Exhibition

Prepare a rectangular or square canvas. Pick one or two sets of pigments. Plot one or two fields of slightly irregular dots, with one layer for each pigment. Offset each layer slightly, horizontally or vertically. Apply a level of randomness to the placement of each dot so that pigments in lower layers can obscure pigments in higher layers. Optionally, divide and displace the randomness in rectangular patches.

Click on press the image and press 1-5 to export the image in increasing resolution. Note that browsers have different upper limits for canvas size. There are five different aspect ratios: 1:1, 5:8, 8:5, 1:2, and 2:1.

*Fields* is part of the group exhibition *Imperfections*. 


Fields #61

The Mystery Box

The Mystery Box #136

Vacation by Roope Rainisto

Rainisto creates constantly, experimenting with new ideas and techniques. To produce a series such as *Vacation*, he begins by considering the emotional quality he wants to express and formulates a narrative he wants the series to communicate. He trains custom models, such as Stable Diffusion, to express this emotional and narrative quality. He then uses AI to produce thousands upon thousands of images which he then carefully curates and edits. The process is both highly technical and deeply intuitive.

*Vacation* foregrounds the use of AI in the creation of the image, its artificiality is showcased rather than concealed. Subsequently, Rainisto calls attention to the artificiality of photography itself. He explains, In my mind photography has always been about the real and the unreal. Photos are not real. They're 2D pieces of paper. We have this cultural acceptance, shared norms to consider them real. By blurring the boundaries between real and unreal: authentic and fake, Rainisto hopes that new technologies will foster scepticism and criticality, interrogating the idea of the photograph as an objective source of truth.

Crandon Park

Vacation Drink #9

Post Photographic Perspectives is Fellowship's inaugural group show celebrating a new wave of innovation in photography.

Some questions that are always at the forefront of my art practice: how do my images relate to the images that precede and surround them; what expectations are we bringing to images, and how are these expectations established & reinforced; what purpose do these expectations serve and how can we interact with these expectations?

AI image generators are a fascinating new tool for exploring these questions because they create images based upon a dataset of hundreds of millions of preexisting imagery but are otherwise unfettered by the preexisting expectations of visual culture. That is, they make new images based on predictions from all the images (and image tags) that precede them. However, they are not otherwise bound by human logic or cultural codes and therefore make images that reflect these codes in surprising and often challenging ways, like a funhouse mirror.

Funhouse Mirror by Charlie Engman

Some questions that are always at the forefront of my art practice: how do my images relate to the images that precede and surround them; what expectations are we bringing to images, and how are these expectations established and reinforced; what purpose do these expectations serve and how can we interact with these expectations?
AI image generators are a fascinating new tool for exploring these questions because they create images based upon a dataset of hundreds of millions of preexisting imagery but are otherwise unfettered by the preexisting expectations of visual culture. That is, they make new images based on predictions from all the images (and image tags) that precede them. However, they are not otherwise bound by human logic or cultural codes and therefore make images that reflect these codes in surprising and often challenging ways, like a funhouse mirror. There is a beautiful collapse of category distinctions and a dynamic interplay between un-indoctrinated naivety and an appreciation of precedent.



 Year: 2023

Edition: NFT 1 of 1

Copyright:  2023 Charlie Engman. All Rights Reserved.

License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Funhouse Mirror #083

Funhouse Mirror #054

Made An Effort

Vacation Smoke #2

Vacation Drink #1

Finally

Distance is a series of computational artworks created by French artist William Mapan, generated randomly on chain. Volume 5 of The Los Angeles County Museum of Arts Remembrance of Things Future initiative, in which contemporary artists experimenting with blockchain technology are invited to respond to works in the museum, Distance is Mapans homage to Paul Klees iconic 1914 watercolor, In the Kairouan Style, Transposed in a Moderate Way, in LACMAs encyclopedic collection. Made in support of LACMA's Art and Technology Lab in collaboration with Cactoid Labs, Distance is an exploration of color, form and the ability of code to give rise to painterly, organic textures that resolve into abstracted aerial landscapes. Distance is about standing back from what you see. I was reflecting on my past works and it is always about my personal experience. It is about seeing the bigger picture.

Distance by William Mapan

Distance #42

In recent months, Norman Harman has embarked on an artistic odyssey, veering from the familiar motel to mine the morphic, glitch-ridden outskirts of SIGHTSEERS. The exclusive Perimeter Town set is his gift to collectors, born from these uncharted territories.

