Interstellar_1Duchamp's Fountain (more images in post)
BlisterexeGreat post and very good art.
Tanis NikanaI was one of those people who derided “Fountain,” until about thirty seconds ago. Thank you for this.
Conversely, I was one of those people who were thrilled by “Fountain” from the second they first heard about it. Thank you for this.
👌😁
I didn’t care about fountain and now I still don’t. But the discussion was engaging, so I kept reading.
I don’t think he’s a genius, maybe he was just having fun and doing inside jokes to himself while creating all of this. Art can bring out emotions, one of which is laughter. Who knows besides himself?
I had a great teacher that did a wonderful job of contextualising it so loved it when I first was told the story.
It’s worth taking a dip into the history books to get a better sense of art culture at the time. It doesn’t ring of genius without it but when you realise just how audacious and tangential to the norm it was chefs kiss. Beautiful.
Fountain is unfashionably based. I’ve used this to reassure my cousin who started painting for his PTSD and got told by a bunch of shitheads that he wasn’t a “Real Artist” when he sold some art.
This stuff is a litmus test for when you’re in a culture war with people trying to hide the fact they’re warring with you on every front they can
If he sold art he’s definitely an artist.
If he hadn’t sold any he would be too, but selling it is undsniable proof that someone else across him as an artist.
People were still assholes. I think they just wanted to hurt him because of their own internal problems and he appeared as an easy target
Only people who don’t understand art say that people “aren’t real artists.” It’s the most obvious way to know that someone’s opinion isn’t worth listening to.
Perhaps, I think I’m guilty of that too in this exact thread. The generative AI question is a focal point if such notions and it doesn’t seem like there will ever be a consensus without at least some learned people asserting that something isn’t art.
I mean the toilet is quite obviously art, you can understand exactly what the artist was expressing. AI art literally isn’t art because it lacks any expression or meaning.
AI art, in my mind, is art in the same way that “photography” is art. It’s people using a tool.
AI art is unsatisfying not because it’s not art, but because it doesn’t have as much depth or intention behind it.
In the image above, you know exactly what I’m trying to convey and what references I’m making in doing so. But knowing that it’s AI, you also know I spent all of 10 seconds on it for a laugh. I could have put in more work to flesh out how the details should look, and to get everything just right, but the tool makes it too easy to get “close enough”, so there’s no push to refine, get the details right, and put the time into it that would make someone else feel compelled to appreciate the attention or statement.
My hand drawn representation of the same idea in about the same time conveys roughly the same expression and meaning, if we adjust for “drawing with thumb on a phone”, “bad handwriting in general”, and "why did my own default to… Fuschia? "
The same thing happened to photography, and other kinds of modern art, too. Things are often excluded from being art until they are included (to at least a subset of people).
With AI it is often questionable how much ‘intent’ someone has put into a work: ‘wrote a simple trivial prompt, generated a few images, shared all of them’ results in uninteresting slop, while ‘spent a lot of time to make the AI generate exactly what you want, even coming up with weird ways to use the model (like this)’ is a lot more interesting in my view.
That’s what I said too! Is there another way to view that link? I’m either struggling with opening it in my browser or my current VPN server
I’ve added a non archive link.
Ayyyy, thank you that’s pretty cool. This is how we got all those pictures hiding shrek’s face, isn’t it?
Yup, or at least a refined version of this idea. The paper they reference on the technique has more examples.
Wow, okay setting an artist employ these in a wider sweeping piece, I wouldn’t have a doubt in my mind that was art. I feel like I’ve probably seen a few of these already and just by not knowing how it worked dismissed it as analogue art.
The difference is photography can be art, but it isn’t always. Photo composition and content are used to convey meaning. The photo is a tool under the artist’s complete control. The photo is not art on its own. Just like if you accidentally spill paint on a canvas it isn’t necessarily art, a photo taken without intent isn’t necessarily art. If I accidentally hit the camera button on my phone that doesn’t make me a photographer.
AI generated images can not do this. The user can give a prompt, but they don’t actually have control over the tool. They can modify their prompt to get different outputs, but the tool is doing its own thing. The user just has to keep trying until they get an output they like, but it isn’t done by their control. It’s similar to a user always accidentally doing things, until they get what they want. If you record every moment of your life you’re likely to have some frames that look good, but you aren’t a photographer because you didn’t intend to get that output.
The difference is photography can be art, but it isn’t always. Photo composition and content are used to convey meaning. The photo is a tool under the artist’s complete control. The photo is not art on its own. Just like if you accidentally spill paint on a canvas it isn’t necessarily art, a photo taken without intent isn’t necessarily art. If I accidentally hit the camera button on my phone that doesn’t make me a photographer.
