2022: the revolution of artistic A.I.

2022 is the year of artistic A.I.

A.I. stands for ‘Artificial Intelligence’. I don’t like this term because artificial intelligence does not exist. Nothing thinks, calculates, creates without being programmed by a human. A French expert in this field is Luc Julia and he has a point in using the concept of ‘Augmented Intelligence’.?Watch one of his numerous conferences on YouTube.

This being said, 2022 is the year in which creating static and animated images with online bots has exploded. How does it work? Type ‘A koala dunking a basketball’ in DALL?E 2, and after a few seconds, there’s a photo of... yes, a koala dunking a basketball. It’s a collage, but a well done collage, and sometimes of decent quality to be used in a low-budget ad or as a funny illustration after a few adjustments in Photoshop.

Over the last months, I have been monitoring the samples of these tools but one caught my attention: Midjourney. There’s something fantastic / crazy / incredible / worrying with this Augmented Intelligence:

• the way it blends harmoniously various artistic sources,?
• the renderings are amazingly beautiful,
• the variations that we request with just a mouse click (show me more of what you can do, go deeper, makes something even more complex) produce pieces of art. Literally.

But — and there is a major BUT — there is a massive copyright issue.

Let’s say you type?‘cars, H.R. Giger’?(the designer behind the art of the movie ‘Alien’). The A.I. will reinterpret patches of structures and patterns of H.R. Giger’s works found on the Internet and will blend them with the items you prompted with text, or will apply it on the photo you uploaded.

Yes, you can upload a photo of you from head to toe and ask the A.I. to turn it?

• into a model with a Coco Chanel outfit,?
• or into a Star Wars-inspired outfit,?
• or into a Coco Chanel outfit using the structures and patterns of Star Wars. Not kidding, here it is:

Need a costume designer for a movie? Naaah, just use an A.I. and there you go!

Instead of using items and references common to mainstream pop culture, I wanted to see what Midjourney could do with one of my two favourite themes: aviation and surrealism. And without uploading a photo!

I did my first test with this prompt:?‘Brussels Airport, skeyes, control tower, contrails, blue hour’. skeyes employees will recognise the premises:

Then I added the word?‘rocket’.

People working at skeyes shall recognise the T building:?

Then I removed ‘blue hour’, and added the words?‘runway, futuristic, sunset’:?

In a new series, I typed?‘Brussels Airport, skeyes, control tower, Steenokkerzeel, contrails, airplanes, blue tone’:

What happened here is that Midjourney scanned the graphic resources available on the Internet with these keywords, was inspired maybe by this…

… and the algorithm did the rest.

“We don’t need artists, illustrators, designers anymore! We don't need architects either!”

In another series, I typed?‘realistic photo, blender 3D,?Brussels Airport, skeyes, control tower, Steenokkerzeel, runway’:

During this series, I was more and more amazed by the creativity, and this led me to talk alone: “Wait a second! We don't need artists, illustrators, designers anymore! We don't need architects either!”

Let's say you’re the authority in charge of creating a new control tower at an airport. During the creative briefing for the design of the tower, type some keywords, and let the A.I. run. After 5 attempts in less than 3 minutes, here’s the result:?

The above result was probably inspired by this photo found on Internet taken at skeyes’ site in Steenokkerzeel:

Have you ever seen a more beautiful control tower in a white twirled tree-looking shape in the middle of a luxurious garden? Reminder: I have NOT typed the words?twirl,?white,?garden,?tree,?forest.??

After seeing on Midjourney’s showcase gallery this impressive creation (Tron in Alejandro Jodorowsky style)...

(see the full post on Facebook)

... I wanted to use the impressive surrealistic universe of Polish?painter Zdzis?aw Beksiński applied to the same text related to Brussels Airport. First, check Beksiński’s universe (actual paintings):

And now, without uploading any photo, the result with these words in Midjourney: ‘Beksinski style, airplane, contrails, Brussels Airport, skeyes, control tower, Steenokkerzeel’

First, Midjourney produces a series of four proposals. I select one or two images of the four proposals and I request a variation, and so on. What you see here is how at each variation, the A.I.?not only combines more and more patches of Beksiński’s art, but it turns the structure of the control tower into the same style as the Polish painter. I was glued to my computer the whole night!?

After having clicked 80 times the?‘Make a variation’ button, here’s a selection of images with only these words:?‘Beksinski style, airplane, contrails, Brussels Airport, skeyes, control tower, Steenokkerzeel’:

If you want to explore other A.I. tools, here’s a list. For some tasks, some are better than others, some are specialised for specific imagery or processes.

My examples above use only one technique. If you want to see the vast spectrum of possibilities that Midjourney allows, follow their official Facebook page.

But one thing is sure: this is revolutionary and thus, it’s just the beginning.