Hello, fellow artists, writers and crypto-enthusiasts!
We have finally decided to share with you - Who we are, what we do and why we do it. This article, and a shortened thread-version for Twitter, will be an introduction and an explanation of our use of AI as a tool in artistic creation.
First, the big reveal! This personality - Fyodor Cryptoyevsky - was created a few months ago so that we could combine both of our ventures into A.I. art (so very different from our own art) into one consistent form as we learned how to use it together.
So who are we? We are @alejandra.her and @mandelsage - two artists in the crypto/NFT space since 2019/2018, respectively. We also happen to be engaged, but that's a story for another post ;)
It has been an intriguing journey so far, using A.I. as a tool to create art.
In the space, there is (and in our opinion, will be for a long time) a debate about whether what is generated with this tool is art or not; about who is the artist behind these images, and about moral issues regarding their use.
And it is this very rejection of A.I. that lead us to use it as a tool. Indeed, our own doubts about it is also one of the reasons that lead us to work with it. We feel that as artists, we should always be pushing the boundaries of the accepted and the conventional.
Emphasising this again is important: Our process regarding works created with A.I. starts from the use of it as a tool, not as an "art generator".
In mid-2022, the space saw a sudden explosion of A.I. creations, and a lot of what was being minted and sold was obviously raw A.I. pieces that I'm sure both artist and collector will live to regret. We wanted to be different.
But how? It is true that a lot of incredible looking images can be made in a matter of seconds, and a lot of the time, quite by accident, different entirely from what you were imagining when you wrote the prompt. How can you call something "my art" when you did practically nothing to create it?
This is the main thing we'd like to talk about here.
It seems absurd to us that so many artists feel threatened, thinking that a tool (even one as powerful as A.I.) might make our profession disappear.
Where are those artists who buy works by other artists? Where are those musicians who admire other musicians? The purpose of art is not to compete against other art. It exists for humans to connect with the emotions and stories of others through our search for beauty. Only humans can do this, whether using A.I. or not.
So, what have we done so far?
It started with just wanting to have fun! =) We signed up for MidJourney and started experimenting. The images in this post, and in most of our tweets are examples of this. Beautiful images that we don't really consider our art, even though we were responsible for their creation. We just threw prompts of any and every nature at it, to see what we could get.
After some time, when we felt we had a better idea of how prompts worked, we asked ourselves, how could we use this tool to create works we could call our own?
We're still experimenting and discovering the complete answer to this question but there are two ways we've found so far, and in both, curation plays an important role, as well as having a preconceived idea.
The first way: During experimentation, we found that it is tempting to let the A.I. "think" for you, and to be blinded by the beauty of the images it produces; and then to, only afterwards, apply some meaning to them.
So we made the effort to try swim against that current, and do what artists have always done: having a preconceived idea - both for your concept and for how you want the piece to actually look, visually.
Once you have something in mind, then begins the prompting. And you don't settle for anything that doesn't satisfy your initial visual and conceptual criteria, no matter how astounding the images generated are until you get there. (Those you save, of course, for later exploration).
Slowly but surely, through prompts and curation, you find the pieces that perfectly express your preconceived idea, which you perhaps edit a little (or a lot!) in your favourite software.
This is how CYCLUS RENASCENTIAE was created:
We won't go too much into this collection here (another post will be written about it). We'll just say that it reflects rebirth and often painful transformation especially as felt by creatives all over, learning to adapt in this brave new world.
The second way we have found to use A.I. to create original works of art uses the first way too (having a preconceived concept you wish to achieve) but the method is different: Instead of curating out complete images, you can think of yourself as a collage artist, except with infinite, self-originating material to work with!
We're still excited to explore this much more than we already have, but we can't wait to show off what we've done with this idea so far!
Here is a small preview of what will be our new Async Art blueprint, entitled "Mary Shelley's Notebook":
After working for months on dozens of layers, we believe that we have created a blueprint like no other. But you'll have to wait for our post about it, coming in the next few days, to know and see more ;)
We now realise that we skipped over an obvious third way of using A.I. Something that many artists are already doing with it to create original art: Using it to create references!
Whether it be for colour/texture, concept or just composition, the ability to use A.I. images to enhance your already greatly honed talent is probably the best thing about this new tool. This is what all the anti-A.I. artists should be focusing on: How can this tool help me improve my own work. How can I use it to get better? Otherwise they risk being left behind in an exciting new future reality, however that future may turn out to be...
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this relatively long introduction post! Whether you're from Hive or Twitter, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Have you been affected by the emergence of A.I. art? Do you use it in your work? What's your stance?
Looking forward to hearing from you all <3
@alejandra.her and @mandelsage
Follow us on Twitter! : https://twitter.com/cryptoyevsky