#what is the difference between ai and re edit?

[oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo]

On ai- I think one of the main distinctions between editing something and having ai produce it is one requires. Effort, and actual time/thought behind it. Spending a minute feeding a database prompts until you get something you want is nothing compared to the countless hours put into a piece, be it writing/art/etc

You could argue that by virtue of posting something online, people sort of sign away on what people do with their art, but even in such cases you cannot deny that ai companies went about collecting data in malicious and deceptive ways- often without any time to genuinely revoke consent.

With ai art, people can replicate someone's style, which can then threaten their own personal brand/livelihood. This becomes more apparent when you know that a major part of the actors strike was specifically against ai owning the rights to people's image/voice indefinitely. An actors entire workplace existence hinges upon the fact that they will be paid to be somewhere and say and do something- this gives them the security of an income, but it also gives them the right to turn down any works they don't agree with/don't want to be a part of. By removing the actual *actor* from acting, the company can get away with not having to actually pay someone, let alone pay someone a living wage

I think the biggest reason I, and many others, are against ai, is for the same exact reason people would be against reposting art instead of reblogging, or the reason we used to get all the warnings against online piracy: it will directly hurt the creators that spent countless hours working on something. The difference between piracy and ai, however, is ai hurts creators that are just like you, and your community, and it will continue to do so if left unchecked

It is a very big win that ai generated works cannot be copywrited, bc it means that people will not be able to profit off of something they did not truly make. It would be unreasonable for someone to launch a TV show where the premise was ai, or the script itself, or the actors, and then try to claim ownership over it, and insist that they make a profit off of it, that no one else can use it, when in truth they had no part in the actual creating of the show

This is kinda a mess, and im open to more discussion/providing links to stuff mentioned later, but hopefully this is kind of an insight into why ai isn't. The best

Yes! Thanks for the discussion!

I think you’re responding to my previous post: https://www.tumblr.com/oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo/748487000957550592/any-of-my-people-interested-in-discussing-ai

If I were to use AI, I would be 100% honest about. Also I would charge less in most cases.

The reason being is it feels to me like it is providing me with images/information, and therefore helps me save time. I prefer to use it as a tool, though rather than use it as a means to an end. At least with the few AI I’ve experimented with, I’ve noticed that the program/algorithm kind of does a half-ass job on it’s own and the final piece would need to be edited to my satisfaction - especially text prompts. Using only text-prompts produces pretty substandard results. I find whatever the AI spits out usually needs to be edited, sometimes rather extensively, or else it’s unusable. And it takes up more time than I like for the program to process. I don’t just want to text-prompt and keep whatever gets developed.

There are some AI that you can use a photo or drawing of your own as reference. AI Arta is one of these. I’m playing around with Bing and Picsart, too. And of course EVERY app seems to be providing its users with its own AI (although usually using original products such as Dall-E or Midjourney, is what I find)…

Also, my original link on my blog said AI can’t be copyrighted… However I’ve found at least Dall-E allows you to make a profit: “Subject to the Content Policy and Terms, you own the images you create with DALL·E, including the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise — regardless of whether an image was generated through a free or paid credit. Oct 29, 2023” - although perhaps this still doesn’t mean it’s under your own copyright… I’m not sure about that.

I’ll just finish this reply to you saying I think everyone should keep discussing AI. Thanks again for your own input. I figure the more it’s talked about, the more we’ll figure out how to use it. I don’t want to snub people who are completely for or against it. I WANT to hear what people think about it. If I learn something I didn’t know before because of keeping an open mind, that’s a good thing.

Hope what I’m writing is comprehensible, it’s after 5am. I should get to sleep! lol

Here’s a website where the opinion is that AI won’t “take over” people’s jobs/artistry, but it will make their jobs more efficient for them.

[coffeenonsense]

I rarely post personal stuff on here but irl I'm a writer whose work covers tech and AI quite a bit and with the WGA strike ongoing, I really want to stress that the reason Hollywood execs and higher-ups think they can just replace writers with chatgpt or have someone come and edit AI generated text is because they already think writing is that easy.

these people look at their shows, movies, etc as marketable (re, profitable) content so all they are watching for is "okay this show performed badly" and "this movie performed well" and I can promise you in a boardroom the quality, the time and effort that went into the actual writing is NEVER discussed as a contributing factor when it comes to the difference between those two things.

That's also the reason tools like chatgpt seem like magic to these people, because they've devalued the act of creation and everything that goes into making something that resonates with its audience, so naturally something that can scrape the entire digital world and spit something out that falls in line with what you asked seems like a wizard's spell, because they ALREADY think of writing as an afterthought, something where they just go "I need a show that appeals to the 16-24 age range" and writers can just fill in the blanks and they won't have to PAY PEOPLE for that.

There's a vast difference between art and content, and if you want to see more of the former, you should be furious they're trying to replace writers with what is essentially a programmable template generator. Pay your writers.

[nowoyas]

Trying to make sense of the Nanowrimo statement to the best of my abilities and fuck, man. It's hard.

It's hard because it seems to me that, first and foremost, the organization itself has forgotten the fucking point.

Nanowrimo was never about the words themselves. It was never about having fifty thousand marketable words to sell to publishing companies and then to the masses. It was a challenge, and it was hard, and it is hard, and it's supposed to be. The point is that it's hard. It's hard to sit down and carve out time and create a world and create characters and turn these things into a coherent plot with themes and emotional impact and an ending that's satisfying. It's hard to go back and make changes and edit those into something likable, something that feels worth reading. It's hard to find a beautifully-written scene in your document and have to make the decision that it's beautiful but it doesn't work in the broader context. It's fucking hard.

Writing and editing are skills. You build them and you hone them. Writing the way the challenge initially encouraged--don't listen to that voice in your head that's nitpicking every word on the page, put off the criticism for a later date, for now just let go and get your thoughts out--is even a different skill from writing in general. Some people don't particularly care about refining that skill to some end goal or another, and simply want to play. Some people sit down and try to improve and improve and improve because that is meaningful to them. Some are in a weird in-between where they don't really know what they want, and some have always liked the idea of writing and wanted a place to start. The challenge was a good place for this--sit down, put your butt in a chair, open a blank document, and by the end of the month, try to put fifty thousand words in that document.

How does it make you feel to try? Your wrists ache and you don't feel like any of the words were any good, but didn't you learn something about the process? Re-reading it, don't you think it sounds better if you swap these two sentences, if you replace this word, if you take out this comma? Maybe you didn't hit 50k words. Maybe you only wrote 10k. But isn't it cool, that you wrote ten thousand words? Doesn't it feel nice that you did something? We can try again. We can keep getting better, or just throwing ourselves into it for fun or whatever, and we can do it again and again.

