Salon 67 // Untitled

Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Hello, my name is Colin Goldberg and we're here at the Techspressionist Salon Number 67 today is Wednesday, April 12 2023 and. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: The topic of the discussion tonight the sort of title that I put on the graphic the promo graphic was untitled. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Because I didn't know what it was going to be, but it seems like the initial pre discussion has been about the topic of AI which we've had a couple salons on. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: In the past, it certainly is something that's sort of becoming more and more topic of mainstream discussion, both amongst artists and non artists scientists and sociologists and all sorts of different types of people so.

Unattributed

Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Some of the some of the preliminary discussion has been a little bit. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: A little bit about some of the more troublesome or alarming implications of AI and you know with that I'd like to open it up and certainly once again if any of the artists present have work that they'd like to show related to this topic certainly feel free to do so, and you know if anyone would like to.

Unattributed

Colin Goldberg, M.D.: kick it off, I guess, you know we can kind of. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: leave it free form I don't know if we need to really even go to a show of. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: hands at this point, since it's not formal presentations just going to be more of a conversation. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: So with that I know we're not I kind of brought the topic up so do you do you feel like you'd like to kind of kick kick the discussion off or not. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: you're muted.

Unattributed

Renata Karraschini, Thank you, Colin I was just thinking on what Lee. Renata Karraschini, said to us. Renata Karraschini, A few moments ago before we started recording. Renata Karraschini, About a judge having to decide whether a certain percentage of work, whether it be written work or visual work needs to be altered in order for it to get a copyright. Renata Karraschini, And that ever since I've been using AI I started about June of last year, I always alter it. Renata Karraschini, I don't want to put up just a straight text image image, so I feel like that's some. Renata Karraschini, It somehow that helps me to do it that way.

Unattributed

Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Well, her currently reading that I just did this past week, as indicated that the. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Patent Office. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Is not has ruled that strict images created from. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: X prompts. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: are not. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: Copy. Colin Goldberg, M.D.: writeable in and of themselves they're just saying that you cannot copyright strictly text image AI.

Hand thing is just another barrier to entry. You know, because you don't always need a human hand input on an AI generated image. But it's the way of people to say, well, show me, you know, because you can't just say this art is. We have to say it is whatever, you know, and they tack on a criteria as another hurdle for in order to obtain legitimacy.

Verneda Lights

Because I firmly believe that the rights to AI generated images belong to the human beings that create the prompts. Because without the prompts, there is no getting to the point. Where you're going to get that particular image, you know. So creativity is as creativity does. I just hope there would be an impulse to show the human hand.

Verneda Lights

No, no, no. I look at the piece itself. And I know that my mind is there. Because it would not exist if I didn't type in the prompt. So my mind is. There. So I look at the piece as something that is independently sort of just there. And then I ask myself, well, you know, is this image complete as a work of art? Do I feel as though it needs more done to it? And if I don't feel that, then I leave it alone.

Verneda Lights

There may, on the other hand, be something missing. And I feel the need to go into Photoshop and add what I feel is missing. But my thing is to stick with the AI until I get what I want. If I don't see what I want, I just go at it again and again and again until it gets tired of me. And gives me finally what I've been asking for, you know.

Verneda Lights

But Colin had asked if we had. Projects to share. I do have a project to share. You've seen it before. It's called Caterpillar Dreams. And I don't know if you all remember that. But it's a fable that I created using AI in which a young girl, a young black girl, is in a field of beautiful flowers. And she's enjoying the scene and daydreaming. Went along. Comes apart. And the butterfly lands on a flower. And without saying any words, she and the butterfly have a conversation. The butterfly talks to her about the joys of crawling inside of a flower and gathering pollen and how it is to fly and be free and have wings. And the girl talks, tells the butterfly about how she totally enjoys running and reading books. And imagining stories and talking with friends and laughing. And unbeknownst to them, there's a caterpillar in the grass.

