Translating Imagination into Art via AI
The Journey
I spend a lot of time creating. Mostly digital art, but I have other creative outlets as well: painting, silk screen printing, cyanotypes, etc. Creating quiets my mind. The process of creation begins with a thought: what do I want to make? I create from a place of balance, not letting thought and action diverge or let the creative clarity fracture. reaching a center instead. My center. And it’s in this state, that I am able to sharpen my thoughts and understand where the next step is. How to translate thought into something in the world. This highly intuitive process, I had for long held to be the realm of creativity solely belonging to human agents. That is, until sometime ago I came across an article about a machine that was trained to paint like Rembrandt. This idea blew my mind. What even makes this possible? How can this even be?
The Next Rembrandt was a collaborative project between data scientists, AI experts, and 3D printing professionals (ING, Microsoft, TU Delft, Marihuis) intent on developing a software capable of creating a 3D printed Rembrandt-like painting based on data from Rembrandt’s works. It began with inputting images, enhancing their resolution with neural networks, detailing the layers of a painting (canvas, ground, and brushstrokes), and typifying the characteristics of Rembrandt’s subjects. The result was a groundbreaking feat of machine learning, but no less important were the theoretical puzzles that this project entailed, questioning distinctions between art, technology, and science, as well as putting to question the limits of computer generated art in respect to intent, emotion, and most of all, creativity.
I asked myself: could I develop a machine that would translate my thoughts into visual images? At that point in time it was only a musing, but one I enjoyed thinking about. Not only did I enjoy it, I couldn’t let it go. Not a day went by in which I didn’t roam the net trying to find an answer to my question. In the early days of these innovations, sometime ago, there wasn’t a lot of information to be had, but I did manage to find some libraries of code. I didn’t know code, but I knew how to learn. And so began my foray into this world of AI and generative art.
I started playing around in a process of trial and error. I spent long hours troubleshooting endless amounts of errors marked in ominous red: “this is missing..” “that doesn’t work.” Seeing them keep piling up was at times deflating (to say the least), but thanks to my external mind, Google, I was slowly able to piece together a program that makes images based on my thoughts, or more precisely, based on words that I input in the program. In a very real way, I created a machine that creates art.
The idea that I now have another creative tool at my disposal was exciting. To those who would claim that it lessens the creative process and the work of art I wish to remind that the same was said about photography, and then about digital art, in their own first days. Curation, creative thought, and the process of making come together here on the route to a work of art, that on the one hand overshadows the process and on the other reveals the tools that afforded its creation.
The first iterations of what came out of my machine were what I deemed unsuccessful experiments. But after a while, it happened. A result that took my breath away. And I realized I was there. I couldn’t sleep. I just kept inputing more and more information into the program all night long, and over and over again I couldn’t wait to see what comes out the other end. That’s how Alternate Kind was born, the first collection I created with AI. 256 carefully curated images. The best of the best of what the convergence of the machine and I produced. Juxtaposed of course with an endless amount of less successful results that are now filling up the recycling bin on my Mac. Each work is completely unique, with a unique name, and while it’s part of a larger collection, it also stands as singular, independent, work of art.
What I’ve learned from the process is as valuable as the artworks themselves. One of the steps in creating art with my machine was having it learn “my style”. Phrased differently, I nudged it towards my desired or expected output through a certain input of words (and sometimes images) — a process that also made me find out some things about my own self along the way. Now, looking at the collection, some of the questions that kept me up at night are now at bay (while, of course, others arise). The symbiosis between man and machine bound to create something new, but more interesting than that are the extents to which the past is preserved and invited into the present. Many years ago I used to design album covers for electronic music. Through my interaction with AI, I can now see a definite link between my old self and myself today, a link I might not have been able to see or learn about had I not embarked on this journey. Much like the Rembrandt-like painting, while the tools of creation might have changed from a brush, to a computer mouse, to pure code, or AI, the creative mind that interacts with those tools remains the same; distinguished, singular, and possessive enough of its proclivities to persevere through space and time, perhaps even after death.
Why NFTs?
Before Alternate Kind, I worked on a PFP project, a series of matryoshka dolls representing countries from around the world. The process was fun, and the final product wasn’t half bad either. The project was run by a team, each with a different role: marketing, content writing, discord and social media management, web development, etc. My role was creating the series of artworks. I enjoyed it a lot, though it felt more like the role of a graphic designer creating for commercial purposes and less as an artist creating art for art’s sake or for his own sake. Nonetheless, in the process I fell in love with the blockchain, NFTs, and everything in between. Everything is transparent, quick — and simply put, a whole new world. Just connect your wallet and start buying, selling, creating, anything. In all honesty, I thought about whether this series is worth translating into a different format — maybe a gallery exhibition? Silkscreen series? The potential was endless, I had a million ideas about where I can take it. But it was NFTs on the blockchain that ended up shuffling the cards and providing me with the outlet I was seeking.
Alternate Kind in Context
In a sea of NFTs, there’s an immensely rich diversity of artworks. Many of them are fun and amusing, three-dimensional, with shine and glimmer, that some would even call dolled-up. It was this NFT culture that Alternate Kind wanted to disrupt. My works don’t answer any of these criteria. It’s a series that stands out in what I perceive as the dominant landscape of NFT Art.
Alternate Kind was created with an open heart projecting out onto the world, utilizing new creative tools to make that happen. It was made with the intention of entering a world of dreams that’s as liberating as it is confining. A different world. An Alternate world.
Technical Details
For the purpose of transparency and simplifying for my audience a process that had been immensely complicated for me, here are some helpful links and details that helped me create these works.
Using: The program runs in Google Collab, & Github
Image Size: 2000x2000px
Source: Some of the works begin from a blank canvas, or “nothing”. Others begin with a source image of a fractal or scribbles that I created elsewhere and input into the program so that it would have some sort of frame of reference- placement, size, and point of origin.
Keywords: [not a comprehensive list] Metal / Mercury / Shiny / Copper / Reflection / Bubbles / Liquid / Sperm / Egg Cells
Style Keywords: Dark / Black Background / Dramatic / Liquid
Sales Platform: https://opensea.io/collection/alternate-kind
My twitter: @nomgy_