I guess I don't completely know where I'm going with this post. If you've followed me or many tumblr users for any amount of time, you've probably already heard a thousand times about how generative AI hurts the environment so many of us have been so desperately trying to save, about how generative AI is again and again used to exploit big authors, little authors, up-and-coming authors, first time authors, people posting on Ao3 as a hobby, people self-publishing e-books on Amazon, traditionally published authors, and everyone in between. You've probably seen the statements from developers of these "tools", things like how being required to obtain permission for everything in the database used to train the language model would destroy the tool entirely. You've seen posts about new AI tools scraping Ao3 so they can make money off someone else's hobby and putting the legality of the site itself at risk. For an organization that used to dedicate itself to making writing more accessible for people and for creating a community of writers, Nanowrimo has spent the past several years systematically cracking that community to bits, and now, it's made an official statement claiming that the exploitation of writers in its community is okay, because otherwise, someone might find it too hard to complete a challenge that's meant to be hard to begin with.

I couldn't thank Nanowrimo enough for what it did for me when I started out. I don't know how to find community in the same way. But you can bet that I've deleted my account, and I'll be finding my own path forward without it. Thanks for the fucking memories, I guess.

[gallavichthings]

Gallavich Week 2024 - bingo edition

Hello, lovelies! It's time for another Gallavich Week. This time: bingo edition!

The 2024 Gallavich Week will be held between June 24th and June 30th. As this time it's a bingo, there will be no assigned theme for each day, meaning you can post your works on any day during that week.

Guidelines and cards after the read more because this post ended up way too long. ^_^

Some general rules:

There are four cards (at the end of this post): one/two-word prompts, dialogue prompts, tropes, and art and other medias. You can post something from just one or all of them. You can also use more than one prompt in the same work. There's no minimum or limit to the number of works you can post.

All kinds of fanworks are accepted (fic, art, videos, gifs, analysis, crafts... anything), as long as they're original. (Unless they're a re-imagining of another work, in which case please also mention it when you post and get authorization first if the original isn't yours.)

AI is not accepted!

No sign-ups required. Just post and tag me. :)

Here is the AO3 community, for those who wish to use it.

Don't forget to tag me using @ at the body of the post so that I can see it and reblog it (you can do it after a read more or by reblogging if you wish to "hide" it). Also, please indicate clearly which prompt(s) was/were used.

Some suggestions, which are not rules but do help with posting:

If you're posting a long fic in its entirety here on Tumblr, please use a read more and/or tag it "long post".

If you're posting nsfw art here, please use the community guidelines to inform so.

If you post more than one work on AO3, I suggest making different works, and not just different chapters of one single work. This helps with tagging, both for those who want to find your work and for those who might want to avoid something. It also helps when people don't have to comb through several chapters to find what they're looking for. If you want to connect your works, you can put them all under a series. And yes, this is also valid for drabbles and art.

There are no prizes for this bingo, but those who make a bingo get bragging rights (and a special shout out - just let me know you've done it because I'm likely to miss it).

BINGO: 3 cells in a row (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally).

SUPER BINGO: 3 cells in a row in two cards.

ULTRA BINGO: 3 cells in a row in three or four cards (are you ok?).

UBER BINGO: All the 9 cells of the same card.

SUPREME BINGO: All 9 cells of the same card in two different cards (good luck with that).

EXTREME BINGO: All 9 cells of the same card in three different cards (seriously, are you ok? Is this worth it?).

ULTIMATE BINGO: All 9 cells of the same card in ALL of the four different cards (you get ALL the bragging rights!!! But also, please rest).

And now, the cards:

EDIT: forgot to mention, by Taste of Chicago I mean this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_of_Chicago

And Starry Night is, indeed Van Gogh's painting. And yes, Final Fantasy the video game.

I think the rest is quite obvious, but let me know if you have any questions.

[nonhumanresources]

A List Of Books/Stories About Transformation

You ever seen those titles of extremely specific essays? If this was one of those I'd call it "A List Of Books That Contain In Whole Or In Part Some Amount Of Transformation, Or The Changing Of Oneself To Another That Has In Some Manner Been Fundamentally Altered From The Self You Used To Be." That was the original title but I didn't want to be mean.

I was rambling far too long about post TF on one of warmer-hotcakes's posts and they mentioned not being able to find stories with a positive relationship to transformation (as well as transformations that are permanent) so I wanted to put a few down in a list!

Granted, these are incredibly inconsistent in pretty much every way other than being SFF but hey, we take what we can get here. Plus they weren't wrong it is VERY hard to find these kinds of stories, half of the list at this point is self published novels on Amazon written by people I've met by chance in TF circles, to give you an idea. So, to pad it out I will add more tangentially related TF stories.

If anyone happens to have more stories feel free to comment them and I'll add them on! I will also add to the list sporadically if I feel like it.

Anyway, without further ado:

Wolven by Di Toft is about a kid finding a werewolf out in the woods. It's been years since I read it but it's got a fun dichotomy between a villain and a protagonist both suffering from partial werewolfication and the ways they deal with it.

Thousand Tales by Kris Schnee is a self published series of books set in the near future where an AI runs a video game that allows people to be "uploaded" into it. There's a lot of books that don't need to be read in any specific order focusing on different characters and is generally a more lighthearted approach to the topic than most, and also it has furries in it. There are books about people who upload immediately, people who do eventually, and people who never do. Not quite the same as adjusting to changes IRL but this is my list and I get to shill whatever I want. Also, it's some of the highest quality writing/editing I have seen in a self-published novel (especially TF novel).

How To Be A Hero: (And Part Time Dragon) by S. Blakeway is a book about a hero who gets defeated and turned into a wyvern by the Dark Lord. Her eternal torment is interrupted, though, by said Dark Lord sending her out on a quest, during which she has to navigate turning back into a wyvern every few days. It's fun and silly and has lots of TF and the author is a very nice and cool person. Go buy this one and the sequel and help me bother her into finishing the trilogy please.

Perspective Flip also by Kris Schnee and Shifting Tails by Paul Lotor are a pair of short story collections. These are more of a soft recommend; both include cases of protags adapting to transformations, and generally involve positive stories, but not all of them are great. Perspective Flip is generally good but Shifting Tails especially has stories that lean very far into the horny side of things as well as topics I was very much not into, but some of them were admittedly very enjoyable. Being horny isn't bad, of course; it's moreso that there is less "story" and more "hey wouldn't this TF be hot." To be fair, sometimes they are, but sometimes they stray far away from my interests, so take that how you will.

Wereworld by Curtis Jobling is something I read as a kid but I'm gonna be honest I remember almost nothing about it. However it is about therianthropes of all types and I like that so it's going on here. They even have sharks!

The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson. Full disclosure, I have not finished reading this one, and I do not believe it has permanent TF, but it does feature a dude who astral projects into a dragon and is generally a fine book.

