A.I. Art and the Artist

I have seen negativity concerning innovative technology in the field of creativity especially amongst the art community. This outpouring is generated by a loud and select few who’s arguments illustrate a distinct selective rather than complete understanding of Artificial Intelligence as a new tool in the artist’s kit. There seems to be an art fundamentalist approach to the often ignorant and misinformed outpourings and clearly, they are merely regurgitating others’ views without first investigating the facts. Such fundamentalism stifles creativity and such people inflict more harm on others with their aggressive judgemental outpourings than any rational and informed discussion on the merits and the problems raised by A.I.

To those who are against A.I. and have the correct facts to hand and present an informed discourse regarding their views, I thank you. Your views are valid and worthy of contemplation. You have integrity and your voice deserves to be listened to seriously. This is because you may be right.

I disagree with such views presented; my conclusions are arrived upon with the same informed information. My view is just as valid and worthy of contemplation. This is because I may be right.

I do not condone theft and I do not condone copying other people’s works. Both happen all the time by artists and that has been the case in every artistic field in history. In current climes, fan art and manga are shining examples of this yet rarely are arguments raised in opposition.

Being influenced by others and adopting another person’s style is normal. The more creative artist will learn such skills, discover what they enjoy and then develop it and make it into their own.

Bach influenced Mozart. Mozart influenced Beethoven.

Stanley Kubrick influenced Steven Spielberg. Alfred Hitchcock influenced Dario Argento.

George Lucas was influenced by Walt Disney and every soviet sci-fi film of the 50’s and 60’s, upon which he based Star Wars (along with Joseph Campbells pioneering work on pagan faiths) or so I have read.

Let us not ignore others from Quentin Tarantino to The Rolling Stones. All talk about influences and inspiration based upon other artist’s work.

It is the same in the art world and always has been, yes, I am thinking of you Mr. Hockney, a man regarded as one of the modern great artists who often states who and what influenced his work.

I am inspired by Giger, Warhol, Beksiński, Foss, Canaletto to mention a few artists.

I am inspired by Clive Barker and Stephen King, by Ridley Scott and John Carpenter.

I am inspired by Pink Floyd and Infected Mushroom.

However, I have no interest in recreating their work. I neither copy them nor steal from them despite my being able to see their fingerprints on my doodles.

A.I. will copy closely an artist’s style if asked to do so. But it does not cut and paste imagery, it is not creating a collage of work already created. It is looking at pixels or 1s and 0s for the binary folk. For every picture on the internet there is a pixel in a certain place often replicated identically across thousands of photographs, illustrations, film stills and art both modern and ancient, public domain and private. It then combines that with another pixel and another following command input by the artist. These commands may be plain text. Others involve coding and changing parameters one point at a time to create something new. The process can be remarkably simple or incredibly complicated.

I like Python Coding. I like text to art. I like anything including Photoshop and Corel which will aid me in creating the doodles I and only I imagine.

I do not want my work to look like yours or any other artist. I do not want your imagination on my canvas, I want mine.

If I use text to art, I first put in my own gallery webpage address on DeviantArt. In terms of style, I am telling the A.I. to base it upon my style. I then use a picture, doodle, or photograph that I made or took. Again, I am telling it to base its renditions on my work. Then I tell it what I want and off it goes. The results are pristine, photorealistic, and perfect and I hate them! But I love the interpretation of my ideas and so I start tweaking, influencing the A.I. with my input until its rendition matches the image in my head or as is often the case, surprises me and exceeds my expectations. The result is always perfect and real, and I hate that. The A.I. never fully captures my style and thinking but it gets uncannily close.

That is where Photoshop comes in. Digital brushes, particle brushes, mixed paints, and filters and FX actions. I use them all to develop the final doodle until I sit back and can say ‘gotcha!’

I employ the same techniques as Andy Warhol and his Monroe paintings. He’s an artist and his work is art.

I employ the same techniques as Giger and his Debby Harry paintings. He is an artist, and his work is art.

Despite this the current negative arguments suggest that I am not an artist and I do not create art. Simply because I used A.I. to aid me in my creation.

I laugh at times because the current arguments against artificial artistry are almost identical to the fine artists demonising digital art and Photoshop back in the late 90’s, etc. The only people it affected were those whose insecurities in their own skills were foremost in their minds. Fear fuelled their arguments and none of them had any foundation. To their disgust and lamentations, digital artists started producing works far superior to that which could be achieved with brush upon paper due to clarity, ease of shading and ability to fine tune and rework details instantly.

The same is happening with A.I.

The great digital artists around today will be even better as they employ new tech into their arsenal of tools. Such has always been the case. Because no matter how good a program is, no matter how clever or fast or different or alien it may be, it does not have the one asset all true artists have. And that is imagination and imagination fuels creativity which is the greatest tool in the artist’s kit.

If people copy my style and my doodles good for them and I thank them for the recognition. However, such people cannot copy my original ideas and my imagination, only my history. And it is my imagination and the final image I present which makes me an artist. It is not the tool I wield that makes me an artist. It is my imagination. And A.I. helps me to realise my dreams and nightmares in a manner that otherwise would be impossible for me.

You may well have a differing and informed fact-based view to mine. You are entitled to such views just as I am to mine.

