FYI for those of you interested, there are quite a few writers listed in the article below on Substack who are part of the “Machine Rebellion” against AI, synthetic biology, and increasing digitisation;
And Michael Spencer keeps us up to date on the latest AI trends:
I am fascinated by these developments. Will read. At least writings before 2020 we can trust as human written. Or, can we?..…
Synthetic biology! Yay.
As Kingsnorth says: Everything is changing, and there is no going back.
Too late!
Mind you, in Asia the hand painted copies business has been going on for years. Seems a shame to take away their income now.
Human creativity will be inspired to push boundaries enabled by the new tech tools
further advancements in text-to-image technology may have more and more noticeable impacts on designers – though … AI software programs are more likely to prioritise art, animation and cinema.
This is actually another really exciting use of AI
Uploading ancient manuscripts and text fragments the project can decipher ancient languages and piece together writings in a timeline across cultures and generations.
The team is training an algorithm to piece together fragments that have yet to be situated in their proper context. Already, the algorithm has newly identified hundreds of manuscripts and many textual connections.
Using this process what might we learn about the history of humanity?
Not actually related to AI but since art has been discussed here, we visited the house of Cesar Manrique today. He was obviously a bit of a libertine, but parts of the place were fascinating, as though designed for a James Bond movie that was never shot.
Marvellous organic architecture. Very James Bond circa 1960.
Enjoy your trip! Hope you’re not on the fault line with poor Turkey.
You might find something useful in this article. Very envious!
Lanzarote and the legacy of César Manrique | Financial Times (ft.com)
Continue to be disappointed with Stable Diffusion’s absence of imagination (OTOH my brain doesn’t use algorithms for creative thinking). Nevertheless one of the most common C20th strategies for creative thinking was putting together two artefacts or ideas that don’t normally belong together. The classic art historical example is the C19th poet, Isidore Ducasse, aka Lautreamaunt’s, ‘As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table.’ which decades later was adopted by the Surrealists.
Anyhow, on a less ambitious niveau, today I tried to generate something with ‘The house of books’ . Got got back four different pictures of bookshelves.
Undeterred I typed, ‘the city of books’, but got back virtually the same images. No apparent ability to respond to the change of scale. In fact I couldn’t see any significant difference between ‘house and city’.4
Nevertheless, gave it one more shot with, ‘the city built of books’. to my surprise still got similar images of book cases!
At least you tried.
Thank you - I’ll read through in a bit. We had quite a bit more of CM today, and I may post a couple of pics later from the phone. Lanzarote landscape is harder to access than that of Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, with fewer places to stop and take pictures. There are signs that his influence over island development is waining, with building work done in styles that probably would not meet his approval.
We visited Jameos del Agua and Mirador del Rio, and hope to see the house at Tahiche in the next couple of days.
An interesting development in the legal view of ‘appropriation art’ and its limits over copyrights
AI, 3D printers and the like are all going to keep the owners of original icons very busy protecting their images.
Looks an amazing place, but your final image reminded me of somewhere very different and a very different artist
This is S Africa’s Owl House in the Karoo, which is a world class outsider art site. I used to be one of its trustees and battled to get funding from the Getty Institute, which is the main restoration funder of such places. Unfortuantely the ANC’s Ministry of Culture refused to support the application.
Fortunately the place still manages to scrape along. Visiting Nieu Bethesda and the Owl House is an unforgettable experience.
A Visit to South Africa’s Strange, Astonishing Owl House | The New Yorker
It’s interesting in several respects. Firstly, I think I’m glad as NFTs are ecologically disastrous, secondly a shallow piece of appropriation art has taken an appropiate hit.
I assume if these had been sculptures they wouldn’t have infringed Hermes’ copyright, which is a good reason for choosing to work with the ‘real’ rather than the virtual
I completely agree about the NFTs. About Hermès and their iconic bags, I’m not so sure but the Dumas clan do have a great appreciation for art in the context of art, so I expect it would be dependant on the image projected by any item of theirs in appropriated art. They are very active in making sure the exclusivity and rarity image is maintained. Not to mention the luxury aspect.
Louis Vuitton, I think it began with Marc Jacobs, has a recent history of commissioning redesign or redecoration of their printed canvas range of bags. Keeps it fresh and maintains appeal to a somewhat finite group of purchasers to have the ‘latest’ It Bag. More about marketing than art, though.
This is fun…
Looks fascinating.
The last 2 pictures were in Teguise, the old capital town. We were driving through and saw the garden adjoining a house packed with statues and artefacts. I think there was once a museo/gallery there, but the building is closed and up for sale.
Today we wandered around Arrefice, the capital. Lots of homage to CM everywhere, some interesting pieces on the esplanade and lagoon.
Not exactly AI generated art, but the first image is one I played about with by digitally merging in the face of a friend, the woman in the left foreground, just for the fun of it many years ago.
The second image below is on two parts, the upper part from the National Gallery website, where the cracks in the oil paint can be seen, and the lower half which seems to be an enhanced copy, downloaded from Wiki, and you can find similar on other websites.
Look at the profile of the man in the middle of the lower enlarged image, which appears to be the face of a beast, and the woman’s face is so smooth, and her eyes have pinpoints of light.
AI is involved here methinks.
The colours are different, but because you haven’t given the URL of the second image, one can’t check if it’s directly from the NG - there are thousands of other possible sources many of which will be low grade printed reproduction that have in turn been poorly reproduced, in othe words, analogue copies where degeneration is likely.
I think that’s a more likely explanation than AI.
From now on I’m always counting the fingers.