The Dangers Of Wearable Technology by Serathin Sabertooth (gods I hope that isn't a pen name, that would be so cool). This is one that I don't really recommend? Which is odd, you might say, for a list of recommendations. Correct! I just have a complex relationship with it, which I will include in a post here so that I don't flood this list with unnecessary words.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but like I said, feel free to send suggestions my way and I'd be happy to read em/add em to the list! Obviously it's pretty short right now and I'd love to bulk it up as much as possible for all us COOL NERDS

[hana-the-ghostieee]

haii!! so um not sure what to post but like all i can think of right now is um the correlations between Dakara Boku wa Ongaku wo Yameta and Elma so um here! have a list of the different ways Elma (the album) references the diary, letters and the album it responds to

(if i miss some let me know please)

and dearest mobile users i will spare you so have a cut

edit: so @just-nonsense-bungaku said some stuff in the replies (thank you so much!) and all the songs after 8/27 (or the Nautilus MV) were written by Elma when her anger lost steam and she started to process her grief. explaining why Ame to, Yuu, Kokoro and Amy sound so different from the style she used (or copied off of Amy) from pre-8/27

and another edit: @teamsavingmyles said some stuff in the rbs, thank you thank you thank you!!! i've been thinking about Yuunagi's references recently cuz i've been working on translating both albums but i never really got around to it so yeah thanks!

edit: i just changed the order of stuff because i forgot well. each song would be written on different days, so for example Koe wouldn't refer to Kokoro, more like Kokoro was inspired by Koe and Yuunagi's metaphor for a hole in the heart

1. 8/31 & 車窓 (Shasou/Train Window)

...they're instrumentals :P (seriously i find no connection)

2. 藍二乗 (Ai Nijou/Deep Indigo) & 憂一乗 (Yuu Ichijou/Only Sorrow)

the concept of i to the power of 2 (and however that relates to Amy's feelings about Elma)

also the first kanji of both titles sound like "i" and "you"

edit: so Ai's chorus' motif is about how blurred the world is, because of Amy's tears, while Yuu's chorus motif is how transparent the world feels to Elma, now that Amy's gone

edit: Yuu takes the phrase "I don't need anything" from Hachigatsu, but for a completely different reason. i think in Hachigatsu, Amy says he doesn't need anything to show his life will ends soon, so like what's the point of anything. in Yuu, Elma says she doesn't need anything besides Amy. she just wants to hear him sing, just one more time (or something)

i mean other than that there isn't much, they sound so different

(like seriously. Ai is like TADA. TADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-- and then Yuu makes suis sound like she's about to cry. dakede *sobbing*)

3. 八月、某、月明かり (Hachigatsu, Bou, Tsukiakari/August, A Certain Place, Moonlight) & 夕凪、某、花惑い (Yuunagi, Bou, Hana Madoi/Evening Calm, A Certain Place, Fireworks)

so first of all both seem to stem from one memory of watching fireworks in the summer (according to a summary of Letters and Diary i read some time ago)

edit: re-reading Diary and it was Memory 17

Yuunagi was the first song Elma wrote, which is why it sounds so similar to Hachigatsu (INTENSE electric guitar, softer at the verses, picks up at the chorus, drops again)

also unrelated note but Hachigatsu is by far the angriest song i can think of. at least by Yorushika

edit: one of the last lines of Yuunagi may be what inspired Kokoro, "In my heart, a hole opens"

Yuunagi also references Ai, in the line "this song has about ___ characters" and the phrase "drowning in flowers" is seen again in Ame to

4. 詩書とコーヒー (Shikaki to Koohii/Songwriting and Coffee) & 雨とカプチーノ (Ame to Kapuchiino/Rain and Cappucino)

...coffee

okay seriously though, both also sound somewhat similar to each other (but from here on out, Elma's developing her own style :DDD)

in both songs they do struggle to keep up with memories of each other, in Shikaki Amy states he forgets things like dreams, things like Elma's mouth and eyes and in Ame to Elma tries not to let anything, literally all of her memories of Amy fade away. (reminds me of the reason why Elma kept a diary for her trip to Sweden)

5. 7/13 & 湖の街 (Mizumi no Machi/Lakeside Town)

...they're also instrumentals

6. 躍ろうぜ (Odorouze/Let's Dance) & 神様のダンス (Kamisama no Dansu/Dance of the Gods)

um the titles have "dance" in them???

not sure really. in Odorouze, Amy pretends everything's fine when he's still struggling with his memories of Elma and depression and whatever and in Kamisama no Dansu Elma is PISSED OFF about the fact that she decided to follow Amy's footsteps considering his values. i mean i don't blame her i don't feel like being told i'd have about a year left to live and just LIVE AND GO DO STUFF and go to Sweden before realizing "dang. i screwed up. can't talk it back now--" *oofs self on some random dock*

oh also a discussion i had w/ nonsense-bungaku on Kamisama has changed my beliefs slightly; Elma is still mad at Amy (and herself) for following his path and beliefs but she's also kind of done trying to create music with "value" and "purpose", just creating music because it's fun, because the process of creating music is something one can derive joy from

edit: Kamisama does take a line, "名もない花が綺麗とか" ("Nameless flowers are beautiful") and a slightly altered version of the line "そんなのどうでもいいから" ("I couldn't care any less about that", being "どうでもいいことばっかだ" meaning the same thing) from Yoru Magai

Kamisama also references Yoru Magai in the lines "I keep my head down, like I'm scared" because in the verses of Yoru, in the fifth lines, Amy talks about keeping his head down, so he can't see how blue the sky is or so he doesn't understand everyone's feelings.

another unrelated note, Kamisama no Dansu is still freaking good. not that it wasn't good before but like there's something about it that i really like and would talk about until i fainted from loss of oxygen.

7. 六月和雨上がりの街を書く (Rokugatsu wa Ameagari no Machi wo Kaku/In June, I'll Write About the Town After the Rain) & 雨晴るる (Ame Haruru/After The Rain)

first of all, both of them are about rain (astute observation. round of applause.)

i do think it's really cool how Amy says he'd write about the rain in the town he stayed at but never stayed long enough to write about it, so Elma does it for him. also Elma's style has changed from where she was before, like say, Yuunagi or Koe

also Rokugatsu references Ai Nijou and may be what inspired the creation of Parade

edit: both Ame and Rokugatsu talk about this "ultramarine" which, at least to me, in Rokugatsu refers to the whole memories and the window and in Ame Ha it refers to tears

Ame Ha also references Gogatsu with the swaying curtains, and *potentially* references Hachigatsu in the line "my heartbeat rung out". potentially. if i'm looking too deep and they aren't related don't yell at me

8. 五月は花緑青の窓辺から (Gogatsu wa Hana Rokushou no Madobe Kara/In May, from the Emerald Green Window) & 歩く (Aruku/Walk)

again, not sure how these correlate. though i like how Aruku's chorus is a slowed down version of Gogatsu's chorus.

edit: ...how i didn't notice this i will never know. the frikking Emerald Green/tears metaphor.