Verneda Lights

And the caterpillar overhears the conversation. Then at the end of the afternoon, the little girl goes home to eat dinner. And the butterfly flies away. Then the caterpillar crawls up a plant, attaches to a leaf and becomes, starts spinning a cocoon. And the butterfly flies away. And the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis. And as the sun sets, the caterpillar starts to dream. But the dreams aren't just evolving into a butterfly. It sees its DNA dance around. And it hears laughter. It sees someone running.

Verneda Lights

There's visions of a book. Then there's flowers. And it goes on and on and on until at the end of its evolution. It's evolution. We are left to wonder whether or not, we are left to wonder what emerges from the cocoon. Is it a butterfly who laughs and reads books? Or is it a woman with wings who can fly?

Verneda Lights

So I had this and I presented it at the salon. And then I saw a call. From the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media, where they are doing a project under the auspices of one of their divisions called Yale Space Ultra, in which they explore the overview effect, which is, you know, the feeling that the astronauts got when they left the Earth and they're seeing it from a vast distance. Distance, they are overcome by a feeling of unity and a need to rise above petty difference. Tear human beings apart and to live to make a better world. And later, some of them started organizations that actually speak and address to this overview effect in order to make it a reality in our society. So they wanted to explore metamorphosis and communication as a way of communicating and reaching a higher goal between species as a prerequisite for the types of behavior we will need to have when we leave planet Earth.

Verneda Lights

So they asked for projects that exemplify that particular dynamic. And I thought that Caterpillar Dream did that. So I submitted it and it was accepted for publication in a book which they're putting together that's comprised of all the contributors to the symposium which will be taking place on the 27th of this month. So I thought it would be nice to share Caterpillar Dreams with you all again, especially since that, you know, I first shared it here. First public doing so. Let me share my screen.

Verneda Lights

So this is a video but I'm going to go one by one. And here we have the girl in the field. And the interesting thing is that when I described this scene to my sister, she had a similar experience when she was a young child. She had a friend who took her to his special place in the forest and let out upon a vista of a field of wildflowers and he told her that you could express your heart's desires to these fields of flowers without saying a word. And she was so impressed by that thought. And I guess they had an episode where they meditated in the fields of flowers. And she never told anyone about this. And so that brought to mind what we call Kairos time not only is the overview effect it is Kairos time, which is fullness of time, the timing of time, as opposed to the chronology of time. And here we see the DNA dancing around and figures are shifting.

Verneda Lights

Even more so, they can see the DNA. And here we see the wings rearranging themselves metamorphosis is taking place. And here we see wing like components. Here we see an arm. And legs. Now we see more fully human being, beginning to form but also with butterfly elements within it. And it's further solidified here.

Verneda Lights

And he received the juxtaposition of the butterfly and face. And he we see a woman who could well be in his Egyptian figurine really a hieroglyph of sorts, emerging from the cocoon. And a final facial product, the butterfly in opposition. So, I can stop share here. So, as butterfly dreams... ity.

Verneda Lights

Thank you for sharing that. Hey, you were saying that all those pictures are straight AI prompt generations? They are prompt generations. But I did a lot of post-production work with them. But I did not alter the visual content. The images that I got from the AI were not as bright. The colors were kind of murky, you know, kind of noir-ish. And that's not my vibe. So, I had to work on it quite a bit in order to make it look like what I wanted. I wanted a gem-like feeling to the colors. I wanted the blues to sparkle like sapphires and the reds to be reminiscent of rubies and things like that.

Verneda Lights

So, I mean, if you look at them... Did you see anywhere where you felt like there was something that needed to be added? You know? No. Not at all. But I also felt like I wasn't sure whether I was seeing work that was done by somebody's hand or by AI. Although I did see a lot of familiar AI-ish. Sort of the profile of the female. Female it's very you know similar to many other sort of female faces that I've seen generated from AI but besides that one I mean maybe it's because you change the colors or you push the AI prompts in a way to make it really what you wanted with the specific ideas of the geometric shapes that you know the one that I felt like I really was not sure at all was that there's sort of a geometric backbone like shape emerging from somebody who's looking up towards the sky that you had that, you know, really, I mean, it's been, I'm very happy to see what you're doing with it, because it renews my belief that there can be something interesting done with AI.

