Ha, story of my life, or at least every other blog I start to write. Just farm it out to an AI and then you can blame them.
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Ha, story of my life, or at least every other blog I start to write. Just farm it out to an AI and then you can blame them.
You make such a strong point here, on a level where it gave me chills. That's been something I've been thinking about. Would you agree that AI in art can be considered the coward's way out in some cases?
The ruckus over AI in art reminds me of the uproar over Photoshop in the photography community a while back. Not sure what you mean by the coward's way out but if that analogy holds true I'm sure some see it that way. For shits & giggles I started experimenting with MidJourney late last year and ended up finding it fascinating, which led me spending a lot of time thing about it and trying to conceptualize what it was and where it fit into the grand scheme of things. Best I could come up with is that it all comes down to what you're using it for. I decided that as long as I/it was creating things for the sake of being seen/the reaction they incite, the question of "is it art?" was a moot point.
Are you familiar with Marcel Duchamp? To me AI art is the digital equivalent to Fountain.
That's not the line of thinking I was on, at all. I hear you but I was thinking about something else, not the general AI art debate. More about the reaction I suppose, and being forced into a position to take responsibility for someone's gross misrepresentation of your work, for instance. Say one used AI to write jokes for them, and someone didn't find it funny or found it to be offensive, does one still stand by their work and defend it? Probably not. How could they, honestly?
People follow artists, not art. I wasn't talking about images. Talking about artists. Might be able to explain what I'm talking about a little better in an article, with several other scenarios and some not even involving art.
I blame Mary Jane. My thinking hadn't gotten any further than 'getting cancelled for that is ridiculous so let's be equally ridiculous and shift blame to the AI.' I think I get where you're coming from now.
That's a lot of what I was trying to figure out with MidJourney. Is it even your work? I don't know, but I do know I don't feel the same attachment to something made with it compared to say, one of my photos.
It's been a difficult road processing these changes. So many new elements and so many old elements removed; elements that were always difficult to explain in the first place. I'll give you the Mary Jane out though... lol. I'm sure I've used that one a few times myself.
I thought of an analogy just now. If you dressed yourself and someone said you have style, you have style. If someone else dressed you and someone said you have style... ?
Photos are a good one. If someone takes a picture of a mountain, that picture also tells the story of the man standing there.
I'm not anti AI or anything like that. Since it burst onto the scene though, I've been thinking a lot of deep thoughts, trying to figure things out.
Lol, I was hoping you would understand that.
If someone else dressed you, I would say you had a style.
Right! Someone asked me not too long ago why I didn't do personal posts anymore, kinda blew me away. Thought my photos were plenty personal enough, even if I wasn't in them.
Did you ever read Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? I can't quite put my finger on why but trying to figure things out in regards to AI makes me think of the "What is Quality" theme/line of questioning from that.
A style, sure, because it involves someone else. AI isn't sentient. Can mimic a style but has no desire to create its own. The paintbrush can't have style in this context.
Artforms come with that story of the man standing there as well. There's a comedian on stage, but what you don't see in the moment is them sitting at home writing those jokes, fine tuning everything as the show goes on, creating their own style. Had my own experiences here where I'd spend several hours working on art for a post, hit a twenty dollar payday yet get shit from the neighbors because they only saw 100 words there. Blind to the story and effort behind the picture I made. Never took it personally of course. Just knew the experience would be valuable someday.
And no, unfortunately I have not read that so I can't comment on that line of thinking but I did find the audiobook and saved it for later.
When you create art, the meaning of that art is always in the eye of the viewer of that art - you have no control over that.
The moment you explain your created work, it is no longer art, but an instruction on how people should see art, not how they see it.
Explaining art is as useless as trying to explain what life (time, consciousness) is.
So when you frame your art with text, you are already specifying something and narrowing down where no limit is needed.
When I write a poem or a short story, this form of art speaks for itself. True, there is a great demand for why an author wrote exactly what he wrote and why a poet chose the words he chose. However, the only appropriate response would be "read the book" or "feel the poem". It is the same with pictorial or sculptural or any other form of art.
When many people resonate with a particular work of art, they do so because it moves something in them. However, if one is to specify what exactly that is, what happens is that one struggles for explanations and then would say, "I know what time (life, consciousness) is, but if you ask me, I don't know anymore."
So you are keen for art and artist to remain connected, rather than art being considered independently of the artist, you will always have fans or non-fans who comment, for example, because they want to say anything at all to you, but you won't know if your art speaks for itself unless you deny them that opportunity.
Leave them alone with the work and you may get more honest feedback on what you publish as art. If you hang paintings on your wall only because they come from a highly rated artist, but not because you resonate with the work and want it around you or in you, you weaken the message but pamper the messenger.
Of course, it is exceedingly tempting to be hyped as an artist and so anyone who seeks the open stage is an easy victim of their vanity.
You are in a position here where you could publish the visual without the text because you have already acquired a degree of notoriety. Something that many artists wish for. Would you dare to put nothing but the images you create on the line, without any text? Without any assistance to the passing viewer? And if you follow this idea, what thoughts arise?
I see no need in "defending" a piece of art, whether it was created through AI or your mind and hand. Art is there to offend, irritate, please, muse, inspire, anger, make one pause, you name it. If AI is going to produce art in this sense, that it makes humans pause, agree, disagree, offend or please, it fulfills the function but of course, it crushes the humans ego. While one can say, that AI only copies the inputs of human work and creations. In order to outperform it, one has to go offline, I suppose. ...