Aruku also talks about feeling "asleep", where Elma (as she said in Ame Ha) plays dumb and pretends not to know Amy would die early cuz chronic illness and moveth to foreign country (though Amy did grow up there) and unhealthy mental state. this song and Koe also talk about Elma hating herself for doing so, but Elma and Nautilus think that her playing dumb was pretty endearing

both songs also have this feeling of being "trapped", where Amy feels trapped in this life, and the only way out is Emerald Green, while Elma got left behind and is now stuck looking for at least scraps of the person she loves through these streets

Aruku also potentially references Yoru Magai in the way Elma imitates Amy by keeping her head down, the same way as Kamisama

9. 夜紛い (Yoru Magai/False Night) & 心に穴が空いた (Kokoro ni Ana ga Aita/A Hole Opened Up in My Heart)

i think it's cool how Yoru's main and last line is "I want to open up a hole in you" and then Kokoro's is like "That's why a hole has opened up in my heart" like HOWWWWW HOW MUST YOU HURT ME LIKE THAT

also Kokoro's third line references the song it responds to, as well as Letters 6/26, "a false night, like twilight, painted the town"

also another unrelated note KOKORO NI ANA GA AITA IS JUST SO SAD AND PAINFUL. LIKE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LET ME CRY

edit: how none of you said this gets me. um the line "君だけが僕の音楽なんだよ"、 エイミー ("You alone were my music", Amy) is literally from Ai Nijou (i mean i guess it was too obvious but whatever i'll put that in)

10. 5/6 & 森の教会 (Mori no Kyoukai/Church in the Forest)

more. instrumental.

11. パレード (Parade) & 声 (Koe/Voice)

both incorporate the concept of the God of Art which i think is cool

both are lyrically short

Koe references Yoru in the line "this heavy life is like a machine gun" and may have alluded to the metaphor from Yuunagi - in the line "what I want to draw/picture is the time that hollowed my heart" (and maybe a part of a line got re-used in Ame to Kapuchiino?? does the line "when I cry, it overflows” count???)

Koe also sounds like Parade, just in the key C#, not D

edit: in Letters 7/13, Amy said Parade was Koe

another edit: Parade is the song about the God of Art, right??? well i read @saikisser 's post on how FREAKING SAD PARADE IS AND LISTENING TO IT WITH CONTEXT MAKES IS EVEN SADDER and well Amy also thinks Elma is divine to him (because she's the one that sings the lyrics the God of Art managed to find in his fingers)

also another unrelated note but listen to Parade it's such a beautiful song i loveeeeeeeeeeeeeee ittttttttttttttttt

12. エルマ (Elma) & エイミー (Amy)

awwwwww the non-depressing songs!!! i love them sm

um they're messages directly to each other

both were the last songs each other wrote in the story

they both sound sweet and Kumo to Yuurei-esque, but slightly more upbeat (basically just similar to each other)

yeah i love those songs they're the only happy ones by Yorushika i can think of besides Haru Dorobou (which is just SPRING :DDD oooo flowers!!! they're pretty!!!)

anyways.

13. 4/10 & 海底、月明かり (Kaitei, Tsukiakari/Seabed, Moonlight)

another. instrumental. (dw this is the last instrumental)

aaaaaaaand the last one. the one we've been waiting for.

14. だから僕は音楽をやめた (Dakara Boku wa Ongaku wo Yameta/That's Why I Gave Up On Music) & ノーチラス (Nautilus)

so they were both featured at the end of their journeys. (Amy oofs himself on the dock, Elma finds his stuff a year later and cries before going home on a ship like a month later but in that month there's like no lore whatsoever so it's kind of an epilogue???)

Dakara Boku mainly is just. looking at whatever happened back then and how much Amy regrets whatever he did in Letters. he wishes he stayed with Elma cuz then he'd have a bit longer to live but well i guess he really isn't going to make it past the summer. also screaming. aaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--

i will say Nautilus was also written by Amy, because at the literal end (just before he wrote Elma, i think. he doesn't write when he says goodbye in Letters and Diary obviously doesn't state when it was written because well Elma doesn't know) he was going about his day before realizing the day he runs out of ink draws nearer and nearer. and he hasn't even considered how Elma felt/would feel after he's gone so he wrote Nautilus as a way to say "it will be hard, but turn away from me and lift your head to the future" and that makes me cry even harder like NOOOO I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE YOU HERE BUT ALSO I CAN'T TAKE YOU WITH ME CUZ YOU TOOK THE BUS TO THE OTHER WORLD CYA

and that's it for the albums! =w=

*pathetic bowing*

[nostalgebraist]

Hello I have a question about the bot, hopefully you’re not too tired of those. I’ve heard that machine learning models have a tendency to sometimes just recreate an existing image or post from their training data, which is a problem with a lot of the currently popularized AI art creation tools. Have you ever noticed the bot closely recreating a post from your blog? Sometimes I’ll see a Frank post that’s like a review of a movie or book or an impressively coherent shorter text post that makes me wonder if it just got lifted wholesale from somewhere deep in your blog. Also, when Frank is just generating new content that isn’t in response to an ask, is there any sort of seeding that influences what topics she’s making posts about? Thanks and have a great day!

I’ve heard that machine learning models have a tendency to sometimes just recreate an existing image or post from their training data, which is a problem with a lot of the currently popularized AI art creation tools.

This isn't exactly true.

We should distinguish between

Whether the model can re-create examples from its training data

Whether the model is likely to do this, during normal usage, if you aren't specifically aiming for it

For almost any generative model seeing use in 2023 -- including Frank's language model, stable diffusion, etc. -- the answers are

Yes, it can re-create (some) training examples, if you prompt it in just the right way

No, you're unlikely to see this "by accident" during normal usage

I've never seen Frank re-create a post from the training data, or even come very close to doing this. (At least not for a long time -- I think there might have been some very early, very overfit, not-very-good versions of the model that did this sometimes.)

I've never had this problem with an image-generating model, either ... at least, not to my knowledge. Maybe this is a pain point with some of them and I just don't know about it.

(Lots of people are worried that these models can capably reproduce the styles of specific artists, but that's different. Also, there are just a lot of misconceptions about these models flying around.)

Also, when Frank is just generating new content that isn’t in response to an ask, is there any sort of seeding that influences what topics she’s making posts about?

There are a few small factors, which also apply to asks/etc.:

Frank's mood value

The time of day in my time zone

I'm not sure the time of day really affects anything. It goes into the prompt, and it's present in all of the training data, but I've never seen a clear indication that it's having a real effect on post content.

Also, for original posts, the bot uses tumblr's queue to make them well in advance. That makes it doesn't actually know what the mood value will be at the time of posting. Instead, it uses a simple guess about the future value: namely, what the mood would be if no one sent any asks/etc. between now and then.

And then, some of these posts don't even get posted at the time they were originally "slated" for, because sometimes they get flagged by my automated moderation system and saved to drafts so I can manually review + queue them.

So yeah, it's complicated, and the tl;dr is "nothing really affects those posts much."