I don’t completely agree. While an accident is one example where intent is missing, publishing accidental shots could be a form of art in its own way as the act of publishing itself has intent associated with it.
Furthermore, nature photography is in my view also art, but provides much less control than studio photography, as the scene and subject are free to do whatever they want.
AI generated images can not do this. The user can give a prompt, but they don’t actually have control over the tool. They can modify their prompt to get different outputs, but the tool is doing its own thing. The user just has to keep trying until they get an output they like, but it isn’t done by their control. It’s similar to a user always accidentally doing things, until they get what they want. If you record every moment of your life you’re likely to have some frames that look good, but you aren’t a photographer because you didn’t intend to get that output.
I don’t think recording everything would make it less of an artpiece: you would have intentionally chosen to record continuously to capture that frame, and skimmed though those frames to find the right one. Like splattering paint on a canvas intentionally, you don’t intend to control the full picture - where the paint ends up - but rather the conceptual idea of a splatter of paint, leaving the details, in part, up to physics.
There are limits to what repeatedly prompting an AI model can do, but that doesn’t stop you from doing other things with the output, or toying with how it functions or how it is used, as my example shows.
While I wouldn’t discount something if it was created using AI, I need there to be something for me to interact with or think about in a piece of art. As the creation of an image is effectively done by probability, anything missing in the prompt will in all likelihood be filled with a probabilistically plausible answer, which makes the output rather boring and uninteresting. This doesn’t mean that AI cannot be used to create art, but it does mean you need to put in some effort to make it so.
That’s the beauty of art. It spawns discussion and it can’t be nailed down to any singular definition. You and the person you responded to are completely correct
I think with ai art though the issue is not the user’s ability to tweak the prompts but more the fact that anything generated from an AI is stolen work
If there was a way to train your own ai (llm, genai) off of your own creations or the works of others with their explicit consent then I’d consider that art. But the biggest issue right now is many of these ais are using stolen work across the board to generate their images, regardless of how much time and care goes into crafting the perfect prompt
I think that is less of a problem with the technology itself, but rather in how it is currently used or created. I wouldn’t say that anything generated with AI is stolen work, as that predicates that AI necessarily involves stealing.
I vaguely remember Adobe Firefly using images only with proper licensing to the point they will allow themselves to be legally held responsible (though some AI generated work did make it into their stock image site, which makes the ethics part vague, even if it will in all likelihood be legally impossible to pin down). Sadly, this is Adobe, and this stuff is all behind closed doors, you have to pay them pretty significant sum and you can’t really mess with the internals there.
So for now there is a choice between ethics, openness, and capability (pick at most two). Which, frankly, is a terrible state to be in.
I don’t completely agree. While an accident is one example where intent is missing, publishing accidental shots could be a form of art in its own way as the act of publishing itself has intent associated with it.
Yeah, find interesting accidental photos that tell a story would be a creative work of art. The photos wouldn’t be before, but putting them together could be.
Furthermore, nature photography is in my view also art, but provides much less control than studio photography, as the scene and subject are free to do whatever they want.
Like I said, composition and subject are important. That doesn’t mean you stage them. It means make something interesting out of the scene.
I don’t think recording everything would make it less of an artpiece: you would have intentionally chosen to record continuously to capture that frame, and skimmed though those frames to find the right one.
Yeah, the act of choosing a frame could be artistic. That’s not what I meant. I meant an amazing image could exist within the frames. It isn’t art just because it’s there. Sure, something could be done with it to make it art. Like you imply, intention is the important part. You’re agreeing, but you’re adding intention to all the examples I’m giving. Without the intention I assume you agree that they aren’t art.
There are limits to what repeatedly prompting an AI model can do, but that doesn’t stop you from doing other things with the output…
Sure, you can do things with the output. I’ve proposed the idea of making a piece about the soulessness of AI generated images, and making a collage of AI generated images next to artist created ones, to show how it’s missing the creative spark a human can add. This would be taking AI generated images and making art out of them. They wouldn’t be art right out of the model though.
MinnesotaGoddami’ma change my mind about it when those damn scrapers stop to think
You’re only “not an artist” if you’re not making art. If you make something and don’t want it to be art, then it’s not art, and you’re not an artist.
That’s about it as not artist goes.
That got me thinking;
a welder creating a sculpture: artist
a welder making a tool: artisan
Is the tool a functional piece of art?
It can be. If presented as art, then yes. If crafted so masterfully that it’s perceived as art, then also yes.
If neither intended nor received as art: no.
The functional contains beauty. It can be artistic to remind someone that functionality is a type of beauty. It’s also possible to create an expression of form so perfectly that you can’t help but notice the beauty.