SIGHTSEERS, Harman's pioneering collection, crafts a narrative that intertwines humanity's present predicaments with the nascent stages of the cryptoart revolution. His tableau, echoing the oblivious onlookers of the 1950s nuclear bomb tests, houses figures suspended in blithe oblivion. Against this stark canvas, Harman paints a foreboding picture of the potential for catastrophe in AI's unchartered frontier.

A luminary in the cryptoart realm, Harman breathes new depth into AI art. He masterfully blends traditional painting and digital disruptions, crafting an unflinching critique of societal decadence, distraction, and conformity through his art. SIGHTSEERS, a 2022 triumph, graces the collections of renowned artists and collect

SIGHTSEERS - PERIMETER TOWN

Norman Harman has strayed further & further from the motel to pluck the outgrowths of the glitched & morphic wastelands of SIGHTSEERS and offer it to collectors as the exclusive Perimeter Town set. 

SIGHTSEERS, Norman Harman's first serial collection, created a world that goes to the roots of both the cryptoart movement and of humanity's current historical crossroads. Based on the sightseers who came to watch the nuclear bomb tests that took place in the desert outside of Las Vegas during the 1950s, the landscape is populated with blithely doomed figures. Against this backdrop, Harman invokes the cataclysmic potential of a new technological frontier: AI. 

Perimeter Town is the result of Harman's work in the months following SIGHTSEERS, a boutique set that reveals the refined emergences on the perimeter of the SIGHTSEERS world.

G Force Trialists

Sentient Muppet Factory by Beth Frey

My exploration into the intersection of photography and AI began with early AI generators such as VQGAN+CLIP and NightCafe's "artistic" mode. As a painter, I was captivated by the results that skillfully balanced the figurative and the abstract - an aesthetic I often strive for as an artist. When I first experimented with DALL-E last summer, I was initially put off by its seemingly flawless output. However, as I discovered ways to harness its potential in the creation of a series of absurdist film stills, I became hooked. This experience gave birth to my project titled "Sentient Muppet Factory."

Inspiration for the project stemmed from a talk I attended by Laurie Anderson, who used puppets as an analogy for new technologies. Imagining my AI-generated images as part of a late 1970s variety show, I began to develop the concept of Sentient Muppet Factory. Although the title humorously references AI discourse - as these muppets are not truly sentient - the term "factory" speaks to the mechanized production facilitated by AI, as I churn out new characters in a seemingly automated manner.

All the pieces in this series were generated using a bank of images stored on my computer, primarily consisting of the early NightCafe pieces, along with a few photos of myself in my studio. Purposefully utilizing disparate source imagery from the text prompts, I aimed to provoke an unsettling result, intentionally confusing the AI into responding in unconventional ways.

Sentient Muppet Factory #46

Sentient Muppet Factory #87

Sentient Muppet Factory #11

Remnants of Humanity by Kira0

In their quest for escape, humanity left their beloved Earth behind to exist in outer space. The scars of their past follies still remain, while they wander in a metal cylinder, seeking progress without addressing the consequences. Will they find wisdom among the stars or repeat their mistakes? 

Remnants of Humanity #98

Remnants of Humanity #97

Post Photographic Perspectives is Fellowship's inaugural group show celebrating a new wave of innovation in photography.

Generating AI images through natural text prompts and image extension mechanisms creates complex uncanny, neo-surreal images that can shift artistic styles seamlessly. As AI tools train on millions of images, there are endless, unpredictable possibilities for aesthetics and content. 

This allows for a queering of the imagery where bodies quickly morph one into another or into animals or objects  undoing normative representations of gender, kinship, and embodiment with ease; and simultaneously illustrating the dissociated affect inherent in both mediated relations and traumatized individuals.

Dissociative Dreams: It's My Party by Jess Mac

Generating AI images through natural text prompts and image extension mechanisms creates complex uncanny, neo-surreal images that can shift artistic styles seamlessly. As AI tools train on millions of images, there are endless, unpredictable possibilities for aesthetics and content. This allows for a queering of the imagery where bodies quickly morph one into another or into animals or objects  undoing normative representations of gender, kinship, and embodiment with ease; and simultaneously illustrating the dissociated affect inherent in both mediated relations and traumatized individuals.



 Year: 2023

Edition: NFT 1 of 1

Copyright:  2023 Jess Mac. All Rights Reserved.

License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0