EDIT: oh, I forgot -- for original posts, I also randomly choose between a prompt for a normal tumblr post, a prompt for a fiction chapter, and a prompt for a book review.

The training data for the fiction chapters was taken from my fiction, and the training data for the book reviews was taken from my Goodreads reviews.

[kiunlo]

again, i must re-iterate something i've said many times before: you don't know what AI generated shit looks like. you don't know what photoshopped shit looks like. you don't know what cleverly and sneakily edited videos look like. you dont know the difference between a weird ass video of a weird ass occurrence that just happens to exist in real life vs. fucking CGI. you will call literally anything that is slightly sketchy AI or photoshopped or whatever because either 1. your world view has become so warped that an image of a fucking CAT licking it's balls and getting into a strange position as a result makes you think it's AI or 2. the thing you're looking at is bizarre or perhaps a rare occurrence in this world, and instead of attempting to do any amount of research about it or ask people who you think would have more knowledge about it, you simply assume the world cannot actually be that interesting, so AI it must be. the thing is, before AI, you bitches were just calling it fucking photoshop, but it was the same exact principles being used in your accusations. i'm sick of it. people are calling an old man who makes cover songs on youtube fucking AI as if old men are not allowed to play the guitar and fucking sing. god forbid.

[lady-of-the-upside-down]

Local indie publishing scene drama is crazy this week

A rough rundown (May not be super accurate but it gives you the idea) Also please bear with my grammar, it’s past 1am here as of writing.

Person A publishes under Company X in like 2014 or so, this was PA’s first novel. It doesn’t sell well.

Take note that part of the contract you sign under Company X states that you are responsible for your marketing (which is fair for an indie) and that you as the author have the final say on what version will be published even after their editors have done their own editing.

Eventually Person A offshoots and starts their own company, Company Y. It’s technically an imprint of the publishing company their parents run (why didn’t PA publish under there in the first place???)

During that time, Company X grew, getting more authors that succeed under them, and going as far as participating in international events like book fairs in Germany and the UK.

In the last week, Person A had been going on a tirade on Facebook over an alleged “scam publisher” that “doesn’t edit their books.” Meanwhile, many in the scene seeing the posts thought it was about an unrelated Company Z, who was outed for using AI art covers.

Just last weekend, Company X had an activity at a local chain bookstore that focused on a specific genre. It was a mini-convention with talks and signings and also the launch of an anthology of short stories of that genre.

The event wasn’t even bad, the only real complaint is that the venue was cramped for the unexpectedly sizable number of attendees.

Now back to Person A, they continues with their tirades online, all while bragging about an expensive deal they got with some TV network. Whatever, congrats I guess. (They were mentioning amounts of money that even a 4th grader would know not to post on social media as something you have, so it’s clear PA has piss poor social media skills)

The tirades continued in the past days and got more and more specific until she all but said the name. They still referred to Company X as a “scam”

Her claim seemed plausible as several other authors (Call them A1, A2) then began to come up with their own complaints about their works under Company X.

Turns out, upon the informal investigation done by some authors in our group chat, the commonality between the complainants was that their books didn’t sell well.

But remember, marketing was part of their obligations as Company X’s business model is less traditional and more collaborative between author and publisher.

Related to the last point, that was where A1’s complaint falls flat. It was his obligation to re-check the edited manuscript to check for any mis-corrections (such as editors removing intentional “mistakes”, amongst other things)

Person B, who started and runs Company X, had to address the private Facebook group of their authors and fans about the situation, giving us a clearer picture of what was going on and the likely reason how it began. (That’s where it was confirmed that Person A’s book really just didn’t sell well) It was a well-written statement and really helped ease our anxieties about the tensions, and also reminding us about how publishing under Company X was meant to be collaborative, which is something we willingly agreed to.

Person B also revealed that A2’s parent was stressing PB out in the middle of a busy book fair while they were nursing a mild fever all because A2’s mom was accusing PB of being connected to random politicians from the province PB came from, which PB denies vehemently in a professional manner.

A2 was also insistent on publishing once a month with different genres, which is, frankly, a stupid idea to begin with. So they shouldn’t have been surprised that many of those works undersold.

During that fair (and all fairs Company X participated in) there were authors who were present to promote their works, and even helping promote the works of those who weren’t there.

Bottom line: A1 and A2 didn’t due their due diligence in editing and marketing, respectively, and now Person A is using their “complaints” as part of a smear campaign against Company X.

It’s certainly been a wild few days of drama and honestly it takes a toll as someone with stake on the game. I am posting this here just to get it out of my system because frankly I’m still pissed about how Person A acted. I am saying this as someone who has met Person B in real life and even has mutual friends with her (one who knew PB long before she started Company X)

While we are generally happy about PA’s success with their company, it just leaves a sour taste in our mouths to see our feeds filled with their needless vitriol that could’ve easily been clarified with PB via email, rather than resorting to what is essentially slander(?) Also this situation really just caused a lot of anxiety to us, especially those of us who have works in progress under Company X.

Now, as a result of this, several authors who submitted stuff for Company Y’s calls for submissions are now rethinking the thoughts of signing a contract if they’re accepted.

Tried to be as vague as possible with the details to avoid further expansion of the issue.

Anyways here’s the dose of local hobby drama that I needed to get out of my system tonight before I go to sleep.

[marlowedobbeart]

Daydream Skies Devlog #3

​WELL WELLL WELLLLL I have been hard at work during the PIGSquad Finish Your Game Jam​ with the hopes of spending the jam time to polish up and finish my combat system! While I didn't get absolutely everything done (turns out RPGs are like, a lot of systems and numbers who could have guessed) I sure did make a lot of progress and got probably 80% of the way to having the combat system in a place where it only requires content from me rather than systems design.

So what did I get done? Glad you asked! First, here's where we started at the beginning of the jam:

I had basic attacks (attacking in 1 line) and attacking in different shapes (the x shape) as well as 1 enemy type that did just a basic attack itself. Players and enemies all took turns based on their speed values and all executed at the same time. First, I came to the quick realization that just throwing every unit into a pool and taking their turn based on their speed would not work design-wise for this game. With placement on the grid being an important mechanic, I couldn't make sense of having an enemy potentially move where they are located before the player had a chance to proc their attack on that tile. So this meant separating player turns and enemy turns entirely.

What I thought would be a very grueling re-architecture task ended up taking me 15 minutes. (Turns out, all the tutorials that showed me how to more modularly construct my code were RIGHT??? :O) So now we had enemies taking their turns squarely after the player. After thise, I wanted to create animations for the seaslime, my "complete" enemy to communicate better to the player what they were doing. This meant making them an attack and hitstun animation in addition to their idle. I also made a little script to squash and stretch their sprite when they move to a new tile to give them some bounce.

