Thursday, September 29, 2022

The Is it Art? Questioning AIart

The question everyone seems to be asking is AIart really Art?


My view is that it is just a different form of expression and it does have many of the characteristics of Art. It certainly will give more people the ability to create things. Something they probably lost as teenagers when they decided they couldn't draw. (Some of us continued to draw and maybe never grow up as suggested by Picasso) However, it is already being exploited by copycat and wannabe influencer types that are on that constant production of "content" treadmill for social media. When you first see an image created by DALL-E or Midjourney it's quite amazing but once you have seen a few the novelty does wear off, and with so many similar dystopian examples now being shown it's becoming a little disturbing.

Yet I see AIart in its many forms as a powerful tool in the hands of creatives. Something that is very clear in the above video, which is also worth watching as a simple explanation of what text prompted image generations actually is and the basics of how it works. So I'm keenly following the developments. On the upside, this technology can save a lot of time getting inspired and just fooling around with concepts. On the downside I do worry that the copycats will exploit true artists' ideas and styles, monetizing such works and thereby ripping off the less-discerning public. I can also see that many artists will not wish to have their works included any publicly available neural network, which inevitably means not having any of their art published on the net!. I don't have an answer to this. 

Such is (modern) life.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Rescheduled Photowalk

 Due to the miserable weather last Saturday the "Birds in Flight" Photowalk has been rescheduled to Saturday 1st October. If your were already registered from previous Saturday no need to register. Otherwise, you can still book through Eventbrite. Fingers crossed for nicer weather.

Monday, September 12, 2022

Next Photowalk is Approaching :: Birds in Flight

 

 


Register now through mga Booking Essential.


The birds are flying in, building nest, feeding, roosting and some even have young already. If you haven't photographed birds before its a fun challenge. If you have there will be plenty to see and photograph.  Bring your long lens if you have one.

I can't make promises about the weather, but if its overcast and drizzly the birds will still be flying, so come and bring a raincoat and/or umbrella.

Tuesday, September 06, 2022

Sandwiched between Ads

 I was trying to read an article in a well-recognized photographic website. However, it had become somewhat tedious, I could really only read a sentence of two at a time and it was being squeezed out by Ads some of which were flashing and cycling through different screens and our show a thumbnail of a video.



I decided to do a couple of screen captures and colour in the article itself (in light blue) versus the areas of Ads (in red). It quickly became very depressing. Its not just that website its pretty much most popular site now, The saddish part for the advertisers is all the ads are for place or things I might already use or vist regulkarly enough, ok except for adobe.

Are you surprised it's pretty much its 50% ads wrapped around just 50% for the article's content?

Saturday, September 03, 2022

Amazing but ... ... ...

It seems like only yesterday that I wandered in Mid Journey while looking to get an invite to DALL-E. It was actually almost a month ago but a lot has happened in the field of AIart, especially using artificially intelligent processes to create an image from a text prompt. (I prefer to consider these tools large scale and targeted neural networks, not intelligences)

Vermeer's  "Girl with a Pearl Earring" extended by DALL-E Outpainting


This illustration is from a PetaPixel article about a technique called outpainting,  were an image can be extended seamlessly, The approach uses shadows, reflections, and textures to extend the created background that is designed to blend perfectly with the original image, and uses its ability to pull in details from the millions of images run through its reference neural network. Not by finding actual object but shapes we see as real objects.

These technology advanced are truly amazing and wonderful tools for the creatives and original thinkers. Yet I am willing to bet that the technology will be dragged down on social to just create very dystopian, offensive, distastefully, look at me and wanna-bee influencer copycatism. They are already filling my Instagram feed. One bright outcome could be, it will probably lead to a big popularity to post AIart  as static images back on Instagram, making it largely a photo and interactive place again (#makeinstagramgreatagain) and not just a place to be force feed with ads, reels and the misguided opinions of the haters.

So what is my opinion, have we created ART?

No! The generation of this image by computer is amazing but it has taken a compellingly beautiful and intriguing work of art and made a mundane domestic scene with lots of clutter, you are unlikely to stop and wonder what she is looking at and just swipe past!