The Influence of Iconic Art (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

One consideration with classics, particularly children’s, is the existence of images — often illustrations that accompanied the original book — that have powerfully embedded themselves in our minds. These images have also embedded themselves in AI’s mind because it was trained on an LLM that includes them (unless they’ve somehow been excluded). The fact that they have been duplicated many times since their original appearance gives them added weight. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, to take a well-known example, immediately conjures John Tenniel’s evocative drawings.

When imagery is truly iconic, we aim to massage the dreams a little, which at times requires some manual (non-automated) post-production work.

Our Alice is not exactly like Tenniel’s. For one, ours is animated. We see her more like the Alice the world has come to see, who was — is — of course influenced by him.

The Dreamaker behind Hypnovels creates entire animations — but it’s crucial to remember that you don’t need to keep an animation exactly as is.

Do, if you’re happy with it.

Or you can do things to change it.

Or you can discard it and start again.