What was next was making a new "type" of enemy. I didn't want to use the same type of enemy only doing a regular attack but with slightly differing stats for the whole game. I knew it was time to make "special" attacks. So to start I got our new enemy in. His name is Kelponzo:

My intentions were to have another common encounter enemy that would teach players about status effects by applying Poison to a player if none of them were already poisoned. This resulted in the much needed "enemyattack" script where I could store information about any different type of attack I came up with now or in the future.

Setting up the poison counter and damage taken to the player was pretty simple. Once I had the enemy AI and attack figured out, it was smooth sailing and we officially had 2 different types of enemies with the structure in place to make any different AI or attack types that I wanted. Being poisoned of course meant that I needed to make edits to the player's portraits during combat to better communicate status effects. So I give you:

I couldn't think of a better way to make a skeleton look *more* dead.

After this, it was really about getting as much polish done as possible. I wanted to animate both trixie and davy next to the grid during combat. I didn't quite get all these animations done but I got them *at least* penciled out with idle, attack, cast, and hit stun animations and a fancy new state machine to take care of all of them.

look at them all wiggling.

What other things did I do? I made a lightning attack animation and added attack "types" and type weaknesses for enemies. I did a little (but not enough) work in timing out actions and adding pauses between things so someone who isn't me can understand what's going on during a turn. I am quickly realizing that, at least for myself, the most challenging part of programming is telling the computer to "wait a second" and give a little breathing room to digest what is happening. My next steps are to clean up animations and do another more earnest timing pass on things so that it doesn't feel like enemy and player actions are happening on top of one another too quickly to internalize. Once those steps are taken I can finally play the combat all the way through as intended and do a balance pass on these first to enemies to make sure they're fun. (oh, and I also have to fix the bug where battles just don't end anymore? Truly a problem for a future Marlowe.) Here's a little video of roughly where I left off:

Overall I'm really happy with the progress I made during the jam. Big shoutout to the PIGSquad community for keeping me company during the jam while they all shared progress on their own projects! It was very motivating. It's been almost exactly 1 year since I started working on this game in earnest and I have to say I'm really happy with what I've learned from basically nothing just chipping away at this in my free time. I am so close to just being able to make a demo of this game I can almost taste it and that's the ultimate goal in front of me right now! Till next time! -Marlowe

[oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo]

Any of my people interested in discussing AI ethics/legalities?

Here’s a link for interest: https://zapier.com/blog/ai-ethics/

I wasn’t aware that AI-created images cannot be copyrighted… Which, I believe, would imply that AI images cannot be bought and sold legally? The reason being that AI pulls everything it uses from the internet, and some internet images are copyrighted.

There are some AI companies/apps being sued. I’ve been researching and experimenting with AI, and it seems confusing sometimes.

Is it not just a tool to be used? If one heavily re-edits something, does that make it “new” and therefore make it original and copyrighted??? 🤔🤔🤔

I mean, Duchamp and a bunch of other artists took some original art, changed it, and then displayed it as their own. Even Andy Warhol made prints of images that were copyrighted and made them his.

Is AI not helping us do the same?? I feel like AI is going to bring us right round to the question of “What is Art?” again…

Thoughts? Opinions? Facts?

[pranay-bansal-dmss]

Digital Media: Sources and Significance | Critical Analysis

Bazin, A. and Gray, H. (1960) ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, Film quarterly, 13(4), pp. 8–9.

Andre Bazin was an extremely renowned and highly influential film critic and theorist of French origin. In one of his most well known articles titled “Ontology of the Photographic Image”, he talks about the intricacies concerning the nature of Photography as well as its connection to traditional art and Painting. This publication is often said to be highly influential in propelling forward countless other contributions towards the study of Photography and is also known as a primary influence within contemporary photographic theory.

Although it is highly influential, the article is often misinterpret by critics, who often tend to overlook Bazin’s perspective and reject it outright.

In his discussion, Bazin explains what the connection between a photograph and its subject is. He says that a photograph can flawlessly capture an object in both space and time, essentially preserving it for eternity. He says that paintings are more subjective in nature, especially in terms of interpretation, whereas photography gives us an unaltered re-creation of reality directly derived from the object itself, freezing it in time.

According to Bazin, a photograph aims to give us an unaltered view of the object, and presents it perfectly to the viewer without any human agency and influence of time. In this way, the artistic qualities of the photograph cannot be altered by the artist, making nature the true artist in a sense. He explains how there is an intrinsic need in humans to make representations. He further elaborates on this idea by giving the example of the Egyptians and the creation of mummies, the purpose of which is to provide a defence against the passing of time.

Bazin says that when it comes to the ability to create resemblance, painting is much inferior compared to photography. According to him, a photograph possesses a very unique power of believability, which convinces the viewer of the object’s existence. Painting lacks this irrational element. Photography stands apart from art because of its ability to liberate the object from its “temporal contingencies” and mummifying it.

However, this comparison has been widely misunderstood by critics who interpret it as a criticism towards painting. Both the mediums are different from each other in their approach towards artistic expression, possessing very distinct characteristics unique to themselves. For instance: Photography does not aim to re-create what already exists in reality. Rather, it exists as a form of artistic expression and further adds to the real world or creates an interpretation of nature, often detached from reality. It creates original points-of-view which would otherwise be non-existent.

Bazin also explores the connection between photography and cinema. Cinema can be seen as a spiritual successor to photography. It possesses the same power of believability, but to a greater extent, due to its ability to capture time instead of just a single moment. Both can preserve objects but through different means.

In today’s world, photography and cinematography are very much intertwined in artistic practices. For example, Stop-Motion is an intersectional medium where objects are placed and manipulated slightly and captured. When played the frames in a sequence, it creates an effect of movement on screen.

Over the past few decades, Art and Photography have gone through significant transformations. It has started to become more and more difficult to distinguish between the two with rising popularity of Photo Editing and Digital Art. As a result there is a noticeable convergence between the mediums. Furthermore, AI technology has started to greatly influence art since the past few years. With the rise in popularity of AI art, many have began questioning its ethical implications.

Apart from that, video games is another medium which has made strides when it comes to both advancement in technology and its integration of other mediums such as photography in various games. One such game is Viewfinder, which uses photography and gamifies it to create a very a fresh experience which was never seen before. Since it doesn’t use photography in a traditional way, one could argue its take on the medium is closer to art than it is to photography.

Even though some aspects of Bazin’s argument might require adaptation in accordance to the technological developments in Art and Cinema, his ideas still remain quite foundational in film theory to this day and a lot of his points about the comparison between Painting and Photography still resonate.

Although technological advances raise questions about the indexical relationship between the photograph and reality and question the objectivity of the photographic image, digital manipulation exists in a realm of its own, separated from photography.

Understanding the process of production of the photograph has become extremely important, especially in recent times. According to Morgan, D. (2006), “for us to read a photograph correctly, we have to be aware of how it was produced, aware of its status as an indexical sign. We believe that a photograph is an accurate indication of the presence of objects in front of the camera at a past time not because of the criteria of resemblance but because we know how the image was generated” (p.447). This also further supports Bazin’s claim that photograph is primarily a mechanical process, free of human agency.

