A.I. KITSCH AND PSEUDO ART IN THE ORTHO-SPHERE (UPDATE)

Today we are taking our reports into a different direction. No news, no wars, or corrupt politicians. We warned you that the surge in Eastern Orthodox interest would come with a number of unexpected epicultural phenomena. Some we have already reported on, such as the exposure to adversarial media attention (link) and deep seated Western error creeping into the Ortho-sphere (link). A development that might easily be overlooked as a minor issue, is the emerging of pseudo Orthodox esthetics in various places, from AI designed icons violating every rule in the book to AI generated music and illustrations that even include faux medieval Greek and Latin. Fasten seatbelts! It's getting a bit wild. 

Dec. 6, 2025 FactRushMusic: Anthem of Modern Neo Byzantine Empire. Details. 

Nice kitsch! But it isn't art. When you analyze what it is you are looking at, it's the art of the person feeding the machine with the right prompts that produced this work. 

This is not the art of composition, painting or photography. I don't know enough about AI to know what skill is involved, but we may yet be surprised. One thing I noticed though: the compositions seem to follow particular formulas. 

Dec. 5, 2025 NS Productions Medieval: Epic Byzantine Music - Emperor crowned by God (Imperator a Deo coronatus). Details. Energize subtitles!

While these secular examples might still be appreciated on some level if you are willing to overlook the obvious silliness, the following is a serious problem from the theological point of view.

Pinterest is FLOODED with AI “iconography” slop and legions of unscrupulous, money grubbing Etsy accounts selling prints of it all.

Only a matter of time before you step into a parish that has this junk on their walls and or iconostasis.

It’s later than you think! pic.twitter.com/o8MetHZI5o

— Shayne Swenson Icons ☦︎ (@ShayneSwenson) December 14, 2025

Note on the subject of history: Western history tends to ignore the entire Eastern Roman Empire for reasons best known to Western historians. We have often commented on the fact speculating about their motives. Here is a short docu on some thousand years of 'lost' Eastern Roman history from the Greek perspective if you're as fascinated by the subject as we are. Hit the button for subtitles (link).

Note on the subject of AI prompting: Messing around a little with prompting AI as a glorified search engine, shows you have to very precise in your key words, or the AI will misunderstand you. That is a good thing! Sloppily yapping away is not going to be rewarded with good results by the machine. So that's a plus. 

- More on Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire, Eastern Orthodoxy, iconography, Artificial Intelligence, AI art -