So in other words, the moment one prompts an image into creation using words and explanations, as one does to generate an image, they've stripped away those elements you speak of.
The artform seen above depends on both words and images combined to make one.
I'm not sure how long you've been following my work but rarely does it ever come with an explanation of any kind. In the comment section at times I might point out some missed details, since so much is hidden intentionally as part of my style, but for the most part nothing was ever explained in the way you're suggesting even while being surrounded by words, leading to several over the years able to process the words and art individually and independently.
You're suggesting the people who've enjoyed my work over the years are dishonest and you're insulting their integrity. You need to know there's more to this world than the box you seem to want everyone to fit inside of.
And there is a time and place to defend the arts. That's why it's normal for a heckler to be kicked out of a comedy show, for instance. Other times organizations with an agenda apply "meanings" as you say, which are actually gross misrepresentations specifically designed to put pressure on the artists so they stop, aka censorship and cancel culture. That's when you defend your work. It's happened countless times in history, touching on all artforms, and it's even happened to me, so I speak from experience. Maybe you don't see a need, and maybe that's because you missed the point or "meaning" behind my words, and applied your own.
If you look closely at AI and how it's taking shape, you'll notice how it's already developing a standardized form of groupthink. And I don't just mean images. The words might sound perfect and the images might appear crisp but the actual freedom to be creative is stunted.
I've experimented myself, running some old writing through the machine, and the first thing it did was remove all the jokes.
Sure it is the art piece that is being defended and not rather the freedom of artistic expression? Since art can take on many meanings and, as I said, is a matter of interpretation on the part of the viewer, it can be offensive, displeasing, provocative etc.
This is probably what falls under the censorship of a nanny state that wants to keep everything under its control and therefore censors art or encourages institutions to act as gatekeepers of what ought to be said (through art) and what ought not to be said.
I agree with you that artistic freedom should not be subject to censorship, because otherwise it is no longer art but the predictable fulfilment of certain zeitgeists and the wishes of authorities. Whether I violate the integrity of any of your followers or commenters, I leave to those who read my comment, they are surely old enough to complain themselves, should it be so and therefore probably do not need your intercession.
Apparently I have offended yours.
I have visited your blog from time to time and never found an art publication as pure material without a text. If you think that would leave the viewer uninfluenced, I won't stop you. To what extent that happens, I make no assumption. I just have asked you if you can imagine to publish your art without a frame of text.
The fact that I could miss the punk of your words, so be it, is no cardinal offence and neither is adding my own. What is the big deal? In fact, I could say, for example, that I find your art totally stupid and pointless, or that I find something great in it, and you wouldn't have to defend yourself in either case, because there's nothing to defend in that regard.
Does anyone react in a way that you perceive as negative feedback? And wouldn't that be a compliment rather than an insult, for example?
In the past we've talked. You're fond of twisting things out of shape. You make communication difficult. You're asking me to do things your way. I don't want to.
I'm not offended or insulted with negative feedback. I feel like you're just gaslighting. It's well documented as I've said numerous times the people who don't like your work outnumber those who do by a huge margin and that just comes with the territory. You're sitting here acting like I don't know what I got myself into. I'm not offended. You're annoying, but that's fine, because I've taken a lot of flak over the years anyway. Maybe you don't see it under my posts a lot, but it's there.
Nearly 1000 posts here. Some of which are just art and no words. My approach over the years isn't on rails. The words surrounding the art in some cases are not framing the art, in some cases the art is adding to the words, in some cases it's adding confusion, completely void of suggestions, opening the door to a wide array of potential thoughts inside the minds of those taking it all in, and I haven't even covered everything.
Take a look at this post for example. The writing is a story about me golfing, delivered in a creative way. The images were produced before I even went on that trip, had nothing to do with golf when they were produced, and came combined with words about other things when they were originally released. But in that case you can see how they can apply to the story about golf. I could take those same images, write a story about something else totally not about golf, and they'd fit.
And why put me in a position to have to explain things while in the same breath claiming they should not be explained. Maybe you just don't get it, and that's perfectly fine. "Unpure?" The art I'm producing is more than just images. It's a combination of things and that's how I like to do it. And I'm not telling people to do what I do either, claiming if they don't they won't receive an authentic response, because that would be total bullshit. They do their thing and that's fine.
People will come along and be assholes. So what? I even joked about it in the post above, which from build up to breakdown, wasn't intended to be taken seriously. Calling something like this stupid and pointless for instance, would kind of be stupid and pointless, because stupid and pointless are some of the elements making it entertaining. It's also riddled with self-deprecating humor.
I can't judge that for the AI applications that already exist. I just read in various places that most publicly available AI is still too dumb to impress. We'll see where the development goes. It is likely to improve and it amounts to much of what is currently produced by humans (especially online, text and image creation or research) will be done by AI in the future. I don't approve of that, but I don't see how it can be prevented. (Though I often use deepl.com which is an AI driven translation app, and it's excellent).
Except that humans themselves create extraordinary works and reach or get the attention of a human audience. Which I'm sure will just be the famous exceptions again.
LOL, how humourless. Paradoxes are another thing that an AI certainly can't "grasp" as they are probably very difficult (if not impossible) to program, much like humour.
As I already said to the gentleman above, my line of thinking, which you are also responding to, wasn't about the general AI art debate. Though it's an interesting conversation, having that discussion is not what I'm interested in at this moment in time. You've responded twice to one comment, disrupting the flow of the conversation as well, making this more difficult than it needs to be.
Have a nice day.