concept cover for my 3rd Album Refilwe generated from a picture of Ed Privat
I was really reluctant 10 years ago when I started producing music, to use technology to my advantage, I was considering myself a "purist".
Oh boy, was I wrong.
Autotune, aka any voice correction softwares (like Melodyne) were here to stay, a bit like photoshop, electric cars and Wifi. The world has changed so quickly, and if you stay on the sideline for too long, it gets kind of boring.
I don't want to close my mind anymore, after all I've been using autotune on my 2 last albums, I admit that I was wrong about it, and I will now try to be more open minded about what I don't understand. It's all about what music make you feel, and people are thriving for perfection through art.
Does that mean I am embracing transhumanism and will very soon have an antenna up my bottom?
Hell no, but I do realize that the mediums we are using to create are evolving, and it would be tragic not to take advantage of it.
I am one of those that have always wondered if one day we could be able to record our dreams, and play it as a movie to others.
Well, Ai generated art, is for me the closest I'll ever be to that dream.
I come from an Art background, I studied art in highschool as I wanted to be a comic book artist at the time, my dad is also a painter, and I spent countless hours following him in museums.
I remember the division in the class room between those that could draw, and those that couldn't.
Both were attending the same Art class as we were the "Art curiculum" of the highschool, which was a patchwork of misfits, from punks, aspiring artists, musicians, to school dropouts, and everything in between.
Those that could draw often made fun of those that couldn't (I often instigated the rift), and those that could't draw were compensating their lack of "skills" with amazing concepts, political critiques, and a freedom that we, the one that could draw, could never really experience.
I learnt a lot about modern art, Dubuffet, Burren, Basquiat, Picasso, the Dada movement, the futuristic movement, I learnt about Art, with a big A. It took me a long time to understand that concept of Art, as I was coming from a morte traditional art background.
That shift that we are experiencing right now in art, I can only compare it to the art revolution the XXth century has witnessed around the 1920s. Artist were breaking the shackles of traditionalism, and experiencing art in ways we spent a 100 years to uunderstand.
I've stopped dreaming about art, a long time ago. AI has just rekindled that passion, and ever since I've been dabbing into the technology, my mind has already reach places that I didn't know existed.
It's been a few years that I imagined a concept for a comic book about an MMA fighter, that is trying to find his family during the Zombie Apocalypse, it's called DEAD PUNCH, and it's gonna be awesome.
Well at least on paper, that idea was great, but I couldn't really "visualize" where my ideas were going.
Midjourney and Nightcafe studio are the 2 generators that I often use, they have really helped me through mapping out the process, and even made it possible for me to conceptualize pretty much anything.
I can tomorrow hire a drawer, that will help me finish my concept! Freaking amazing...
What does it mean for the future, of everything?
I don't know, it's a tough question to answer, and I have to admit that it's a scary thought.
Taking a jab at Klaus Schwab using Nightcafe. I called this one "Eat Bugs, Be Happy"
But the elite in charge of your reality, they have already decided that AI will dominate our existence, BlackRock is making gazillions dollars on predicting the market and probably shaping it, jobs are already gone by the hundreds daily, it's already here...
So I might embrace part of it, just because it's really, really fun.
Enjoying art for what it is, that's something I completely forgot.
Again, the technology is really new, for those that are on the fence, just give it a try. See what you can come up with.
I keep on scrolling through Instagram, and every piece of ai art created that I encounter is just a blast to look at, I am enjoying it as much as if it was done by an artist, so in some ways, it makes it real?
It's still an open question, and maybe in 5 years people will say "Do you remember when everyone went crazy with AI art? It really was the beginning of the end".
But think about it, that's probably what impressionists painters felt when they saw the first cubist painting, or even the first time someone used a modern paint brush compared to the old ones, it's just a natural process of "progress".
I am just very grateful to be a part of this generation, and witness what's about to come, because it will transcend us in ways we do not understand yet.
For now, it's a lot of trials and errors. The result you get from the prompt isn't always "perfect", but you'll know when you hit the spot, when the picture "just makes sense".
For example, here is what happened when I prompted "Acoustic guitar player Ed Privat at the top of a mountain, the sun is setting, on the trees, wide angle, anime style":
Look at this guy:
Hahaha, obviously, you won't always get a good result, it will take some level of discomfort (very much like when drawing), but again, I am just having such a blast with it, I couldn't care what people think. Art is art, I gave up trying to make sense of it.
At the end of the day, it's really up to what you make of it. It reminds me of the possibilites you have playing an open sandbox game, like Minecraft. You are in charge of the story, and the limits of the game are your own creative limitations.
After years of not drawing, I actually also got back into it recently, and learned that you can still improve your "skills", even after 30.
But this sort of perfection, it takes a long time to achieve, and ain't nobody got time for thiiiiiiis...
All the Art in this post was created by @edprivat, using midjourney, and nightcafestudio.
Cheers!
What I am working on:
I love this "unlocking" of creative potential that is proffered by tools like this.
This will simply broaden the practice of Art beyond the institution and democratise it.
As someone who is trained in Art in the "classical" way, I welcome this innovation and uncertain future with wide, open, gleeful arms.
