In our new series ARTernative we connect with interesting artistst and talk about their work, exhibitions, paintings, video’s or whatever they would like to showcase to the world. Recently All Buttoned Up stumbled upon the Instagram-page of Italian underground artist Simon Foster Allin. As a photographer he portrayes Punk and Skinheads in a very unique way. We reached out to him to talk about his new project, his art, photography and technology. It turned out to be a lengthy talk where Simon even asked us some questions about what the future holds for us in a world where technology develops so fast.
Introduction
Hi Simon. Thank you for your time! How are you doing? Can you introduce yourself please?
Yeah sure! Simon Foster Allin is my art name, not my real name. I like to keep my real name unknown to the public. I am Italian and I work in the photography field. I always felt attracted to the Punkrock world as an active passionate musician.
Simon’s work
Ah, so you are an artist and photographer. Can you tell us something about your work? How did you start creating art?
My job and passion is to photograph the world. I started experimenting only one month ago with this project, and at the beginning the results where different: fake, surreal in some way. After a little trying I understood what better fits my background and my photographic taste.
Creating art with A.I.
What do you mean with fake?
The photo you see is created with AI. The person you see does not exist.
How do you create those images? I totally understand that you don’t want to reveil all your secrets, but just a bit so our readers understand how it works?
I started out with entering some words in the prompt in the software, but after a lot of testing and tweaking I understood it’s limits and how it works. I’m improving every day. It’s is going to be a revolution in a lot of artistic fields, some in a good way and some in a bad way. But it is something we can’t stop or ignore anymore.
I can say after weeks of playing I found a series of commands that help me getting the results I like. The AI generates levels of realism, and to take it next level I ask it to randomly change things. This means that you for example like the eyes after a first try but not the background of the last try, so you have to cut and edit some stuff. For every scene I imagine I can at least make 20 iterations or more to test. And after adjustments to the lightning I colorgrade it.
Sometimes results are exellent, but if they don’t represent “my style” I don’t use it. I always take a couple of days to take some decisions. In the end I would like to represent every subculture with my work.
Is it harder to ‘generate’ someone who looks like a skinhead/punk in comparison to a generic person?
Not at all! To be honest hair need a lot of work to make it look nice. This just a first secret how I do it 😉 Punks are harder than Skinheads!
Skinheads
What are in your opinion the characteristics of a skinhead? What makes a skinhead a skinhead?
Good question! I would define myself as a Punkrocker, but I have a lot of Skinhead friends. I played for some time in an Oi! band called Klasse Kriminale. Well, I can say what makes a Skinhead a Skinhead is another Skinhead. It’s the influence people have on eachother and the ability to create unite group and strong relationships.
Technology
What do you think of technology nowadays? AI (Artificial Intelligence) is becoming really powerful don’t you think?
I always hated computers but it was necessary to learn how to use them. Now I’m 40, so I was born in analog world. I believe technology is changing the world in a bad way.
Why do you think technology is changing the world in a bad way?
Human relationships were better when I was young. Things are different now in a bad way I think. I don’t keep it a secret it’s fake when people ask me about my work, but you have to dig deeper a bit to know it’s artificial. When you realise it first you are amazed, but after a while it gives you a sense of emptiness, especially as a photographer. What did you think when you reached out to me when I told you that this persons do not exist?
We were shocked! We only saw the photo’s on your Instagram grid and they look so real!
I know right? I’d like to express this feeling to a bigger audience. Probably Instagram is not the right place for it, but it’s a start…
Book
Well, you gained our attention so you did a nice job! So what are your future plans with your art?
I’d like to publish a book with all the words on the last pages. And I want to make printed versions available of my work.
About the book: what would you like to tell on those last pages?
I would reveil there that the people you saw don’t really exist, like a big surprise!
Impact of A.I.
You probably heard of OpenAI, the AI chatbot everyone is talking about lately. What do you think of it?
Can I ask you something? You at All Buttoned Up are journalists, so do you think the OpenAI chatbot will change journalism as a whole too?
Well, we think it could be a great tool to come up with new ideas and the first released version is already pretty good. We actually used it to generate basic texts for pages, but it wasn’t perfect so we had to change quite some stuff to make it work. For basic things like a Ikea-manuals it could be very useful.
Is it going to cut jobs?
For sure. In the future AI could make some jobs redundent and that’s pretty scary when you think about it. AI is a tool, and like a hammer you can use it for something good and bad.
We have a question again for you: what is the message you would like to spread to the world?
Wow, I feel a bit David Bowie in this question! Haha! I would people like to ask themselves questions. Do not have answers, just questions. Like, where are we going?
And where are we going? Do you know the answer?
No…
Should we know?
Better if we don’t know… I believe in the old Punk-anthem No Future.
Ignorance is bliss, right? Simon, thank you so much for this very interesting talk. Keep up your work and like always: stay rude!
Simon Foster Allin’s new project is called ‘These Rebels Do not Exist‘. Printed versions of his art will be available soon. If you would like to support Simon please follow him on Instagram!
All content used in this article is shared with consent of the creator.
Jera On Air 2025: more names (update) 
Better Lovers – Highly Irresponsible 
Lee 
The Offspring – Supercharged