; "It's only a tool."

Now, I do understand where this sentiment is coming from. All digital software that has been used to produce art or some form of image has at one point received criticism and been accused of being "fake" to some degree, and the counter argument has consistently been some variation of "it's only another tool." But does this really apply to AI? It's another digital software people can use, yes, but can you actually consider it a tool like Clip Studio Paint or Photoshop (before it began including generative AI that is).

Isn't the whole point of AI software like ChatGPT and Midjourney that it will do nearly all the work for you? Isn't that their primary selling point? How then can it be classified as a tool? Even with a digital painting where the canvas, the brushes and the paints are all simulated, you still need a human hand to operate the mouse in order to put the brushstrokes on the blank page. Even a 3D modeler needs to move a cursor around to mold the desired shapes in the virtual world. There is intuition and skill involved. There is as much trial & error as would be on a physical painting. With AI you have none of this.

"It doesn't matter what tools you're using" is a poor argument when you've eliminated the creative process altogether.

Having an AI make you a painting based on an idea is a like a kid convincing his dad to do his homework for him, then handing it in to the teacher the next day claiming it as their own. The kid didn't really do anything, and neither does prompters who rely on AI. Just like the kid didn't solve his math problems they didn't make any decisions on composition, or the choice of colour, the software did it all for them. And were did the software get it all from in the first place? It got it from accumulated data gathered from millions of images online, images made by actual people through hard work.

To be completely clear, I personally don't care if people make their art using a pencil, a paintbrush, or a computer mouse, but when someone sets out to create I expect them to Create. To let the computer do 99% of the work for them is to neglect one's moral responsibility to produce something for oneself. And if they have no interest in being an artist, if they feel no need to spend the time to learn the required skills, then that's fine, but then they should at least have the decency to employ the people who do.

AI INCENTIVISE GRIFTING AND DISCOURAGES GROWTH

In an age of spam bots and seemingly endless online scams it is unfortunate that AI should have arrived on the scene when it did as it has only multiplied these issues tenfold. However, since my focus here is related to art and creativity, I will not stray into this territory. Suffice it to say, there is more than hollow art to be concerned about.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the extreme corner-cutting that AI provides people who aren't willing to put in the work is that so many have quickly adopted it into dishonest business practices. It is not only common for people to create false artist names and sell their "art" online, presenting themselves as a sort of art dealer for artists that doesn't even exist, but what is especially heinous is when people like this specifically tell AI programs to imitate the style of current artists. I briefly touched upon this earlier, but feel it is important to elaborate on this point.

Within just a year or two of AI image generating programs becoming advanced enough to produce serviceable imagery I started seeing posts online by well established artist lamenting the fact that they could no longer support themselves financially on their art. The reason was, somewhat ironically, partially due to their own popularity online. You see, these artist had been in high demand for several years, but when AI came along many people started simply telling the software to make images in the style of these artists, therefore eliminating both the time and cost of a commission, or even the much simpler price of buying a simple print from them. There have even been attempts by people to make a profit of these "in the style of..." images.

As we've already established AI cannot Create anything on its own, it can only accumulates data and reproduce facsimiles. So when a prompter ask for an image in a specific style what effectively happens is that the algorithm searches the internet for the specified artist, "downloads" all of their work, or at least the pieces that fit the specific criteria of the prompt, and copies as much of the information it has gathered in order to produce something that to the untrained eye can pass for their work. I don't think I need to tell you why this is a huge problem.

Many will exploit any situation that leads to easy money, and it doesn't get much easier than with AI.

And if you think the AI is merely taking "inspiration" from it, as many have claimed, remember, it can only accumulate data and reproduce it according to established patterns. It can't think in such human terms. Don't believe me? It is not uncommon for AI to reproduce an artist's signature for the simple reason that it was part of the accumulated images. In some cases the signatures are even legible. In some cases, the letters are scrambled or warped, but the style of the hand is still recognisable. Now why would the software do this? Simple. It cannot think, it cannot reason, it can only copy and redistribute individual elements according to its programming.

In short, AI "art" is not only unearned, lazy, lacking in true Creativity, it can be straight up theft. Unfortunately, there are currently no copyright laws that can take such a complex and indirect approach into account, but hopefully this will one day change. However, on a somewhat more positive note there are at the very least many people invested in AI imagery that implement an "honour code" to never include living artists in their prompts. I think this is very commendable, but I still think it ignores too many of the larger problems with AI software and it is unfortunately not a widespread principle yet.

