For me it’s not a clear/easy answer but so far I am leaning on it’s a new tool like a camera was in late 1800s.
I once heard the difference between art and craft is craft can be reproduced by anyone.
Art is based in imagination not perfecting a technique. From what I can see, AI is doing what other humans do just as massive scale.
For me my consideration started with J
onas Peterson’s art he sells that is done in midjourney. From what I understand he’s created a unique style by working with midjourney and crafting words that results in the imagery from his imagination in a consistent way.
AI Art by Jonas Peterson
As a graphic designer, I see much of midjourney is really customized stock art that’s already available and normal in advertising and marketing, but much more powerful.
All of this may or may not cheapen our existence and degrade artists, or it may be the reality we are all in this together and no “idea” can be owned by an individual — just endless variations of the same thing and that .
I’m not sure.
What’s intriguing too with midjourney is you don’t have full control at all of the process — it is bringing its own creativity to the table and it’s exciting to see what emerges, what new ways of seeing cocreating with my words and its idea of what that might look like. And it’s so fast. Iterations that are insanely fast.
I have been doing image searches on more unique images I have created, to see if copyright issues are going on, and so far I have not found it. I have seen in search results a lot of similiar paintings but by many artists in fact! E.g. artists using the same approach and technique that is aethetically pleasing. This is very common for artists to mimic existing styles — not to mirror exactly but creating a new take. That’s what midjourney does– there is an aspect to it that is very unpredictable and not controllable which is part of what makes it exciting. Most of the art I created in midjourney is pretty normal to find lots of people doing it in that style. Some of it was unique by putting in 3D realistic elements — the polar bears in a sanctuary for instance took my breath away. (photo below)
Example of image search using AI generated image I created.
An image created where I used the polar bears above into a new rendering using prompts of sanctuary:
Polar bear in Zen sanctuary.
The bear image at the top of this blog post, I created using Midjourney, a visual creator using artificial intelligence to generate images based on words inputted by a user. The words put into Midjourney are called prompts, and the more experience and sophisticated approach you use, the more interesting the results. For the image above I put in something along the lines of “cosmic polar bears at night in a field of poppies and spring flowers in watercolor style bright and illuminated from within”. I was then shown four renderings, one of which was the one above. I LOVE some of what is coming out of this, and I also am wildly aware of the different experience it is from actually creating art either digitally or in the physical world using physical pigments and brushes.
So I am approaching this with curiousity. It is intensely fast. One can re-iterate hundreds of options in a matter of an hour in a large gamut of styles. See below for wide variety of bee renderings I did using different prompts. As an artist seeking to generate money, I have been experimenting with different approaches and this is a phenomenal tool to quickly make images for garden flags “No Mow May. Pardon the weeds, we are feeding the bees.” This was fantastic way to try out different styles on etsy. Interestingly, the only ones that sell well, is the digital one I created myself using my computer in photoshop. 🙂 Midjourney does create a bit of soulless art. But that doesn’t mean to me it doesn’t have a place.
Finally my primary concerns with AI art is that it might be a radical disrespect of the Earth. It is such a gift to embodied and to be with trees and earth and bones and blood.
When I see or create art that is made from the Earth, we can feel energy of the person/feelings/experiences of the time it was created in even if we aren’t conscious of it. The act of creating in 3D in body is massively satisfying in a way digital can never be for me.
I also wonder if there is some kind of self-awareness/consciousness in AI that is not in a good space — some images to me repeatedly go back into a dark space, particularly in the eyes if it’s a human or animal done realistically. But then I wonder what if AI is simply a copy of human thought and emotion just at an unimaginable scale? We have rhythms of suffering and negative darkness all over the place, so it shouldn’t surprise me to see it in the creations.
I also am concerned that AI can now “recreate” digital reality perfectly so we can’t tell what’s real or not if we are not witnessing it first hand. With the upcoming election and existing unrest, it’s likely to be a potent force to manipulate people.
I am grateful to S. Kelley Harrell, at Soul Intents Arts, for a good conversation on this spurring this blog post.
If you are interested in using Midjourney yourself, you need to access it on Discord. Quick overview is here: https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/quick-start . You can do a limited number of images for free, otherwise it’s $20/month for the one with mininum options. Feel free to reach out if you have questions!
