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Chasing Perfection

By Johanna Kaasik

  • Volume 26
  • Video Essay
  • Analysis
Hands typing on a black keyboard in front of a curved monitor displaying text, in an office.
Thumbnail image of repetition, routine, and digital labor from "Chasing Perfection" by author
 
AI Acknowledgment from author Johanna Kaasik:

I used AI to generate the images through Gemini's Nanobanana and asked ChatGPT how to better prompt Gemini to get the images I wanted. For example, I used the following prompt for Gemini: "A photorealistic true first-person perspective image of lying in bed in a dark room with the only light being from an alarm clock that says 12:00 AM, and you are restlessly unable to sleep."

Works Cited

Grieg, Edvard. “Morning Mood” from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46. Performed by Orchestra del Teatro Alla Scala, conducted by Victorien Vanoosten. YouTube, uploaded by medici.tv, 30 Apr. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cleowDyccmQ. Accessed 1 June 2026.

Discussion Questions

  1. The video essay presents its argument entirely through image, editing, and music, without explicit narration. What impact does such a choice have on your rhetorical engagement with the essay? How does the omission of narration impact the video’s argument, and the presentation of its argument through image, editing, and music alone?

  2. This video essay is directly engaged with generative AI, both in its construction and even, perhaps, in its intellectual and argumentative concerns. With so much cultural anxiety around AI’s impact on authentic learning and academic integrity, in what ways might we see this author’s engagement of AI as judicious and responsible? In what ways might it not be?

Companion Material
Instructor's Statement from Nathaniel Myers:
The video essay above represents the work of a student in a course titled Writing in the Age of AI, which, among other things, seeks to support students as they navigate the affordances, limitations, and liabilities of generative AI technologies in the writing process. Kaasik's video essay offers a model for an approach that finds a place for AI while still retaining distinctly human authorship.
 
In this instance, Kaasik used AI in two capacities: first, using a technique sometimes called "metaprompting," which we discuss in class, and which requires knowledge and consideration of rhetorical context and prompting strategies, Kaasik prompted ChatGPT to give feedback and generate prompts for Google's image-generation tool, NanoBanana. Second, informed by ChatGPT's feedback and prompts but defined by the aesthetic and rhetorical parameters Kaasik herself established, she used NanoBanana to generate and iterate on the images themselves.
 
Moreover, Kaasik maintained primary authorial control over the production and organization of the video essay once the AI images were generated. Using tools such as Google Slides, Canva, and Epidemic (for royalty-free music), Kaasik defined the argumentative shape of the essay, demonstrating key concepts discussed in class, such as "show, don't tell," rhetorical patterning, and, more generally, screen literacy techniques (such as editing). AI thus supplemented Kaasik's process rather than replaced it.
 
Finally, Kaasik's AI Acknowledgment models an important element of composition in an era of AI—namely, authorial transparency around the use of AI tools. In Kaasik's Acknowledgment, she names the AI tools she used, how she used them, and offers a sample prompt, with a declaration of human provenance for all other parts of the essay's development. Please note: the human-authored features of this video essay have been verified through in-person discussion and written self-reflection by the author, in conjunction with her course instructor.
 
Video and Audio Description:
This video essay invites multiple interpretations rather than advancing a single, easily summarized argument about AI use and the pursuit of perfection. The juxtaposition of images encourages viewers to reflect on competing ideas about self-improvement, wellness, consumption, technology, productivity, and the pursuit of an ideal or good life. Rather than telling viewers what to think, there's room for audience interpretation, making the video's meaning a collaborative process between the author and the viewer. Edvard Grieg's "Morning Mood" is from Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt and is used to convey significant dramatic irony. In Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, the titular main character, a con man, wakes up in the Sahara, gets seduced, robbed, and learns nothing.

Author

Johanna Kaasik

Johanna Kaasik is a member of the Class of 2029 and is studying at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. She is majoring in accounting with a minor in philosophy. As she prepares to enter the corporate world, she has become increasingly aware of the pressure to produce and pursue perfection constantly. This growing realization inspired her video essay, which explores the tension between striving for excellence and appreciating the present moment. Her video essay encourages viewers to reflect on their own definitions of success and to consider whether a meaningful life is measured solely by achievement or by the ability to enjoy the journey.