Christopher NoesselFYI, I happen to be traveling in a few days. I’m speaking at a conference, but we’re also padding that to do a little traveling. Which gave me an idea: Tourist Prompting. (Accepting suggestions for a better name.) It will work like this…
When I see something that catches my eye, I’ll pause like I might to make a sketch, and try to prompt the scene before me in Midjourney until I get something that looks right. Or maybe better. Or maybe weirder. Probably weirder.
At the end I’ll have a set of prompted images that kind of work as a document of the journey. I hope the experience will force me to look and consider the scene deeply—the same way making a sketch or writing a poem about it might.
I expect it will be a weird, meta experience, partly beholden to the pictures that people have taken and uploaded to the internet in the past, but all told a thoroughly modern travelogue.
This little experiment comes from something I’ve observed before in life, i.e., that pausing to write the poem or make the sketch causes me to deeply see (in the case of visual art) or consider (in the case of writing) the thing. It forces me to slow down and…be present (?) with the thing (?)…Real-ize it? Manifest? I don’t know what the right word is for the change it causes, but I fear prompting “gets” you art, but bypasses that “making” art that requires me to deeply consider the thing.
I am hoping “live prompting” my “tourist pictures” will take me back to that, and supply some new things to chew on, too.
No. Wait. That’s missing something. Something of the feeling. This is much better. #LivePrompting #latourex
Not exactly what I was going for but hey happy accidents. #LivePrompting
This time I put us in the “photo.” it's akin to the view. Feels right. #liveprompting
#liveprompting Bas relief detail on the doors of the Grossmünster church.
Oh yeah I forgot about street smoking. The air is thick here. #LivePrompting
Not at all what the production looked like, but that's part of what made it powerful and defamiliarizing (h/t @manalive for the new vocabulary) and hard to prompt. “Take my Blood and Write on the Soil,” Neumarkt Theatre. #LivePrompting
Medieval truss painting on the Chapel Bridge in Luzern, one of about a dozen, depicting images about the city’s rich history. #LivePrompting
What the peak view would look like if it weren't covered in snow fog. #LivePrompting
Zürich at night from Uto Kulm. Took 9 different public transit conveyances from Pilatus peak to get here. #LivePrompting #travelogue
It would be remiss to not try fondue whilst here. Now if only to spin around in a field of edelweiss whilst flexing my uh coloratura. #LivePrompting #travelogue
AI-image aside, my quick review of the restaurant: don't.
We're pretty far down from the first posts where I mention this, but let me here remind anyone following this thread that these aren't pictures of real things, they're just *like* the real things we’re experiencing. The intentions are to make a travelogue that is interesting and uncanny, gets me to focus intently on the experiences, to build a set of memory anchors for the real thing, and you know, to try something novel. #LivePrompting
The kitchen cooked too much spice at once and filled the restaurant with spicy haze. *hust*hust* #LivePrompting
Gabriel N@chrisnoessel I was reading an article on architecture in 2023 that had this gallery with about 40 photos at the top.
Two of the pictures where AI generated. These images were clearly wrong: it was impossible to build spaces like that and even some of the chairs had only two legs.
These two pictures made me question the veracity of the complete article. Why would I even care to read this? To add insult to injury, even the name of the author of the article was “Materials”.
@chrisnoessel in the beginning I thought that these kind of images where interesting, but now they make me question reality and memories.
Here’s the article I mentioned above.
Ultramundane@chrisnoessel I love that the AI has decided to emphasize the fur and the tung.
@Ultramundane And the human-ness of the eyes.
Juri Umstritzki 🏳️🌈@chrisnoessel
How could you shoot the picture so clearly (through a window)?
How could you shoot the picture so clearly (through a window)?
@JuriUmstritzki this is part of an experiment. I'm making a travelogue of images, but they are all midjourney-prompted versions of the things we're seeing, more like distorted memories rather than documentation. The real photo is attached.
Aaaah, the more you know. Impressive to see what machine learning can do...
Have a good trip!