A.I. ASSISTED SELF PORTRAIT
With all the new technology developed regarding A.I. generated artwork, some artists are concerned that it may affect artists in a negative way. While this can be true for artists with a lack of technical skill, the ideas and concepts that artists tackle will always provide new avenues for making art that A.I. generating software won't be able to push the boundaries of.
In fact, A.I. art generation is simply a new tool for making art in a faster, perhaps more efficient way. I see a clear analogy between this new technology and the way photography as a new technology impacted painting and art-making in the late 19th century. Many artists feared the photograph would ruin the need for painters and applied artwork...which clearly wasn't the case. Photography actually liberated painters to push the limits of painting and allowed them to explore new subject matter, abstract ideas and alternate techniques... once the photograph alleviated the need for detailed and accurate image-making.
Illuminated Self-portrait 1, 2022. Manipulated digital photograph.
ART OF MAKING
A.I. generated art is a feat of computation, but one that depends on a database of previous images that it references and derives from. Without the artworks of the past and the supply of images on the internet, the A.I. software would not function. Styles and aesthetics are often adopted by the software, not invented...and without reference images the A.I. tool would not be able to convey meaningful or relatable artwork.
The tools new technology provides are new avenues for thought, and allows the artist to focus on the concepts and ideas that have not been attempted before. It presents new challenges, but opens up opportunities to question what it takes to be an artist and how we must push art-making into new worlds of potential.
A.I. COLLABORATION
To illustrate the possibilities that A.I. generated art provide as a tool, these self-portraits are rendered in styles that were manifested with the software but done with an original photograph. They show the potential for collaboration and how the art made with the A.I. can be a creation of human and A.I. endeavor. The great success of the impactful art is an outcome of both inputs, my photograph and the prompt I wrote, and the A.I. algorithm.
The quality of photograph is not diminished by the fact that I used A.I. techniques, and the A.I. would not have been able to create the same image without me. There is a style that the A.I. ultimately projects, but is is a factor of the specific A.I. and each software can create differing affects. It isn't far off from using a photoshop filter to improve or alter an image, and so long as the artist is the one using the interface, it is a result of their creativity.
There should be no fear in this new technology, it only opens up a world of new art and imagery that is just as much human as a photograph or painting.
Illuminated Self-portrait 2, 2022. Manipulated digital photograph.
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