Over the weekend, Tedeschi Trucks Band played a pair of shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Ahead of the gigs, the husband-and-wife blues rock duo shared prints on Instagram that would also be available for attendees to purchase at the venue. But some folks were skeptical. The post was flooded with comments accusing the band of using AI to generate the artwork, citing the suspicious “artist collective” credited, as well as the fact that the illustration doesn’t look much like Red Rocks at all. There aren’t even any stairs!
The poster art was credited to Brilliant Workshop, an Instagram account with fewer than 200 followers that has only been active for two months. This is the first work Brilliant Workshop has shared on Instagram, and this is what its apparent brand director Chapin Atchison wrote when unveiling the posters:
This contrasting diptych is a set of love letters to the majestic Red Rocks venue, celebrating the eternal dance between nature and sound. Visualizing the unforgettable experiences and timeless memories of experiencing live music at nature’s greatest stage. Each poster tells half the story, and together they sing. From Dusk to Dawn, the sun and moon rotate positions. The eagle and wolf trade places in the skyline and shadows. The eager crowd anticipates Derek [Trucks], Susan [Tedeschi], and the entire band taking to the stage. The landscape stands silent witness, as the music comes alive where the rocks touch the sky.
AI-generated music videos have caused plenty of controversy in the music world, but Tedeschi and Trucks say they were not aware the images were created with AI, if they indeed were. Yesterday the band apologized. In a statement, they wrote:
Yesterday our fan community brought to our attention that the Red Rocks poster art may have been generated by Al. We would like to express our gratitude for our fans’ concern for the creative community. In our development process, we believed we were giving an artist with a reputable portfolio in other disciplines of art a first opportunity to create a gig poster.
We have been investigating the situation and have requested the artist to provide us with files outlining his creative process. At this time we have not received this information, and would like to apologize to the artist community that we find ourselves in this unfortunate situation. Going forward we will be refining our review process to prevent this from happening again.
We will be donating all proceeds from last night and tonight’s poster sales to Access Gallery.
I don’t feel bad saying it’s also just ugly. See it and the relevant posts below.