But before you start judging me and saying I am not an artist but a thief or a copyist, please check your facts and then go look to your own work and make bloody sure that there is no influence on your style or imagery from another person or artist, make damn sure everything you do is entirely yours and not inspired by another’s work because only then will you have any credibility in questioning or accusing or judging me.

And thankfully, you will still be in the wrong and I will still be an artist!

WK 02-01-23

(Written artificially without pen or paper but by using a computer! It is still my views and my words! I am the author here even though I did not physically write a single word!)

After Dark is a members only alternative music club located in a converted nunnery just west of Ravenscar, on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, England.

The club is the only dedicated venue to Doom Jazz in the UK.

Dark jazz is characterized by the fusion of down-tempo, minimalist ambient music with jazz. The term is often used interchangeably with doom jazz and is comparable in feel and mood to dark ambient music.

 The dark atmosphere of this genre is inspired by Film noir soundtracks, in particular Ascenseur pour l'échafaud by Miles Davis and the work of Angelo Badalamenti, as well as being influenced by dark ambient music associated with the Cold Meat Industry record label. The style would be built on in the 1990s and beyond by acts like Bohren & der Club of Gore and The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.

In a private archival collection of autochromes is depicted the members, rituals, dances and celebrations of the largest and most notorious witch cult in all of Europe. Once located in the now abandoned and lost village of Wormwood, in the Forge Valley near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were gathered 13 families who for generations had practised their pagan cult away from the eyes of church and state. The village, surrounded by dense woodland, had no connecting roads and was accessible only on foot along a trail from the Derwent River somewhere between East Ayton and Hackness.

The cult’s longevity and notoriety came to light when a pedlar woman called Mother Blizzard was accused of the murder of John Barwick by witchcraft in 1919. Locals revealed that she resided in the Forge Valley and upon investigation by magistrates and police the village of Wormwood was discovered on October 27th of that year.

The village was preparing for a dark and bloody festival and much food was gathered and many animals hung and slaughtered. A huge bonfire had been erected and an alter laid out before it, upon which much esoteric and occult items were gathered. In the many hovels were discovered naked men and women conjoined with animals and hellish beasts, all in a state of ritualistic fervour and copulation. Young girls and boys danced naked through the woods and phantom shapes were seen drifting like smoke between the ramshackle huts and store rooms. Attached to all the major trees in the vicinity were the corpses of presumed ancestors recently dug up and tied there ready for the infernal celebration. The investigating officials were so alarmed that they fled in terror, secretly vowing to return with armed soldiers recently returned from the battlefields of Europe.

It is believed that some of the local soldiers enlisted to aid in the arrests and investigation of the Wormwood cult were in fact from that cursed village. On October 31st all members of the cult, the corpses of some 400 bodies, several enlisted soldiers and Mother Blizzard - previously arrested and held in Scarborough Castle - all mysteriously disappeared.

Many autochromes, dating from the war years, were discovered apparently depicting village life and the secret horrors born out of arcane rituals and practises. Most alarming of all was one picture depicting a parade of witches through East Ayton, implicating many in that village of colluding, protecting and possibly practising the illegal cult of witchcraft.

Rumours suggest that the cult re-surfaced under the guise of a travelling carnival in the United States of America calling themselves the “Carnivale du Freake”.

For further information see ‘The History Of Witchcraft’ by Montague Summers, 1926.

Reference material provided by my generous friends William Harrison and Harry Ainsworth, the British Library and Library of Congress.

Each doodle was created digitally using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Elements, Corel Paintshop Pro, DeepDream Generator and Filterforge.

Surreal and abstract experiments with shape, form and shades whilst under the influence of nightmare inducing Mushberries.

 The April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators. It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture. The accident destroyed the Chernobyl 4 reactor, killing 30 operators and firemen within three months and several further deaths later. One person was killed immediately and a second died in hospital soon after as a result of injuries received. Another person is reported to have died at the time from a coronary thrombosis. Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) was originally diagnosed in 237 people on-site and involved with the clean-up and it was later confirmed in 134 cases. Of these, 28 people died as a result of ARS within a few weeks of the accident. Nineteen more workers subsequently died between 1987 and 2004, but their deaths cannot necessarily be attributed to radiation exposure. Nobody off-site suffered from acute radiation effects although a significant, but uncertain, fraction of the thyroid cancers diagnosed since the accident in patients who were children at the time are likely to be due to intake of radioactive iodine fallout. Furthermore, large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and beyond were contaminated in varying degrees. The Chernobyl disaster was a unique event and the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power where radiation-related fatalities occurred. The design of the reactor is unique and in that respect the accident is thus of little relevance to the rest of the nuclear industry outside the then Eastern Bloc. However, it led to major changes in safety culture and in industry cooperation, particularly between East and West before the end of the Soviet Union. Former President Gorbachev said that the Chernobyl accident was a more important factor in the fall of the Soviet Union than Perestroika – his program of liberal reform.

Some 350,000 people were evacuated as a result of the accident, but resettlement of areas from which people were relocated is ongoing.

Reference material provided by the generous duo William Harrison and Harry Ainsworth.

Each doodle was created digitally using Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paintshop Pro, and Filterforge.