I also want to make it clear that many of the people who use or promote AI are quite clear that they aren't against artists or human creativity, and I am more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think these people are quite sincere and I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to present these people as villains. But I do think there is a lot of naïveté at work here and an unwillingness to look at the bigger picture.

In my experience AI users seem to fit into two categories; blatant grifters, of whom there's not much more to say, and those who are simply fascinated by a new technology and don't think much about the potential long term consequences.

One of my biggest fears relating to AI is the potential repercussions it will have on the current generation of children that will be growing up with the knowledge that hard work is no longer required for a saleable or functional product, be it a "painting," a facsimile of a novel, and so on. Will anyone even bother to learn new skills when you can simply type a few words (presumably with spell-check on) and get a detailed painting within mere seconds, or a full novel, or even a full on movie, as some companies are currently trying to make a reality? Will they have the incentive to try, fail, try again, and work hard to acquire a skill when the end result (even if it is an algorithmic knockoff) is so close at hand?

Hopefully not a vision of things to come.
Wall-E (2008). Copyright © Pixar Animation Studios.

I hope the answer is yes. I hope that my athlete metaphor from before holds up, and people will continue to prioritise skills over easy gains and look down upon any process that is effectively a form of cheating. But still, you can't blame me, and many others, for being concerned about this. People have an unfortunate tendency to choose the path of least resistance, and AI is the greatest cheat code for life we have yet to create.

THE CHECMATE MACHINE

I am continually fascinated, and frankly a bit baffled, by our collective tendency to always try and make machines that can replace us.

This whole current debacle about AI reminds me a bit of the Deep Blue chess-playing computer from the 1990s. Considered a milestone in artificial intelligence, it was the first machine to win a match against a reigning world champion and since then we have simply taken it for granted that a computer will always be able to outperform virtually any human at chess. And yet, once the novelty of this machine had died down, so did the use of the technology itself...more or less. Sure, chess-playing software is still a thing, though it is pretty much exclusively used to train humans by effectively "dumbing it down" so that it is actually beatable, and even this is only so that one can eventually take on a real human opponent. There are no computers playing matches against other people anymore. No one considers chess to be a dead sport, quite the contrary, its as popular as ever.

In the end Deep Blue has mostly become a historical curiosity. It may be considered an important milestone in computing, but it is a small chapter, if not a straight up footnote, in the history of chess. And in the grand scheme it is still not considered all that important. Perhaps our view of humanity was simply different back in the 1990s, but people back then seemed to have intuitively understood that there was nothing of societal value to be gained from Deep Blue. And this makes complete sense. Why would anyone need a machine that can always beat you at a game? Where's the fun in that?

As often is the case, we are more concerned with "Can I?" than the much more important; "Should I?"

And that's why I've even brought up Deep Blue in the first place, because I hope this is what AI "art" will become in the future. A historical novelty. A curious footnote. Or at least something that is repurposed into something more useful. I hope we will all one day come to our senses, as so many already have, and acknowledge that there is no real value in images or text made by data-collecting algorithms. That this easy-way-out takes the "fun" out of life, just as the checkmate computer did for chess three decades ago.

IN CONCLUSION

And finally, since I have been focusing on AI seen from the viewpoint of the art-world I want to clarify that yes, there certainly are fields in which AI can be a genuine boon to humanity. Namely the sciences.

AI is after all undeniably great at one thing; data collecting. That is after all what it was made for. Even its ability to analyse imagery can be quite useful when analyzing large amounts of data. I know from experience how pleased archivists are with AI as it now allows them to scour through an inhuman amount of stored data, making it easier researchers to find documents that previously would have been buried so far (both literally or figuratively) that it would have been a time consuming and labour intensive project just to dig it out. AI can likewise be used to transcribe old documents, it can be used to identify damage on old analogue film (though people still have to evaluate what to remove or not), it can be used to look through telescopes to identify new planets or potentially dangerous asteroids, it can be used for gene-mapping, and so forth, and so forth. But it is worth mentioned that in these situations AI is doing what machines are actually supposed to do; remove tedium so that humans can step in to do the creative and intellectual work that gives us all purpose in life.

There's a quote that's been going around lately that I feel cuts right to the heart of the matter quite succinctly (and humorously).

"I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." - Joanna Maciejewska

Granted, letting machines remove all "hard" work is in and of itself a potential issue as well, and something which also warrants further discussion in the coming years, but the important thing here is that if there is one thing that pretty much everyone seemingly agreed upon until recently, it is that our creativity and ingenuity is is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and removing that from out lives can only lead to problems.

