A finished file can show what survived. It cannot show every decision that made the work.

Provenance of Thought™ is my way of treating those decisions as part of the record. It does not try to prove that technology was absent. It documents what the human artist did with it.

What a record may preserve

Original photography and source material
Creation date and production chronology
Screen recordings and voice notes
Layers and intermediate states
Experiments and failed directions

Prompts and AI interactions
Human direction and final decisions
Production tools and output method
Edition, exhibition, and publication history
Creation Notes explaining intent

Attribution stays specific

A record can distinguish the Creative Director and Artist, an AI creative collaborator or system, production tools, source media, human revisions, and the final publication decision. A tool does not become the primary author merely because it produced pixels.

Honest records beat impressive records

Not every historical work has a screen recording, prompt log, or reliable creation date. An incomplete record is still useful when it clearly says what is known, what is inferred, and what has not yet been recovered.

For collectors

When deeper documentation exists, a collector edition can connect the physical object to its artwork identifier, edition metadata, certificate, Creation Notes, and selected process material. That gives the object context without pretending paperwork creates value by itself.