There is a website (wombo.art) that uses artificial intelligence to translate words into artistic images
in various genres (etching, pastel, dark fantasy, mystic, etc.)
Here is the image for the words Fex and Coo in a fantasy style.
What is your reaction to this?
ral
ARTIST AND ART
As you have highlighted Russ, this AI “ability” to translate words into images, brings up the whole issue of how words can create images. Apparently technology can do it with an algorithm, which includes randomisation. I typed in Fex and Coo and got something completely different. Word into image remains a profound mystery but almost certainly involves the mystery of matter in some sense as I pointed out in my last essay. I was fascinated a long time ago to read of an American Indian ritual where the Shaman was powerful enough that when he did the buffalo dance one night, others “saw” buffalo footprints and droppings on the ground.
I looked at the image itself, and like other paintings my imagination was stirred here and there. I then wondered what difference it makes to my viewing that the image is AI generated, rather than a human artist, which raises the question of the link between art and artist. This particular debate as you know has gone on with Jung’s idea of the “personal equation”; or the moral question should we use the medical discoveries of the nazi doctors; should Heidegger or Jung’s opus be thrown out because of our conclusions re: Nazi sympathies; even the 20th century idea of artistic style, where an artist can be recognised in the art work… All this cultural interest in the connection between the creator and the production suggests to me that we have come to “know” that the creator is somehow involved in the creation and that we should know something about the “nature” of that relationship; that perhaps we can no longer get away with enjoying the fruit and ignoring the tree, so to speak. Something of the creator comes into the world along with the creation and this “incarnation” occurs in matter.
So, if AI is the creator of these art works, we might look for what is being incarnated into the material world as these art works. Can we apprehend its phenomenology as the interiority of these art works? One hint: Most people can tell the difference between a live performance of music and a “canned” one. The difference is warmth! A canned production (speakers, microphone, technology in other words) is cold. This is one way we can tell the difference in the “creator”—how he/she/it turns up as the production. Technological productions are COLD. And… in no way could I imagine that the production of the art MATTERS to the AI “artist.” Such is the phenomenology of randomisation.
Anything at all can be produced in the matter of the world. It just doesn’t matter to the AI artist. But every human artist knows the suffering involved in producing the art work and understands that this suffering has a lot to do with the quality of the final production.
The consequences to us and the world of ignoring this connection between artist and art work are dreadful!
Comment from Estela
Saw the image you posted that was generated by AI regarding Fex & Coo. I’ll just speak to what my experience is regarding the image.
The image is an interesting but odd juxtaposition of a lovely natural background setting in which there are some strange objects and figures. The landscape with its snow capped mountains, autumnal colors, clouds and reflecting body of water provide a light filled background in the image. In contrast, the objects – one that looks like a flying vehicle with a dark nose that has a face-like quality, a long vehicle behind the dark figures with a wheel visible in front, and what looks like a diamond or crystal reflecting the surrounding colors embedded in the land – seem out of context. The flying vehicle looks like a combination of a machine with the facial characteristics of a being. The two shadow figures who are dressed in dark outfits appear alien in some way. One of them is carrying something – a gun, a pole, a sword. It’s interesting that they seem to be near the water and moving toward it.
The most interesting part of the image is the diamond or crystal object. It seems to give the image a third level of meaning. Looking up the qualities and symbolism of diamonds and quartz crystals, some interesting things came up. Some of these associations are: protection, healing, communication with spirit guides, the awakening of higher capacities and ability to enter visionary states, expansion of consciousness, etc. Quartz crystal is a stone of Light, heightening spiritual awareness. It is also a stone that harmonizes with all other stones. So it’s interesting to me that it seems to almost blend in with the landscape background. Has this object been brought in by the shadow figures?
How this relates to Fex & Coo is another matter. Not sure. Perhaps there is something about the contrast of what is natural and filled with light vs. the more shadowy, dark aspects of the story. The dance between the light and the dark from which something new can be born.
Not sure how I feel about AI creating images in general, but this is certainly an interesting development.
I just read John’s response to the Fex & Coo Ai image and want to add a short comment. I agree with John’s statement about how AI art with its technology is cold and lacks the life energy of the artist. I remember seeing one of William Blake’s paintings (God Creating the Universe) at the Tate Gallery in London many years ago. I was surprised by how small the painting itself was (about 8 1/2 X 11) and yet completely struck by the powerful energy that emanated from the image. It felt alive with energy! It is an experience that I will never forget and remains palpable to this day. This transference of life energy from an artist to the image seems impossible to be replicated by AI.