It still going to take me a long time to be completely open minded about it (there is still a stygma of course), for years I was probably a bit angry at technology, because I thought "it was the right thing to do". Meanwhile I was still in some ways involved deep in it making my own computer from scratch, and just being a big nerd, I realize lately that I've always embraced it, it doesn't mean I am worshipping it, but that you learn how to use the tools of your era. It's survival at its best!
Exactly. Not many people left using film photography as a medium these days, but they're still valued alongside digital photographers. I think it will be the same with the new generation of "AI artists"
Those are some epic pictures you shared!
This part made me laugh.
I feel similar. I'm not afraid of new tech, but we gotta be careful to not be consumed by it.
I think we will see that kind of dream technology during our lifetimes. I've seen the primitive version of it already and imagine it's only a matter of time until it becomes affordable enough for the average person.
Also, I agree in regard to how this AI tech is similar to dreaming. I typed up similar in one of my AI posts. the command prompt for DreamStudio even starts with /dream
I've been asking my dreams questions in a similar way I ask the AI to make pictures and the parallels are quite fascinating!
Very cool, though provoking post. Thanks for sharing!
Oh, also. how are you doing the comic thing when each prompt is different? Are you using a seed and then working from that? I'd like to do something similar! I have an idea for a comic sort of idea too.
I can't believe I am saying these words about AI, but it's empowering as it allows to take a next creative step, it's like having superpowers.
This is an excellent question! I am currently playing around, the easiest way to have consistency is to use a famous person as a subject.
On that note, someone did the first comic book
https://beincrypto.com/ai-art-worlds-first-bot-generated-graphic-novel-hits-the-market/
Agreed... It is kind of like that! And... Cool! Thanks for the info! I'm sure this will be helpful. :)
Wow, trippy stuff man! Great job
So trippy dude, and there's a new AI video animator that allows you to animate images together, even trippier!
Dang, I'll have to check some of this out one day, technology is moving so fast.
Good for you:)
I've been opening up my mind to a lot of things recently. I'm a realist, and I was stuck into a mindset that if something is not 'real' ... just the way it is, there was no place in my mind/brain for it.
I was SO wrong.
Your post is an affirmation and reminder of many more things that I should explore.
I love early morning reads like this!
I am glad you enjoyed it!!
I've got a feeling that you're the type of character that keeps on leveling up though 😎
Thanks!
😊 I try :)
That's interesting. A few years back I wrote a short story that I really wanted to turn into a comic but decided it wasn't possible for me. I can draw, but not well enough for what I invisioned or fast enough to make it feasible. It would be cool to do a comic though. This looks like it could be an option. Are those services free and do you get the rights to them or at least, could you publish them in a book or comic?
Great work by the way, except maybe the jacked face one hahaha
Hahaha you cracked me up with this gif!
That's a good question, you can commercialise midjourney work if you pay for the subscription which is 10 bucks and most of these AI offers a sub of the same price giving you access to a certain amount of credit. All the processing of the AI cost GPU and is based on servers I think. Check this about copyright:
Does the license allow me to sell my creations or use them for commercial purposes?
Short answer: Yes, provided you didn't use any Copyrighted images in the creation process, and subject to the Copyright laws in your jurisdiction.
Copyright laws for AI-generated artworks are still evolving, and vary from country to country. It's up to you to check the Copyright laws in your own country.
In jurisdictions where NightCafe is deemed the Copyright holder (as the AI-generation platform), we agree to transfer the Copyright ownership to you - the creator - to use however you like, provided that you didn't use any Copyright restricted images to create it.
That means, as long as you own (or have permission to use) any input images you used, you will be assigned Copyright by us. For style transfer, you must have copyright permission for the content and style images. For text-to-image artworks, you must have copyright permissions for any start and target images. If your creation doesn't use any other images, you're welcome to use it for commercial purposes.
We do our best to ensure that only public domain and royalty-free images appear in the preset styles and free images tabs of the image picker, but we don't guarantee that these images are free of copyright limitations, and it's up to you to double-check.
So there's 2 ways to create ai generated art. Either from an existing picture called image source, or text generated only. You can also combine both. If you own the pic, you good to go.
OK thanks for the additional information. I'll have to check that out. It's sounds super cool.
No worry, it's fun like a video game, that's all I can say!
Yeah I bet. I've been trying it out. My images are shit so far haha. I'm sure there is a trick to it. My text prompts were very short and vague so maybe I need to be long and more detailed haha
Hahah the beginning is a bit wonky, but the learning curve is very very fast. It's all about the linguo, you'll see when you hit a gem, you can just trim & shape the art in one specific direction, it's up to the eye of the artist then 😁
Midjourney is probably more powerful than Night Cafe, but I also like Night Cafe because it's really challenging to do something coherent.
I learn a lot about how neuronal network work, thanks to that.
That's really interesting and makes sense really. I'm waiting for my free credits to replenish on nightcafe to try again hahaha
So do you use more key words or less. Can you give me an example of what you might type in (if it's not too much trouble)?
I'll have to see what the "evolve" function is as well at some point. Is that what you mean by
?