#art and artists

[therobotmonster]

Saw some of your posts about AI recently, but don't really know very much about you. I have two questions:

1. Are you an actual artist, or do you just do genAI?

2. If you are an actual artist, why do you use/support AI?

We're going to get into this in a minute, but yes, by what you'd likely use as a definition of 'actual artist', I am. I have a BFA in graphic design, a minor in art history, I've been working as a freelance artist either on the side or as my main hustle since 2001, and I've been making art since I was five. Multimedia, 3d modelling and sculpting, photography (in a darkroom type and digital), acrylic painting, illustration, writing, puppetsmithing, I'm a jack of many, many trades.

Because it's a potent force multiplier that lets me do things that I could not previous (as well as helping compensate for my increasingly arthritic joints) and because it's entirely keeping with the copyleft principles I've had since the 1990s. It's just plain interesting and fun. And I had my fill of moral panics in the 1980s.

This is gonna be a long one, enjoy a song while you read.

I've gone over all this many times before, (for full reading, here's the #AI Discourse tag on my AI blog) but the short version is that I agree with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's position on AI art.

To demonstrate, we've got some of my non-AI photobash work, and some of my AI-work of the same type. Both were made using many, many public domain images broken down to B&W lines, scaled, reinked, normalized and colored.

On the left, is a comic made with specific panels from comics that have had their copyrights expire (back when that could happen), on the right, a comic made with about 35 individual dall-E 3 gens. The techniques are the same, the only difference is the source of the pubic domain images.

No one debates whether what I've done on the left is art, yet somehow the one on the right is a problem for some people. Yet I have vastly more control over the latter than the former.

And it's hard to get more transformative than 'broke down into math and blended with literally millions of other math formulas in order to make a completely new image" Replace 'math' with 'memory' and you have how all human creativity works.

Moving to covers, one of my parody deepdream-adjusted comics, and a reinked-recolored AI one on the right. The one on the left no one had a single problem with, but Bruce Wayne and Jessica Fletcher are screencaps, the Specter is a sales photo of a statue with a copy of 1989 Ted Dansen's face, and I'm using direct DC trade dress. Crickets.

On the right, no actual images by humans are used (outside the barcode, comics code authority emblem, and the 30 cent mark.) Same techniques, same situation. Very different reaction.

I also was a young artist in the 90s when Disney and the RIAA bribed and lied their way into extending copyright to its current ridiculous 120 year term, and I recognize what's happening with the anti-AI movement.

The exact same fear-mongering was used to get small artists to rally their congressmen against their own self-interest, and that's what the Copyright alliance is doing now.

Copyright does not help the small artist. It's also a relatively new invention, one that would be baffling to humans through most of history. You can't own art. Not even the people who make it. You can own a canvass or a carved rock or a book, but you don't own the art itself because you can't own feelings or ideas.

Copyright is a limited patent on specific expressions intended (supposedly) to encourage production, a limitation on the business use of art. The arguments levied against AI would kill fanfic, fanart, pastiche, collage, and more.

This isn't a bug, it's a feature, because...

The anti-AI side isn't actually anti-AI, they're pro-regulatory-capture-of-AI-by-Megacorporations. The copyright anti-AI argument conveniently leaves it open for Disney, Warner Bros, Nintendo, Sony, the RIAA, all to make their own AI systems to lower their production costs, because they own more than enough material to make powerful datasets.

They get it, you don't, worst of all possible worlds.

Now, at the start I mentioned that we'd get into the "actual artist" situation. All those people making bog standard waifu-pics with AI? They're also making art. Kids using a spirograph make art. Duchamp's fountain is art. And people who make art are artists.

But more than that "if you're an actual artist why do you use AI?" is an interesting question, because if more people actually used the tech and saw how it works, you'd see a lot less people against it. Most of the anti-AI talking points are just factually incorrect or greatly misrepresent the situation, but nobody is gonna learn that if even using it is treated as a transgress worthy of 'fair game' treatment.

Funny how that works out.

