Mayhem as Aesthetic: When Digital Fantasy Feels like Foreshadowing

By With ESS

The use of provocative imagery to capture attention is nothing new. From clickbait headlines to political photojournalism, artist and media curators have long understood the emotional currency of crisis. What is new, however, is the accessibility of hyperreal precision of AI tools—and the provocative ways they are now being used to aestheticise disaster.

Violence and chaos have been romanticised throughout history. Today, we’ve been conditioned to not flinch at the sound of gun cocking layered into our favourite rap tracks; We consume cinematic violence, conflict, war and societal breakdown on our screens everyday consciously or otherwise. But something feels different about the kind of video-realistic AI editing I’m referring to.

There’s been a recent rise in AI-edited fashion content depicting explosions, floods, guns, and war-torn environments—often with models posed indifferently in the foreground. I came across one post suggesting a terrorist attack, another with a model standing calmly as the Colosseum exploded behind her. Each of these images uses AI in an eerily convincing way, all in the name of aesthetic dressage.

These aren’t documentaries. They’re ads, moodboards, stylised edits all circulating in social media feeds with no context and minimal reflection. What we are witnessing feels like more than digital experimentation but rather a reflection of cultural dissonance. As if playing with the tools of crisis is not enough— we are fetishising them; And in the process, real-world violence becomes another visual texture to anecdotally scroll past.

So where is the line? To be honest, I have no idea but I do have questions.

When does digital art stop serving as social commentary and start functioning as disassociation?

And maybe more worryingly (given current politics)—what happens when AI-generated apocalypse looks so convincing it starts to feel like foreshadowing?

In a world where the line between content and reality is on 90% Gaussian blur—is aestheticising mayhem not just desensitising us but preparing us to accept it?