“He does not write about the photograph as an object, but about the photographic image as an analogon of reality” (Verano, L. 2022. pp. 401-423). Bazin places a lot of emphasis on a photograph’s innate ability to depict and re-create the natural world, as well as its influence in the medium of art.

At the end of the day, Ontology of the Photographic Image is extremely influential to media and film studies even to this day even though the original text is quite old. Bazin’s arguments hold up extremely well, in my opinion, and his points about the mummy complex and the psychology behind photography and its relation to human nature is an extremely interesting way to think about media. It is certainly a unique take on media and photography, one which everyone should read at least once.

Works Cited:

Morgan, D. (2006) ‘Rethinking Bazin: Ontology and Realist Aesthetics’, Critical inquiry, 32(3), pp. 443–481.

Esqueda Verano, L. (2022). There is no such thing as one realism: systematising André Bazin's film theory. New Review of Film and Television Studies, 20(3), 401–423.

[jcmarchi]

Top 3 Online Tools to Remove Background From Image For Free - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/top-3-online-tools-to-remove-background-from-image-for-free-technology-org/

Top 3 Online Tools to Remove Background From Image For Free - Technology Org

Removing the background / photo by Depositphotos

Background removal can help you improve your images that are currently cluttered with unnecessary details and have some objects that don’t belong or need to be used in the design template. Although the process might seem challenging, in reality, even non-designers can cut out the background of an image using special online tools like the one you can find on depositphotos.com.

Read further to learn about the benefits of such tools.

Why should you use online tools to remove image backgrounds?

Background removal / photo by Depositphotos

For years, the only way to delete the background of an image was to use professional graphic editing software like Adobe Photoshop. While this tool is used by over 90% of the world’s creative professionals nowadays, it might not be the first choice for people who aren’t familiar with design or retouching.

You don’t have to be a designer to still work with images. For instance, 40% of marketers prepare visuals for their creative campaigns using online tools. Here’s why they opt for this solution.

Online tools deliver quick results

With online tools, especially AI-powered ones, you can get backgroundless images in a few clicks — and you don’t need any prior designer experience to achieve that. Furthermore, even professional designers often opt for such solutions instead of more traditional ones because this allows them to obtain results quickly and focus on more creative tasks.

Online tools help save time and money

This is especially true if you are a beginner designer or a marketing specialist without lots of costs to spend on graphic editing software. Most such tools are free, and even those that require you to purchase a subscription still cost less than professional solutions. What’s more, you don’t need to spend a lot of time mastering them. The whole process is very intuitive and usually takes 3-5 steps.

Online tools run on any device

You don’t need to carry your laptop around or worry that your gadget is not powerful enough. Online removers work even on tablets and smartphones, as long as they have a stable internet connection.

FAQ: Are online background removers a good fit for image editing?

This depends on the tool that you want to use. Some of such solutions offer only background removal, while some also allow you to edit visuals further — for instance, apply filters to them.

3 free image background removers to try

Background removal process / photo by Depositphotos

Finding the right tool to remove background from images online can be challenging, as there are so many different options out there. Here are three efficient suggestions to consider.

1.    Depositphotos Background Remover

This tool created by Depositphotos is a free AI-powered solution that efficiently processes all visuals, including the ones with detailed and complex backgrounds. It can be used by both beginner and experienced creators. Depositphotos Background Remover supports PNG, JPG, JPEG, and WebP file formats that weigh up to 30 MB and require registration to download HD results.

2.    Cutout.Pro

Cutout.Pro is a multi-feature online platform that allows you to erase backgrounds, apply creative filters, upscale visuals, and do other editing. You can choose between erasing specific objects from the image backdrop or eliminating the background completely. You’ll get five bonus credits for free HD result download after registration and will be able to get five more if you decide to invite friends to the platform. After that, you can purchase additional credits or a subscription to continue using the tool.

3.    Slazzer

Slazzer is a tool that allows you to erase image backgrounds, blur them, or replace them with other visuals or colors. It has lots of custom presets to process different types of visuals: cards, people, products, real estate, animals, and graphics. The tool offers API integration with Figma and Sketch. You can download the results in medium quality for free and purchase credits to unlock HD downloads.

FAQ: Are all online background removers free?

No. In fact, there aren’t too many completely free online background removers out there. Most such tools offer several free options (for instance, some features are free, or you can process several images for free), but often you have to pay to remove watermarks and unlock HD downloads.

To sum up

Online background removers are a great beginner-friendly solution for image processing. They deliver quick results, help creators save their time and money, and run on any device that has a stable internet connection. Try one of the tools listed in this article to see for yourself how efficient they can be.

[ear-worthy]

The Good Robot Podcast: Feminism & Tech Converge

The Good Robot podcast offers listeners an engrossing premise -- Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney ask expert guests in each episode: what is good technology? Is ‘good’ technology even possible? And how can feminism help us work towards it? Each week, they invite scholars, industry practitioners, activists, and more to provide their unique perspective on what feminism can bring to the tech industry and the way that we think about technology. With each conversation, The Good Robot asks how feminism can provide new perspectives on technology’s biggest problems.

The podcast is tied closely to the book, "The Good Robot" published by the co-hosts of the podcast, and available in late February. In this edited collection of essays, leading feminist scholars, technologists and activists show why technology needs feminism. Cutting across disciplinary differences and intergenerational divides, the essays demonstrate the breadth of feminist thinking about technology. From Buddhist approaches to making AI ‘compassionate’, to indigenous cultural perspectives on re-thinking relationships between humans and AI, this book offers powerful and provocative alternatives to the status quo. For some contributors, good technology means making AI more inclusive. For others, it means stepping back from new technologies altogether and ‘getting off’ social media. University of Cambridge AI ethicists Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney bring together a variety of top thinkers in the field, who provide diverse and expansive responses to the question of ‘what is good technology?’. Each essay acts as a bright spark, an illuminating snapshot of how feminism is reshaping the way we think about technology. Collectively, the essays create a constellation of ideas, laying out a path for us to build a better technological future. Co-host Dr Kerry McInerney (née Mackereth) is a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, where she researches anti-Asian racism and AI and Asian diasporic approaches to AI ethics. Kerry is an AHRC/BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, where she brings complex conversations about gender, race and artificial intelligence to wide audiences. ​ Her work uses feminist and critical race theory to examine how histories of race and gender shape contemporary technologies, with a specific focus on artificial intelligence. Her scholarship on this topic has appeared in journals such as Feminist Review, Public Understanding of Science and Philosophy and Technology. Her work on AI-powered hiring tools has also been covered by media outlets like the BBC, BBC Today, Forbes, the Register, and the Daily Mail, among other international outlets. Co-host Eleanor Drage was previously a Christina Gaw Research Associate on the Gender and Technology Research Project, where she helped resolve AI ethics issues at a major technology multinational using feminist and anti-racist theory. She has presented findings to a range of audiences including the United Nations, NatWest, The Open Data Institute (ODI), and the Institute of Science & Technology. She is the co-host of The Good Robot Podcast, has appeared on popular shows such as The Guilty Feminist, and is a TikToker for All The Citizens' data rights channel. She holds an International Dual PhD from the University of Bologna at the University of Granada, where she was an Early-Stage Researcher for the EU Horizon 2020 ETN-ITN-Marie Curie project “GRACE” (Gender and Cultures of Equality in Europe). Dr. Nomisha Kurian is The Good Robot's Youth Inclusion Consultant, and is working with Kerry and Eleanor on developing innovative teaching services and educational programs from The Good Robot podcast. Nomisha is a Teaching Associate at the University of Cambridge. She is currently researching the role of human-centered design in empathy-driven technology and presented her work on children's wellbeing at the UNESCO Artificial Intelligence and Education Forum. She recently became the first Education researcher to win the Cambridge Applied Research Award for "outstanding research with real world application", for designing and delivering interventions for 286 low-income and state-school students across the UK to widen participation in higher education. Previously, as a Yale University Henry Fellow, she used international human rights law to design an anti-bullying framework for marginalized youth. Her work has most recently been published in the Oxford Review of Education, the British Educational Research Journal, and the International Journal of Human Rights. 

