A University of Alaska Fairbanks student is out on bail after ripping almost 60 images off the walls of a university art gallery and eating some of them earlier this month.
The incident has since gone viral — prompting countless social media posts and even reaching national outlets. Lizzy Hahn, an undergraduate journalism student at UAF, broke the story in The Sun Star, the school’s student-run newspaper.
She said the incident is shaping culture and policy around AI on campus.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Lizzy Hahn: A student was tearing Polaroids off of an exhibit in the UAF Art Gallery and putting them in his mouth, chewing them, swallowing some bits, but spitting some bits out. This was a protest against the use of AI art, since this exhibit was made in collaboration between the artist, Nick Dwyer, and AI — like, he used ChatGPT to help him make it.
Shelby Herbert: Whoa. Tell me what happened to the protester.
LH: His name is Graham Granger. He was arrested by the UAF police and charged with criminal mischief in the fifth degree, and he was taken to the Fairbanks Correctional Center, where he was for about six or seven hours, I believe. So, he's out on bail.
SH: That was quite a splashy headline, and that story has really sprouted wings. I've had folks texting me from the East Coast about it. How does it feel to see your work get so much exposure?
LH: It's really insane to me. I am a young journalist here at UAF. I'm a senior graduating soon, so like this is my first story to go — some people have said that it's going viral. It has definitely been picked up by multiple, multiple, multiple news sources. Art News for one, Brut America for another.
SH: I think I just saw it in the New York Post?
LH: Yeah. Just so many media sources that have taken the information and my images and spread them to their corners of the world.
SH: Tell me about where you were when you found out this was going down.
LH: That's actually kind of a funny story. I'm in a pottery class, and it's in the fine arts building. And as I was walking in, I noticed that there was a police car outside of the building. So, I walk into class, and then my editor, Colin, starts texting our whole staff’s Slack. And he's like, “Hey, is anyone in the arts building? There's a student protesting in the gallery.”
So I asked my pottery teacher, like, “Hey, do you know anything about this?” And she’s like, “Yeah, I do.” So we walk into the gallery together, and all we see is just these torn up, chewed up bits of Polaroids. The artist was there, Nick Dwyer, and he was like, “Yeah, someone came and he started chewing up my work.”
SH: And how does the artist feel about all of this?
LH: He was upset, and rightfully so. This was his MFA exhibit. It's hard to see your art destroyed like this. He had put a lot of time and effort into this. He wanted to press charges, and he had begun to press charges. But then the next day, things had kind of cooled down, he had talked to some of the art professors, and had realized that pressing charges maybe wouldn't be the best idea.
SH: Lizzy, you’re a journalism student and a student-reporter, but you also have a foot in the art world — you’re an art minor. Can you tell me about how AI content and tools are being received on campus, especially in the humanities?
LH: Yeah, so every teacher has an AI policy. This has been a fairly new development to the syllabi that we are getting. It’s gone from teachers saying, “You’re not allowed to use AI, don’t use AI.” But in the past year, there's been kind of a shift towards like, yes, you can use AI, but cite it.
Then also, in the art community, we're starting to see a little more use of AI, and that has really been because of Nick. Like, Nick is really spearheading the use of AI. Art and AI is kind of an interesting mashup because you don't really think of them going together, but Nick has really used AI in his pottery and now in this AI art exhibit.
I don't know that many students personally, besides Nick, who are using AI art, but I think that in the future, it totally could change and the use of AI could become more common.
SH: You’re working on part two of the story. Can you give us a little tease about what comes next?
LH: Yeah, I’m kind of looking into what is happening here at UAF, because since this protest has occurred, there has been a lot of uprise. Our student government here on campus has actually proposed a resolution to ban AI art in the department. But at the same time, the art department is creating a statement about their AI policies. So, unsure where that will go, but bright futures ahead!