While attempting to find some images of beautiful tools (I was thinking fine wood carving tools from the mid 1800s were a good bet), I found this: fortune.com/…/beauties-of-the-common-tool-walker-… I think it does a good job conveying the notion. :)
sexy_peachPeople who hate on modern art are either too stupid to understand it or afraid of it.
Like you don’t have to like or love it, but imagine saying it’s not art…
So here’s a fun argument. What’s different about AI?
Yeah yeah yeah, you didn’t draw that, but an idea was communicated through a visual medium. You can do that with unedited screenshots of Spongebob Squarepants. People can make art out of any damn thing. No tool is immune to human intent.
In generative AI, intent is basically all there is. The rest was done by a robit.
So what, sure. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I certainly have seen ai that was cool even.
Gatekeeping art never really works for me.
Maybe it’s more like as if a lot of artists made mundane art with shit as paint. Sure it’s art, but if shit is the claimed revolutionary part I’m not that interested
I’d argue that AI tools defer our Intent onto the tool and that this reduces the art. Like, when using a traditional medium, every movement you make in an individual moment and every factor from the materials you use to the conditions you are working under is contributing to that creation.
But when making a text prompt, the only choices we’re making is the vocabulary we use and possibly the language we’re writing in. The end product will not change if the prompt is written by someone who is suffering or if it’s written at a specific time of day or if they’re getting paid to write.
So I don’t know if this makes it not art but I think it makes it objectively less art, by a very huge margin
Intent is not action. Intent is what you want your hand to do. If every child’s indecipherable stick figure is True Art, why not a plain-English description of what you want to see?
The end product will not change if the prompt is written by someone who is suffering or if it’s written at a specific time of day or if they’re getting paid to write.
… and art for money doesn’t count?
Because the stick figure is held in regard to who made it and when. We preserve and display our children’s stick figures all the time, not because they’re ever good but because of the conditions they were made under. So, still actual art.
The plain-english description would not be art because that’s a tool to make AI art with. It has no value without being used in a prompt.
No, art for money definitely counts as art, but it has a quality that distinguishes it from art that was made for no money. See debates about zombie realism and how it’s essentialy used for money laundering and power brokering. However AI generated art that is commissioned (for whatever reason) will be practically identical to a hobbyist’s output. So AI art is less art.
Self-professed AI haters insist every shitty scribble has Meaning™ in a way no render possibly could.
Because AI haters have a deeper relationship with Meaning™ than a person who got fascinated by a new seratonin-manipulating toy. If AI art enthusiasts were capable of understanding how the toy even worked beyond “magic machine makes my thoughts real”, they might feel a little more inclined to treasure their children’s drawings as well
‘It’s not art because you’re shallow idiots’ is not an argument.
Functional adults can also draw incomprehensible squiggles, and haters insist that has magic qualia. Like any napkin scribble fully captures artistic intent, but a crystal clear depiction of a concept is disqualified.
Well, incidentally I’m not particularly interested in arguing with people who are a certain level beyond touching grass for the foreseeable future. I don’t actually set out to change anyone’s mind, you actually just asked a very interesting question in this thread so I engaged.
If you are actually interested in exploring deeper, you should check out all the other places this comment section went. Some other people made some very excellent points. I can’t guarantee anyone can make you see art the way people who actually love art do, but you should at least be entertained.
‘It is too late, I have already drawn you as the soyjak.’
You never cared about this topic. You just wanna be in a club.
I literally just described myself as soyjack for you but thanks for diving in front of that self burn for me. I look forward to interacting with you very good-faith pilled and honestly in the future
AmnesigenicIt’s not art and you’re shallow idiots, happy now?
Claiming that you have a deeper connection to meaning or artistic appreciation than someone who disagrees with you is about the most pretentious thing I’ve heard in a long while.
Consider that some people can understand how AI generation works, and still somehow disagree with you. Oh, and they can also appreciate art.
Do you think a photo of a can of soup can be art? What about the output of a math question specified to the point that the output is just a formality?
What about a urinal?
Then they obviously don’t understand it very well since it’s still somehow providing them with novelty. Seriously, the parlor trick has a threshold if you’ve seen it enough. I happen to think object permanence is beyond infants but by your logic that would also be pretense because I just I haven’t met a baby yet who did.
Ah, yes, because the disagreeing with you means “infatuated by the random picture machine”, right? No room for someone to think that it’s, I don’t know, another tool a person can use in the creation of art? Kinda like how not every cellphone picture is high art, but you wouldn’t say you can’t use a camera to make art.
But no, clearly you’re the arbiter of knowing how stuff works and, what art is, and how others appreciate it.
object permanence is beyond infants but by your logic that would also be pretense
Yes, because developmental psychology is exactly the same as “art critique”.
It’s pretentious because you’re responding to someone who disagrees with you by asserting that either they don’t understand the subject technically, or their entirely subjective experience of art is somehow lesser than yours.
