ArteActa 2025, 13:1-18 | DOI: 10.62804/aa.2025.002

Administering (AI) Attention: Ekphrasis and the Poetics of Prompting

Rolf Hughes
EIT Culture & Creativity

“Administering (AI) Attention: Ekphrasis and the Poetics of Prompting” explores how the act of prompting generative AI constitutes a new form of artistic authorship and aesthetic practice, grounded in historical frameworks of conceptual art, creative constraint, and ekphrasis. Drawing an analogy with Kafka’s messengers − figures navigating indeterminate pathways − the paper positions AI as a similarly enigmatic collaborator, interpreting human prompts through opaque, algorithmic processes. Prompts are theorised as a form of micro-ekphrasis: textual acts that mediate between human intention and machine-generated image or sound. Through interdisciplinary analysis involving rhetoric, media theory, and art history, the paper argues that prompting is both a technique of control and an invitation to serendipity, echoing aleatory practices in literature and music. The dynamics of prompting require artists to develop new literacies of attention management, navigating between distraction and focus in both human cognition and machine processing. Case studies, including iterative experiments with Midjourney, demonstrate how AI prompting functions as a contemporary poetics, reframing authorship, creativity, and collaboration. By linking AI prompting to traditional pedagogical practices and avant-garde methods, this study reveals how generative systems extend and transform long-standing artistic strategies, offering a critical framework for understanding AI’s evolving role in the creative process.

Keywords: prompting, creative writing, performative arts, visual arts, ai, ai generated art, ekphrasis, conceptual art, attention

Published: July 15, 2025  Show citation

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Hughes, R. (2025). Administering (AI) Attention: Ekphrasis and the Poetics of Prompting. ArteActa, 8(13), 1-18. doi: 10.62804/aa.2025.002

References

ArteActa. 2024. “Open Call for Contributions: AI (and) ART: Poetics of Prompting”. ArteActa: Journal for Performing Arts and Artistic Research.
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/portal/announcement?announcement=2631912.
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    References

    1. ArteActa. 2024. "Open Call for Contributions: AI (and) ART: Poetics of Prompting". ArteActa: Journal for Performing Arts and Artistic Research. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/portal/announcement?announcement=2631912.
    2. Auster, Paul. 2004. Moon Palace. London: Faber & Faber. Benjamin, Walter. 2008. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Translated by J. A. Underwood. London: Penguin Books.
    3. Bermejo, Fernando. 2007. "Review of The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information, by Richard A. Lanham". Journal of Communication 57: 606-607. International Communication Association. Go to original source...
    4. Crogan, Patrick, and Sam Kinsley. 2012. "Paying Attention: Towards a Critique of the Attention Economy". Culture Machine 13. https://scispace.com/pdf/paying-attention-towards-a-critique-of-the-attention-economy-1kw2gehx6x.pdf.
    5. Davenport, Thomas H., and John C. Beck. 2001. The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
    6. Kafka, Franz. 1991. The Blue Octavo Notebooks. Edited by Max Brod. Translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins. Cambridge, MA: Exact Change.
    7. Kharms, Daniil Ivanovich. 2009. Blue Notebook 10 (1937). Translated by Robert Chandler. London: Ardis.
    8. Lanham, Richard A. 1995. The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    9. Lorusso, Silvio. 2024. "Deep Dreaming Willy Wonka: AI Weird as the New Kitsch". https://silviolorusso.com/publication/ai-weird-as-the-new-kitsch/. Accessed 10 November 2024.
    10. North, Paul. 2012. The Problem of Distraction. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
    11. Terranova, Tiziana. 2012. "Attention, Economy and the Brain". Culture Machine 13. https://culturemachine.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/465-973-1-PB.pdf.
    12. Vettehen, Paul H., and Gabi Schaap. 2023. "An Attention Economic Perspective on the Future of the Information Age". Futures 15 (October 2023): 103243. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328723001477. Go to original source...
    13. Weiner, Lawrence. 1968. "Statement of Intent". First published in January 5-31, 1969, exhibition catalogue. New York: Seth Siegelaub, 1969. Unpaginated

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