PS. I also want to make it clear that my monkey analogy is just that, an analogy. It is meant to illustrate AI's lack of a proper intellectual understanding of the essence of art and information in a somewhat relatable way. Actual monkeys, unlike machines, by virtue of being sentient animals, do actually have some kind of creative intuition and genuine understanding, though obviously not in a way comparable to us homo sapiens. A fish might have been a better analogy, but they can't type, and as far as I know there is no such as thing as 'the infinite fish theorem.'

My "Outdated" Archaeology Library

NOTE: This article is focused on an ever-growing bibliography and will therefore be updated at irregular intervals.

A selection from my collection of old history & archaeology books.

One of the most interesting challenges that faced me during the early stages of researching the first book in the Professor Korrigan series (The Starseed) was that I quickly realised that I couldn’t entirely rely on up-to-date archaeological research. After all, Korrigan's adventures take place around the middle of the 20th century, meaning that any advancements made in the field of archaeology (as well as our general knowledge of history) in the past several decades was not always usable to me. And scrubbing away recent advances in academia while doing my online research is difficult at best and impossible at worst. My solution therefore was an appropriately old-school one where I established a sort of personal library of “outdated” archaeology and history books.

One of my hobbies—if you can even call it a hobby (maybe ‘esoteric fascination’ is a more accurate description)—is to study how people in the past perceived the world around them. As a society we tend to quickly forget what we "all" believed yesterday and one of my biggest pet-peeves in movies and literature is when characters in historical settings talk, behave, and interact with the world around them in a manner that is comparable, or straight up indistinguishable, from the current zeitgeist. This is not simply anachronistic but it betrays the apathy and lack of genuine historical curiosity in the people responsible for such stories. I would also argue that there is more to be gained from getting a genuine glimpse into the past than it is to simply transplant “modern” thinking into a vintage setting.

IT STARTED IN OXFORD

This vintage library properly began its life at the University of Oxford during a research trip to the Archaeological Institute in 2023. I wanted to familiarise myself with Professor Korrigan’s Oxford stomping grounds and was given a quick tour of the building by Robin Mason, the Communications and Outreach manager at the School of Archaeology. During the tour we briefly passed a bookcase filled with mostly older research books during which she made a brief comment about how much more interesting the older book covers usually were (something which I very much agreed with), though I must admit that I took little note of it at the time. In my defense, though, my focus at the time was primarily on the building itself (and it is quite a complex maze of corridors and stairs to focus on) and I was at the time going through the final stages of a pretty bad cold I had been dealing with during my travels across both Norway and the UK during the past two weeks.

Upon my return home, however, I quickly realised that I had missed a golden opportunity by not snapping a few photos of the bookcase, so I emailed Mason and asked her if she could take a few pictures for me. She happily obliged and within the next ten minutes after having received the photos I had already purchased several of them online.

The Institute of Archaeology at 36 Beaumont St, Oxford.

BOOKS VS THE INTERNET

I earlier alluded to how difficult it can be to find out-of-date research material online, but keep in mind that the process is barely any easier when trying to discover older research literature to purchase. The problem is that most algorithms are designed to give you the newest or most popular information related to your search words. I won’t go into how I feel that this trend can be problematic even when dealing with current, up-to-date information, but suffice it to say, in my particular situation, this function is completely antithetical to my goals. Also, simply Googling “old archaeology books” mostly just confused the algorithm as all archaeology effectively deal with “old” things anyhow. You need to give it specific titles or author names, but then you're back at square one; how do you find old books if you don't know what to look for to begin with.

[2026 addendum: this issue has become somewhat easier since I started my Korrigan-related research in 2022/2023, though even with modern algorithms, finding the right outdated research without too many specific parameters can still be somewhat tricky.]

Once again, the old-school method proved the most efficient one. With my reference point from the School of Archaeology in Oxford, I managed to branch out to several books and authors based on the references found within. What started with a few general history books have developed into a collection of often highly esoteric books, ranging from half-a-century old ordnance surveys to beginner guides that would have been used by university students in the 1950s and 60s, much like the ones Korrigan would have taught during his fictional tenure at the university.

Of course, libraries in general are, and have been, a good source of information for me, especially the library at the Museum of Archaeology in my hometown of Stavanger, and I cannot stress how important websites like archive.org have been for finding scans of rare and/or expensive out of print books, though I will limit this article to just the books that I actually own.

In my case I think I'd have more luck with a card-catalogue than with Google.
(Photo taken at the Institute of Archaeology, May 2023.)