There is definitely room for that. I have encountered several of the people you’re describing in this thread. They were rather nice.
If it seems like I’m being arbitrarily harsh on you and that one other guy, it’s probably because 12 hours later you’re still in this thread reply-guying every who disagrees with you into exhaustion. If I go “hey great point man” another master debate lord is going to come along and demand my time to do it again for his petulant take.
Kind of like how you’re doing now when somebody more well adjusted already got me to reconsider. Release me from this thread, I’m out of energy for AI debate bros
Toxic even in retreat.
There he is. Speak of him and he comes like a dog. Well played millords your tantrum has made the comment section very cringeworthy and I learned a valuable lesson about interacting with anyone who mentions AI. Be sure to continue reaching out to me, I promise your raving will reach my inbox
Troll, your shit shows up in context links for other replies. I gotta scroll past you claiming absolution, en route to “I shidded.” Fuck you.
What? I replied to you once because you were an asshole, and then in reply, you were an asshole.
Do you think I’m following you around reading everything you do? How the hell would I know you changed your mind? I’ve replied to you twice.
If you can’t stand having people reply to you, a conversation thread might be the wrong place to post messages. You’re entirely in control of your engagement, so it seems odd to reply, insult me, and then whine about how the conversation keeps going.
In any case, I’m glad you changed your mind!
Statements can be pretentious and also entirely correct, your hurt feelings do not constitute a rebuttal
Whose feelings are hurt?
Did you stop reading after the first sentence? Calling someone pretentious isn’t typically intended as a rebuttal. Maybe finish reading next time.
Oh, and since it doesn’t seem like you know: “that statement is correct” isn’t an argument. It can be rubutted with a simple “no it’s not”.
Yours, obviously lol
I did read the rest and it was stupid
Not an argument, a verifiable fact, cope
not because they’re ever good but because of the conditions they were made under. So, still actual art.
I’d argue that torturing GPUs into generating thousands of extremely similar but still unique pictures of anime titties has a bit of poetic artistry to it
(I’m mostly shitposting here, but there might be a kernel of truth somewhere in there)
that’s not bad. somebody else in the thread said that the outputs aren’t art but the tool itself is. I kind of like the idese ideas
starman2112I concur with the sad detective, but disagree on one point. The prompt can be art in itself. After all, it’s literature, and literature is art. But the output of a machine that you feed that literature into isn’t art. It’s a commission, a request for someone else to draw a picture. But because no one is actually drawing a picture, the picture produced is not art. At best, it’s a preview of what it might look like of someone did draw the thing.
That is one of the more baffling tells for the sneer-club absolutists. How can a person spend hours tweaking a block of text and not imbue it with meaning?
But consider: I don’t play any instruments. I have written music. If you’re hearing it, did I make that?
The text can have meaning, but the image generated when you feed that text into a machine does not. You have no control over what the machine does with your inputs—there is no direct correlation between the words you type and the resulting image. If you’re commissioning an artist to make a work for you, then no matter how much care you put into describing the picture you want to see, you aren’t the one drawing it.
But consider: I don’t play any instruments. I have written music. If you’re hearing it, did I make that?
If there’s a direct correlation between the music you write and the output of a machine interpreting it, then yes.
How can an image not mean anything?
Your control over what the machine does is that input. It put your ideas into a JPEG, and that JPEG put those ideas into my brain. What do you mean, that cannot have meaning?
If there’s a direct correlation between the music you write and the output of a machine interpreting it, then yes.
But it’s not music. Right? The part you’re listening to, the playback or the recording, is just a machine doing things. What you’re hearing is not music. It’s something else, somehow. What is it? Fuck if I know, but y’all are convinced there’s some other thing that a song can be.
Re: images. You have no control over what the machine does. You give it a prompt, it generates an image, you decide it’s good enough and save the picture, or it’s not good enough and tweak the prompt. You don’t control the machine. It doesn’t put your ideas into a jpeg, it generates a jpeg that’s consistent with the description you gave. If that picture is also consistent with your ideas, cool. You can’t give the machine an idea to put into the JPEG in the first place, because the machine cannot have ideas.
Re: music. The part I’m listening to, the playback or the recording, is a machine doing things that have a direct correlation with your input. You do control the machine, because it only does precisely what you tell it to do. You decide where every individual note goes, how every individual note sounds. There is, again, direct correlation between your input and the output.
Tweaking the prompt is control. The tool is weird and limited, but that is how you use it.
If you can describe your ideas, then an image consistent with that description… contains your ideas.
You can’t give the machine an idea to put into the JPEG in the first place, because the machine cannot have ideas.
Damn, you’re right, so anything conveyed by the image must come from a human being. Wild.
Re: music, all the music I’ve written is procedural.