To close out, enjoy one of my music videos, made from dozens of clips made using reference images made with dozens of heavily modified gens that I totally could have made the hard way, except for the lack of 5 million dollars and access to Geena Davis and Ron Ely circa 1982:

[quillandquotation]

"In carrying out the excavations near the Herculanean gate of Pompeii, the skeleton of a soldier in full armour was discovered. Forgotten in the terror and confusion that reigned during the destruction of the city, the sentinel had received no order to quit his post, and while all sought their safety in flight, he remained faithful to his duty, notwithstanding the certain doom which awaited him."

//Based on Poynter's painting of 1865 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), this etching was made to illustrate Clarence Cook's "Art and Artists of Our Time." 

[automaticcycleland]

Sandman was the first comic I ever read long LONG before i knew who Neil gaiman was I actually refuse to let the stuff about him ruin this work. Sandman is an incredible piece of fiction with gorgeous art and a storyline about grand weeping concepts told with somehow an intensely human emotion weaving through it. Uplifting messages while tackling difficult sometimes dark subject matter.

It's generic and I am not the first person to compare the series with the book Reaper Man by Sir Terry Pratchett (another of my personal favorite things I've read tho its been a bit) in both tone and themes.

It's a shame one appears to be a bad person and one is gone but theirs are these pieces of work I will cherish.

[xrattytheratx]

More art :)

Hehe more art soon:)

Don't forget birthday ratty ( not today js around these 2 months, still not comfy saying what day it is x. )

If you compare this post to yesterday's post it shows how Improved >:)

[ultrakeencollectionbreadfan]

So recently, I found out that Zachary Levi actually came out and supported Donald Trump. Now, many of you may have different opinions on this and how it affects your views of his work, but here's the way I see it:

When Levi was making Shazam, he was, or at least he seemed to be your typical "Hollywood liberal." That is to say, his views appeared to be similar to many of his colleagues'. Therefore, I consider Shazam good because this was before he endorsed Trump. There's a difference between artists who always held reprehensible views and those who just started to come around to them.

In other words, I divide Levi's work into two different parts, which I label "Pre-Trump" and "Post-Trump." Shazam was Pre-Trump, so I see it as still good to watch. I'm not asking for anyone to agree with me, though some of you might. I just wanted to get my thoughts down about this whole thing.

[deerinmistytown]

художник / художество

p.s. — работа посвящается Алисе, единственному человеку, который меня принимал.

[greensgg]

I'm not used to drawing myself, but I've accumulated quite a lot of sketches with me and my ducksona, so I decided why not put it here

[generalsarma]

Art and artist

[bana-ki-art]

So the end of the year is coming soon and I've put together this challenge of my favorite works from the beginning of the year to the end of 2023. It's been a difficult year, but I'm holding on. I am glad that I spent this year with you :)

[razette]

I got Aseprite for Christmas, so I have been practicing! Here is my first finished peace and I'm really happy with it. It is tiny. I probably should have known this, since it's not like I don't know what a pixel is. It is my first ever piece, however, so it's part of the learning curve. Oh well.

I'm doing a lot of learning, having come from a light background of traditional media. Digital art doesn't feel as intuitive to me as pencils and charcoal, but I'm having fun all the same. I've been watching videos and following along with some tutorials, another reason this piece is so tiny.

For this I followed along with PixelRocket's, "Beginner Friendly Space Scene" found on youtube which I've included as the source link for anyone who may be interested.

[soli-nepenthe]

does anyone remember a time when ppl made the effort to ask the artist for permission to post/not just doing the minor step of 'credits to ____"?

[victusinveritas]

Just cribbing this in full from Hyperallergic on Instagram.

[quillandquotation]

Date idea: Spend a day with me here🎀

[balornonbinary]

artist/art.

unfortunately, here there are a couple of old pictures and a lot of sketches

:( I don’t draw that much

[maribellablack]

Kate Baylay's illustrations published in the JUXTAPOZ magazine

july 11, 2013