DON'T UNDERSTIMATE THE WEIRD AND UNUSUAL

I also want to point out that one of the areas where I find that a lot of “modern” views can most noticeably get in the way of authenticity, is in the field of mythology and folklore. A lot of modern researchers have an unfortunate tendency towards a strongly reductionist view of the world that can often come off as dismissive and emotionally cold, though this has in my experience become less of a problem in recent years and, I must point out, have never been too big an issue among anthropologists and religious scholars. Granted, if you go too far back in time the research literature you'll come across is often be prone towards the exact opposite problem, i.e. blatantly unscientific and often flamboyant assumptions that dabble in the esoteric and paranormal. But, in the context of my fiction writing, rather than proper historical research, these eccentric interpretations can often be exactly what I am looking for. Yet another benefit of “outdated” research books.

A great example of this latter point is Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monetheism. In this peculiar, but very fascinating analysis, the founder of psychology himself argues through psychoanalysis (naturally) that Moses was not only an Egyptian priest under Akhenaten, but that he was murdered by his semitic followers during the exodus. Freud proposes that through a long-remembered collective sense of guilt Moses was eventually elevated to the role of prophet as a form of spiritual atonement. Now, is this theory based on any scientific reasoning? Not really. But is it interesting? Definitely! And it is exactly the kind of odd thing that an eccentric researcher like Professor Korrigan might have found interesting.

It is important to stress that this collection isn’t only for my own fascination and private research into historiography, but an attempt to get into the headspace of the character of Professor Korrigan himself so that I can make him a more rounded and believable (not to mention more interesting) character.

PS. Since I'm a bibliophile geek, I naturally have my own Ex Libris book stamp. The design, which depicts Wotan (Odin), is taken from a 1910 edition of The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie illustrated by the great Arthur Rackham. This isn't strictly relevant to this article but when else will I get the chance to show off my personalised stamps—yet another of my old-school interests.

Adding to the provenance of a book that has been through many owners over the years (including a boarding school). Much of my collection consist of former library books.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andronicos, Manolis. Delphi. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon S.A., 1982.

Andronicos, Manolis. Olympia. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon S.A., 1982.

Blindheim, Charlotte., Ellen-Karine Hougen, Jon Høsøien, Arne Bjørn Thorbjørnsen, Henning Sinding-Larsen, Erik Lunde, Harald Brynildsen, Helge Ingstad, Anders Hagen, Sverre Marstrander, Alf Næsheim. Vikingtog og Vikingtid. Oslo: Chr. Schibsted Forlag, 1977.

Brodrick, M. & A. A. Morton. A Concise Dictionary of Egyptian Archaeology. London: Senate, 1996. First published in 1902 by Methuen & Company Ltd, London.

Budge, Ernest A. Wallis. The Mummy: Funeral Rites & Customs in Ancient Egypt. London: Senate, 1995. First published in 1893 by The University Press, Cambridge.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1987.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973. First published in 1949 by Bollingen Foundation Inc., New York.

Ceram, C.W. (Marek, Kurt W.). Gods, Graves & Scholars: The Story of Archaeology. Second, Revised and Substantially Enlarged Edition. London: Book Club Associates, 1971. First published in 1949 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH., Hamburg-Stuttgart.

Ceram, C.W. (Marek, Kurt W.). The First American: A Story of North American Archaeology. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971.

Childe, V. Gordon. The Dawn of European Civilization. Paladin, 1973. First published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd in 1925.

Childe, V. Gordon. What Happened in History. Pelican Books, 1948. First published in 1942.

Clark, Grahame. Archaeology and Society. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1972. First published 1939.

Deiss, Joseph Jay. Herculaneum: Italy's Buried Treasure. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. First published 1966.

Doblhofer, Ernst. Voices in Stone: The Decipherment of Ancient Scripts and Writings. Trans. Mervyn Savill. London: Souvenir Press, 1961 (1st UK edition). First published in 1957 in German by Paul Neff Verlag, Vienna.

Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. First published in 1939 by Hogarth Press.

Gibson, A. V. B. Instructions in Archaeology. London: Museum Press Limited, 1963.

Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2013. First published in Italy in 1976 by Giulio Einaudi editore.

Greene, Kevin. Roman Pottery. London: British Museum Press, 1992.

Hagen, Anders., Gerd Hennum, Egil Mikkelsen, Asbjørn Klepp, Anne Skatvedt, Sven Krohn, Arne Emil Christensen. De Første Nordmenn: Da Landet ble Befolket. Oslo: Chr. Schibsted Forlag, 1975.

