The beautiful marriage of corrugated iron and AI

In this week's Tech Tuesdays and Other Tales, we thought we might interest you in a guest posting from Mark Hilltout, a well-known Capetonian artist who, at 74, was left inspired after doing a collaboration with Midjourney's AI. Read more about the experience of working with Generative AI from an artist's POV below.

There is a lot of discussion about Artificial Intelligence right now. This article tells a simple story of two friends who, in collaboration with Midjourney ’s AI, unlocked a source of inspiration.

Torgny Hylén and Mark Hilltout are both trained graphic designers. But while Mark (74) works in metal, Tor (48) works in pixels. They have collaborated over numerous design projects for the past 17 years and now call themselves friends.

Mark works in corrugated iron. He finds these weathered, unwanted, discarded sheets in the townships surrounding Cape Town and brings them back to his workshop to be cleaned and beaten flat. That is his material.

One evening in September 2022, over dinner, Tor showed Mark the new text-to-image AI called Midjourney. Tor explained how Midjourney produces images and that all we need is a text prompt; a line of descriptive text that includes the subject, the medium and the artist.

For the artist, Matisse is never too far from Mark’s thoughts for not only his Blue Nudes series, but also for the technique he used, namely big scissors for his “cut outs” - not unlike Mark’s cutting shears. For the medium, it was only ever going to be corrugated iron. For the treatment, Mark imagined something elegant, something veiled, with silhouettes reminiscent of Matisse’s Blue Nudes.

Tor gave it a moment’s thought and entered the following text prompt into Midjourney: “overlapping female forms, graphic, on rusted metal, semi-abstract, Matisse”. And we got this.

Midjourney first makes four small images that one can upscale, ask for variations or just ignore. Encouraged by the first set, they continued to ask Midjourney to generate many more images with the same prompt. The breadth of variation even though the prompt was the same was staggering to them both. Unlimited opportunities, just from a simple tap on a screen.

After upscaling a number of them, they kept coming back to this image which they generated.

Mark: “I can make that beautifully in corrugated iron”.

After making several artistic interpretations, Mark said he felt admiration, “I finally understood the meaning of a Master. For the first time in my life I knew that I could not arrive at such a nuanced and balanced composition. It’s extraordinary and unnerving. Bloody hell, there was nothing I could move or adjust on this painting. The jigsaw was ready-made.”

“As above, the work will be titled by the text prompt that inspired it. It’s only fitting.” explains Mark.

If one has an intent beyond just the randomly produced jpeg, a discerning art director’s eye and respect for how the images are generated with specific language, one can use this remarkable software as a tool for generating ideas cheaply that then can be elevated by the human.

A co-creation between the hand-made pieces and their digital equivalents. All art is a copy in some way, anyway. AI is just taking that ethos into the virtual world.

Reflecting on the process, there’s something poetic in both the randomness of the collection of pixels assembled by Midjourney based upon a string of text and the randomness of overlaying textures on the surface of corrugated iron caused by decades of weathering. Digital and analog randomness meet.

Using AI as a tool with intent and respect is a craft the same way manipulating corrugated iron is one. Some people will be drawn to the jpeg and some to the iron. Together they make something very interesting. Definitely more than the sum of their parts.

“AI is here to stay, whether we like it or not” says Tor. “It has and will permeate everyone’s lives in ways both trivial and profound. I believe there can be an ethical way to use them for the collective good.”

They both maintain that they’re driven by artistic curiosity. “The biggest question,” asks Mark, “is how can the art world ever judge this work and accommodate AI? It took 60 years to understand the camera.”

Mark goes on; “I love corrugated iron, that’s why I use it. My sincerest desire and fondest dream is to show the world how beautiful this old rusted metal is and these paintings help me show you the beauty therein.”

“My only regret is I can’t send Henri a jpeg.”

Corrugated Iron Gallery 6 Ravenscraig Road, Woodstock, Cape Town

Mark Hilltout: 021 447 9577 [email protected]

Torgny Hylén: 074 104 0255 [email protected]