Research on the Interaction between Humans and Technology in AI Media Art from the Perspective of Media Technology Affordance

Abstract

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence, the creative ecosystem of media art is undergoing profound transformation. This study, based on the theory of media technology affordance, explores the interactive relationship between humans and technology in AI-driven media art creation, focusing on two core issues: “How does technology shape the artistic process?” and “How does human agency reconstruct creation?” It adopts the ethnographic method in qualitative research, combining in-depth interviews with 14 practitioners and participant observation in an AI short drama company. The research finds that AI tools like Doubao and Keling, through their technical features (such as text-to-image and image-to-video generation), have lowered the creative threshold and provided nearly unlimited resources. However, this is accompanied by a tendency towards templating. But creators, through strategies such as technology integration, aesthetic selection, and re-editing, actively domesticate technology, highlighting human subjectivity. AI media art is not a product dominated by technology, but a dynamic outcome of the mutual negotiation and co-generation of technological affordance and human agency in specific contexts.