Hawkes, Sonia Chadwick & Andrew Selkirk. Silver Jubilee Reflections. Oxford University Institute of Archaeology, 1987. Facsimile.

Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Field Archaeology: Some notes for beginners issued by the Ordnance Survey. London, 1963 (fourth impression 1966).

Hole, Christina. Witchcraft in England. London: Book Club Associates, 1977.

L'Orange, H. P. & P. J. Nordhagen. Mosaikk: Fra Antikk til Middelalder [translation: Mosaics: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages]. Stavanger: Dreyers Aksjeselskap, 1958.

Lillehammer, Grete. "Death and Grave: Burial Rituals of the Kvassheim Cemetary, Hå in Rogaland, SW Norway." AmS-Skrifter 13. Stavanger: Arkeologisk museum i Stavanger, 1996.

Oekonomides, Al. N. The Acropolis of Athens: A Supplementary Explanation. Translated by C. Tassouli. Athens: N Gouvoussis, 1996.

Revold, Reider, et al. Etruskernes Gåte: Etruskernes liv og kunst. Oslo: J. Chr. Gundersen, 1956.

Richmond, I. A. Roman Britain. Pelican Books, 1964. First published 1955.

Saklatvala, Beram. The Origins of the English People. David & Charles Newton Abbot, 1969.

Smith, Reginald Allender. Guide to Early Iron Age Antiquities. London: British Museum, 1925. Second edition.

Thompson, J. A. The Bible and Archaeology (Third Edition). Grand Rapids (MI): William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

Papahatzis, Nicos. Ancient Corinth: The Museums of Corinth, Isthmia and Sicyon. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon S.A., 1981.

Petsas, Photios. Delphi: Monuments and Museum. Athens: Krene Editions, 1981.

Piggott, Stuart. Ancient Europe from the beginnings of Agriculture to Classical Antiquity. Edinburgh University Press,1967. First published in 1965.

Piggott, Stuart. Approach to Archaeology. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1960. First published 1959.

Piggott, Stuart. The Druids. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993. First published in 1968.

Piggott, Stuart. Scotland Before History. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1958.

Proctor, G.L. The Vikings: Then and There Series. London: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd., 1964. First published in 1959.

von Bothmer, Dietrich. Guide to the Collections: Greek and Roman Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1968.

von Hagen, Victor Wolfgang. Realm of the Incas. New York: The New American Library, 1964. First published in 1957.

Webster, Graham. Practical Archaeology: An Introduction to Archaeological Field-work and Excavation. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1963.

Wells, H.G. & Raymond Postgate. The Outline of History: The Whole Story of Man, volume I. New York: Garden City Books, 1956.

Wells, H.G. & Raymond Postgate. The Outline of History: The Whole Story of Man, volume II. New York: Garden City Books, 1956.

Wheeler, Sir Mortimer. Archaeology from the Earth. Penguin Books, 1968. First published in 1954 by The Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Wheeler, Sir Mortimer. The Indus Civilization. London: Book Club Associates, 1976. Third edition. First published in 1955 by Cambridge University Press.

Wilson, Edmund. The Scrolls from the Dead Sea. Fontana Books, 1957. First published by W. H. Allen in 1955.

Wood, Eric S. Collins Field Guide to Archaeology in Britain. London: Book Club Associates, 1973. First published in 1967.

Updated 16 July, 2024: added Voices in Stone & Oxford Institute of Archeology Silver Jubilee Reflections.
Updated 04 September, 2024: added The Indus Civilization & The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a 16th Century Miller.
Updated 01 February, 2025: added Death and Grave: Burial Rituals of the Kvassheim Cemetery.
Updated 01 March, 2025: added Mosaikk: Fra Antikk til Middelalder, Guide to the Collections: Greek and Roman Art & The Acropolis of Athens.
Updated 21 May, 2025: added The Dawn of European Civilization, Archaeology and Society, Instructions in Archaeology, Roman Pottery, Roman Britain, Guide to Early Iron Age Antiquities, The Scrolls from the Dead Sea & Collins Field Guide to Archaeology in Britain.
Updated 25 November, 2025: added What Happened in History, Herculaneum & Delphi.
Updated 20 March, 2026: added Greek Religion.
Updated 16 July & 20 August, 2026: added Etruskernes Gåte & The Bible and Archaeology.
Updated 22 August, 2026: added Delphi, Olympia, Ancient Corinth & The Outline of History vol I & II.