One of my favorite episodes was the December 12, 2023, one with Jess Wade on rewriting Wikipedia. Wade explains the lack of feminist authors and people of color on Wikipedia and the disturbing lack of feminist issues covered.

Every few weeks, the co-hosts have a shorter Hot Takes episode on the biggest issues in tech. The August 1, 2023, episode about Musk's name change from Twitter to X and the lack of female representation in the tech industry was particularly illuminating. Check out The Good Robot. It's refreshing to listen to a technology podcast that is hosted by two women instead of Elon Musk-type dudes. The co-hosts are articulate, brilliant, and explicit enough to render complex topics graspable for most listeners.

[pranay-bansal-digital-media]

Digital Media: Sources and Significance | Critical Analysis

Bazin, A. and Gray, H. (1960) ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, Film quarterly, 13(4), pp. 8–9.

Andre Bazin was an extremely renowned and highly influential film critic and theorist of French origin. In one of his most well known articles titled “Ontology of the Photographic Image”, he talks about the intricacies concerning the nature of Photography as well as its connection to traditional art and Painting. This publication is often said to be highly influential in propelling forward countless other contributions towards the study of Photography and is also known as a primary influence within contemporary photographic theory.

Although it is highly influential, the article is often misinterpret by critics, who often tend to overlook Bazin’s perspective and reject it outright.

In his discussion, Bazin explains what the connection between a photograph and its subject is. He says that a photograph can flawlessly capture an object in both space and time, essentially preserving it for eternity. He says that paintings are more subjective in nature, especially in terms of interpretation, whereas photography gives us an unaltered re-creation of reality directly derived from the object itself, freezing it in time.

According to Bazin, a photograph aims to give us an unaltered view of the object, and presents it perfectly to the viewer without any human agency and influence of time. In this way, the artistic qualities of the photograph cannot be altered by the artist, making nature the true artist in a sense. He explains how there is an intrinsic need in humans to make representations. He further elaborates on this idea by giving the example of the Egyptians and the creation of mummies, the purpose of which is to provide a defence against the passing of time.

Bazin says that when it comes to the ability to create resemblance, painting is much inferior compared to photography. According to him, a photograph possesses a very unique power of believability, which convinces the viewer of the object’s existence. Painting lacks this irrational element. Photography stands apart from art because of its ability to liberate the object from its “temporal contingencies” and mummifying it.

However, this comparison has been widely misunderstood by critics who interpret it as a criticism towards painting. Both the mediums are different from each other in their approach towards artistic expression, possessing very distinct characteristics unique to themselves. For instance: Photography does not aim to re-create what already exists in reality. Rather, it exists as a form of artistic expression and further adds to the real world or creates an interpretation of nature, often detached from reality. It creates original points-of-view which would otherwise be non-existent.

Bazin also explores the connection between photography and cinema. Cinema can be seen as a spiritual successor to photography. It possesses the same power of believability, but to a greater extent, due to its ability to capture time instead of just a single moment. Both can preserve objects but through different means.

In today’s world, photography and cinematography are very much intertwined in artistic practices. For example, Stop-Motion is an intersectional medium where objects are placed and manipulated slightly and captured. When played the frames in a sequence, it creates an effect of movement on screen.

Over the past few decades, Art and Photography have gone through significant transformations. It has started to become more and more difficult to distinguish between the two with rising popularity of Photo Editing and Digital Art. As a result there is a noticeable convergence between the mediums. Furthermore, AI technology has started to greatly influence art since the past few years. With the rise in popularity of AI art, many have began questioning its ethical implications.

Apart from that, video games is another medium which has made strides when it comes to both advancement in technology and its integration of other mediums such as photography in various games. One such game is Viewfinder, which uses photography and gamifies it to create a very a fresh experience which was never seen before. Since it doesn’t use photography in a traditional way, one could argue its take on the medium is closer to art than it is to photography.

Even though some aspects of Bazin’s argument might require adaptation in accordance to the technological developments in Art and Cinema, his ideas still remain quite foundational in film theory to this day and a lot of his points about the comparison between Painting and Photography still resonate.

Although technological advances raise questions about the indexical relationship between the photograph and reality and question the objectivity of the photographic image, digital manipulation exists in a realm of its own, separated from photography.

Understanding the process of production of the photograph has become extremely important, especially in recent times. According to Morgan, D. (2006), “for us to read a photograph correctly, we have to be aware of how it was produced, aware of its status as an indexical sign. We believe that a photograph is an accurate indication of the presence of objects in front of the camera at a past time not because of the criteria of resemblance but because we know how the image was generated” (p.447). This also further supports Bazin’s claim that photograph is primarily a mechanical process, free of human agency.

“He does not write about the photograph as an object, but about the photographic image as an analogon of reality” (Verano, L. 2022. pp. 401-423). Bazin places a lot of emphasis on a photograph’s innate ability to depict and re-create the natural world, as well as its influence in the medium of art.

At the end of the day, Ontology of the Photographic Image is extremely influential to media and film studies even to this day even though the original text is quite old. Bazin’s arguments hold up extremely well, in my opinion, and his points about the mummy complex and the psychology behind photography and its relation to human nature is an extremely interesting way to think about media. It is certainly a unique take on media and photography, one which everyone should read at least once.

Works Cited:

Morgan, D. (2006) ‘Rethinking Bazin: Ontology and Realist Aesthetics’, Critical inquiry, 32(3), pp. 443–481.

Esqueda Verano, L. (2022). There is no such thing as one realism: systematising André Bazin's film theory. New Review of Film and Television Studies, 20(3), 401–423.