Making The Wild Huntsman

In spring of 2021, as lockdowns were starting to ease in Norway, and after having spent the previous year writing my first novel, I felt the need to flex my filmmaking muscles again and decided to make a short Fantasy film. Equipped with a meagre budget of roughly 10,000 NOK (the equivalent of about $900 or £700) and not much else—I was pretty much on my own and had little to no experience with the small film culture that exists on the Norwegian south-west coast around my hometown of Stavanger.

Inspired by the English folktale of the Odinic character Herne the Hunter, I quickly wrote a simple script and set out looking for my cast and crew.

My biggest stroke of luck was when I come in contact with actor and model Thor Rosland, who is generally known for his commercials for The Beard Struggle, in which dressed as a Viking, he promotes a series of beard oils and grooming products in comedic skits which had become something on an online sensation.

And with the upcoming release of The Pendragon Cycle, in which Thor plays Hengist, the warlord of the Saxons, this seemed like a good opportunity to reminisce a little about my short film with Thor; The Wild Huntsman.

THE PREMISE

First off, I should probably explain in more details where I got the idea for the Huntsman and why I chose to make a short film out of it.

I’ve always been fascinated by fairy tales, folk stories and myths from across the world. I'm especially fascinated by symbolic archetypes, doubly so when they appear across borders in the myths of neighbouring cultures. So, while looking for inspiration for my script, I came across the Danish/German folk tale of "The Fairy Hunter," a simple story about a hunter that kills an elf-girl (note that elf in this case refers to a more mischievous fay-like creature rather than the noble elves popularised by books/films like Lord of the Rings). Shortly after I came across the British legend of Herne the hunter, an antlered huntsman who is believed to be an incarnation of both the Celtic god Cernunnos and the head of the Norse gods; Odin—the latter of which is also the leader of the Wild Hunt. With these two simple stories in mind, I decided to combine them and create my own little cross-cultural archetype myth.

The simplicity of both stories also made them perfect for my meagre budget and resources. I knew that my hometown of Stavanger could provide me with plenty of beautiful nature scenery befitting both folk tales, but also a perfect replica of an Iron Age farmhouse. I contacted the owners early on in the production and received permission to shoot parts of my short there, as well as borrow some of their period-accurate costumes.

I was off to a good start.

RALLYING A CAST & CREW

The lead (different from the titular character) proved to be the most difficult to cast as I required someone fairly young but who still had a Viking-quality to his appearance. The casting of Thor as the Huntsman had been something of a lucky stroke, and all the characters (despite there only being four) proved difficult. Stavanger simply isn’t a place with that large a film industry or acting community, and the fact I was producing a micro budget short film and was only offering to cover expenses didn’t exactly help much either.

All attempts at casting the lead led me to an assortment of Oslo actors that had to be rejected due to the travel costs, though I eventually got into contact with Vegard Heggelund, a young actor with a proper Nordic look to him who, despite living and studying in Oslo, was actually from Karmøy—a large island not far north of Stavanger. It just so happened that he was planning a visit home for the summer holiday and he was more than willing to sacrifice a weekend for this project provided I could cover the cost of the relatively short trip down to Stavanger and accommodation, a request I was more than happy to oblige.

The shooting crew consisted of three media students from the University in Stavanger, a somewhat meager number for a film shoot but perfectly serviceable for a small project like this—it's worth mentioning that I have worked with less in the past, though I wouldn't recommend it. Still, it was an odd adjustment after having recently spent some time in London with film crews of at least a dozen or so people (which is still quite small).

At the risk of sounding like a money pincher, I've found that you can save a lot of money by "hiring" students as they are usually more than happy to get the chance to add any project to their CV before they've even finished their education. I also got the camera equipment for free via the university as I had borrowed from them before, so they knew I was someone who could be trusted with their equipment.

The on-set photographer; Kornelius Kiil Enoksen, (whose excellent photos I’ve used throughout this article) is a friend of mine from my days studying Media & Communications. The rest of the crew consisted of pretty much every family member, friend, or friend-of-a-friend that I could convince to spend a weekend in July hanging out in a park while the rest of us were running about within the nearby woods getting our shots.

ANTLERS, SPEARS & COW TAILS

In the same way that digital cameras have become a godsend for the low budget filmmaker (though I do love analogue film), so has Etsy for the micro budget prop-maker.

You’d think the Huntsman’s antlers would have proven to be the most difficult part of the pre-production—and in a sense it still was—but after some brief online searching I came across someone who made realistic looking horns and antlers for fantasy cosplayers. As luck would have it, she was also Norwegian, albeit living in Oslo, but after contacting her and explaining what I needed she was more than willing to make me some custom antlers with strengthened supports for the production.

Etsy also provided me with a pretty convincing ancient-looking spearhead made from fiberglass and polyester resin, as well as the Mystery Girls’ animal appendage. One learns many strange things while working on projects like this, and the fact that you can buy real cow tails online is one of those things that really shouldn't surprise you, but receiving one in the mail is a whole other thing.

The more “normal” props, such as a mediaeval fishing rod, I constructed myself. There’s not much to say about the making of the rod, it’s about what you’d expect, a bit of whittling, some twine, glue, etc. and the bone hooks were fashioned out of clay. But the one thing that I am quite proud of about this prop is just how historically accurate it turned out to be. No fishing rods have ever been found by archaeologist in Scandinavia, though based on the numerous discoveries of hooks made from deer bone it is safe to assume that they were used during the Viking Age. The simple rod I made was based off recreations of English fishing rods from the Middle Ages, but only a year or so after the film’s premiere I went to the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger and saw an exhibition of experimental recreations of bone hooks, and I was pleased to see that they looked virtually identical to my fake ones.

A few weeks before the shoot I met Thor in his home for a costume fitting and to try out the newly arrived antlers from Oslo.

When it came to the costume for the Huntsman, I chose, both for practical and thematic reasons, to do the complete opposite that I planned on doing for the main character (the "Young Viking") and his family, and ignored historical accuracy completely. The practical reason for this was, of course, primarily because Thor could provide his own costume, which was more Hollywood inspired than anything based on history or archaeology. But because I knew the Huntsman would have to stand out and appear otherworldly when compared to the more "normal" characters, the exaggerated costumes he used for his Beard Struggle commercials fit perfectly, though admittedly I did end up choosing the most down to earth pieces he had in his wardrobe. Being a mythical creature that is part of the natural order I felt the brown leather gave him a suitably “earthy” look, while the fur around his shoulders complimented the animal-hybrid look of the antlers, making him appear somewhat elemental.

THE IRON AGE FARM

To paraphrase what I wrote in a previous blog article (The Locations that Inspired The Starseed); Just a few kilometres uphill from the inlet where Harald Fairhair united the tribes of Norway into a single nation after the battle of Hafrsfjord in 872 AD, a trio of carefully reconstructed Iron Age longhouses lie in the shadows of three brutalist apartment blocks from the mid-1970s.

I’ve been coming to this location semi-regularly since childhood (I even spent a night there as a Boy Scout) and have always been fascinated by the feeling of being transported back in time when visiting, that is, as long as you look away from the aforementioned apartment blocks, or the nearby visitors centre, and if you look south you can pretty much see the entirety of the University in Stavanger, but, if you point your camera in the right direction, or simply stay within the longhouses, then it really does feel like you’ve travelled back to the Iron Age. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

As mentioned, I had contacted the manager of the Iron Age Farm early on in the project and I quickly received permission from her to shoot in and about the open-door museum, that is, provided we arrived before opening time, so as to not crash with any potential visitors. We were also given permission to pick out some of the authentic period-costumes they had for Vegard to wear throughout the shoot (even when not filming on the site) and we were told that the shoot would be overseen by one of their regular hosts—in costume no less. They were, however, somewhat vague on who exactly would be there when we arrived for the shoot, but assured me that whoever they were, they wouldn’t mind being on camera. So, I adjusted the script slightly by adding a brother/sister/mother background character, depending on who actually did show up.

We arrived early in the morning on June 26, having pretty much just a little over an hour to prepare and shoot everything we needed before the tourist would start arriving. We were greeted by a young woman in a period accurate dress named Johanne, and as such the main character ended up with a sister. Vegard was taken to the costume room and quickly fitted with his costume, while actor Pål Gunnar Eid Gribbestad, who played his father, provided his own costume.

The host proved very enthusiastic about the project and lit a fire within the largest longhouse. She even dropped by the kitchen in the visitor centre café to get some fish to cook on the stone plate to add some domestic realism to the film's opening scene. She had no qualms about being on camera and even ended up becoming the first character we see in the finished film. Lit primarily by the fire (and a flickering red LED light), the opening shots of Johanne and Paul Gunnar are, I think, some of the best in the film.

All went according to schedule, and we managed to wrap up just as the doors officially opened on the Iron Age Farm. While the film crew began carrying all the camera equipment away from the longhouses towards the visitor centre a small group of period-dressed hosts crossed us going in the opposite direction carrying wooden swords and other replicas of Iron Age implements meant to entertain and educate visitors.

THE LAKE AND THE FOREST

The rest of the film was shot around a small lake called Lille Stokkavann (lit: Little Stokka Lake) a short walk from where my mother, aunts and uncle grew up—I even spent part of my own childhood here, so it was very familiar territory.

When we arrived at our "green room," a nearby barn turned into a community centre, the rest of the crew had already unpacked and were waiting for us. We shot everything needed around the lake that day, as well as a long sequence within the nearby woods which in the final edit was cut down to a mere two shots. That’s filmmaking for you.

We returned to the same location for the second day, this time being joined by Thor Rosland, and spent the entire day within a small clearing close to a well-travelled gravel footpath hugging the edge of the lake. The crew of friends and family kept watch while the rest of us were working within the forest, informing joggers and people simply out for a stroll that there was a shoot going on. Most people were quite polite and passed by quietly, though we did receive a fair number of curious onlookers peeking at us through the bramble. Hardly surprising really, it’s not every day you see a large Viking with antlers while walking your dog.

I had originally planned to use a smoke machine for this sequence to add a haunting, mystical atmosphere to the already picturesque forest clearing, but although I had acquired one via the university and had successfully tested it in the studio there a few days earlier, once we set it up in the forest, with a portable battery, spare fluid and everything, the little box-like machine merely sputtered out a few wimpy whisp of smoke and refused to give us anything else.

While irksome, the smoke machine was hardly necessary to finish the scene, even if I did loose much of the mythic aura I wanted to convey. At least the lights worked as intended, and I could console myself by getting a chance to play with some coloured gels for the first time, something which I learned a lot from and intend to continue to do in future film projects. I may have been denied my smoke, but I did succeed in using the unnatural green lighting as a means of conveying that there was something otherworldly about this forest and its two supernatural inhabitants.

Once the broken smoke machine had been ditched the shoot went quite smoothly, that is as smoothly as a shoot can be when an actor is forced to wear wobbly antlers on his head inside a dense forest, but apart from the logistics of shooting everything out of order (more so than usual) there were little to complain about, that is, except for the poor actress playing the Mystery Girl, who, unlike the two men, wore a pretty skimpy dress that made her an easy target to a swarm of very persistent gnats. I later learned she’d been bitten quite often, but she had merely soldiered on and finished the shoot with very few complaints.

THE MYSTERY GIRL

Now, unless you're a Scandinavian, or just so happen to be well-read on Nordic folklore, you are probably not familiar with the creature that the Mystery Girl is revealed to be at the end of the short film. Although certain liberties have been taken with this myth, most Scandinavians watching the short will instantly recognise her as a Hulder (or Huldra) the moment her cow tail is revealed.

The Hulder is for all intents and purposes the Nordic equivalent of a siren or nymph, i.e. a seductress that leads men to their doom by enticing them to follow her into the forest.

As with most folklore it’s hard to pin down the exact nature of a Hulder, though they are consistently depicted as young, beautiful blonde girls with a cow’s tail (which they usually try to hide). In many stories they also have a large hole on their back described as resembling a rotten tree stump. My Hulder obviously deviates a fair bit from much of this, the back-hole simply because it wouldn’t have been doable within the tiny budget (and frankly I don’t see what the point of it is beyond being weird) and although I originally intended to cast a Norwegian actress with blonde hair, actress Helen Sertsu was chosen due to her enthusiasm for the project and her availability. With this change in ethnicity, I decided to update the originally planned costume from an Iron Age dress to something more Mediterranean, specifically a Greek-inspired Khiton dress, implying that this creature in human form did not solely prey on Scandinavians, but had been chased by the Huntsman across multiple countries for who knows how many centuries. I also added additional details to her costume to further imply this long history, such as an amber necklace which suggested she had been in central Europe, a Celtic broch attached to her belt, and I even had some silver thread worked into the hem of the dress to add a subtle anachronism that made her seem just a little out of place in the “real world” of the Young Viking.

POST-PRODUCTION & RELEASE

The post-production phase proved to be somewhat more international than the shoot. The music was composed by Swedish artist Zacharias Wolfe, whom I had first heard of via The London Film Academy, and “Yggdrasill,” the song which plays over the end credits was licensed from Dutch singer and songwriter Jonathan Barendsma, AKA Gealdýr. The visual effects were done by Guilherme Filipe, while the rest of the process, such as film editing, colour grading, etc. was either done by myself or Kevin Nordlander (who was also the Assistant Director).

The Wild Huntsman had its premiere in the US, February 18, 2022, at the Pensacon Short Film Festival in Pensacola, Florida.