Verneda Lights

Yeah, you can, you can. I mean, I really had to, with each image, I had to fuss with the AI. I use Night Cafe for that. And I had to fuss with it and fuss. It and fuss with it and fuss and fuss and fuss and by fuss do you mean like rerun it and change your prompt a little bit yeah tell tell the machine to say no you didn't get this right I want you know to explore this and this and wait for it. And I'd be there. I'd spend a whole night working on a single image.

Verneda Lights

And it got to the point where, well, Night Cafe has an option where you can choose four images at once instead of just one-on-one, one image for one prompt. So I started using that, thinking that it would increase the probability of me getting what I wanted. And when I did that, and I chose that particular maneuver, I would look at the four options that it gave me and then pick the one that I felt was most like what I wanted and then proceed from there. And that way I could advance the image from one stage to another, to another. And when I felt like I could, and add more to it, that's when I stopped.

Verneda Lights

You know, I felt like it was complete. It looked like something. When I resonate within myself that, you know, okay, this is me. And then I'm satisfied. And I feel as though, you know, that is very much a part of my creative effort. And I'm not going to have no judge tell me that I can't have right to my work. They better not. Right on.

Verneda Lights

I'm not feeling that. Okay. It ain't going to happen. All right. That's how that goes. So.

One of the things, and I can show, I'd be happy to show just a small number of samples, but Tommy, to your point, I think if, and I think it was Chalda who mentioned, I think it was Chalda who mentioned the photography aspect of things. And I mean, I do see a lot of similarity with if you take a look at most people who do non-artistic photographs, there's a small, they land in a very, very narrow range of interest.

Michael Pierre Price

And I think, you know, here's this instant tool that I don't see very different than the, you know, taking a camera and going out and taking photographs, yes, there's difference, but there's the similarity of do something simple, press a button or type in a few words, and you get something back. Yeah, sure, with a camera, you point at stuff, but most people tend not to be very creative in the way they use a camera if they're not really pursuing an artistic bent to what they want to see. So one of the things with Mid Journey that I've been playing with is that it allows you to blend multiple images. And I've been using that just to play around with and to do some testing with imagery that I've created. So what I want to show right now, and I'll share it with you in a minute, but I want to show you a little bit of what I've done here.

Michael Pierre Price

I went in and over a number of years, I did a lot of creative work using fractals. So what I did was I used Mid Journey to take a number of different kinds of fractal images, mash them together and see what the AI would come about with. So here's just a few examples of that. And I'm still playing with it. These are raw images. I haven't done any manipulation other than what the AI gave me. But for me, there's some interesting starting points at which I feel that I'm not seeing this with anything else.

Michael Pierre Price

Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. So these are just a few samples. These are lovely. So anyway, I just thought I would share that real quickly. Because the images that I was using as source images are very much outside of what you would see. From a lot of people who do typical fractal work. And for me, these are seed images that I'm really interested about pursuing and manipulating.

Michael Pierre Price

But I just figured I would share that just off the cuff. So I hadn't planned to share anything today. But I thought I would add to the conversation a little bit. Thanks. Lovely. That you took one of your images, your fractal images that was digital, and then put that into Mid-Journey? Multiple images.

Michael Pierre Price

Simultaneously. Yeah, you could, there's a blend option in Mid-Journey. So you could take from two to five images, put them in there, and then you determine whether you want to have a square image, a portrait, or a landscape, and it'll look at them and do whatever it does. Now, for me, I did not add any other prompts other than the blending. So I haven't done anything more than that. So as far as I know, I don't know exactly, see, this is the part that's frustrating to me. I don't know what the AI does other than I'm assuming it's just looking at those images that I give it. And then does something. Now, what that something is, what it's drawing from, I don't know. I don't know what the AI is looking at other than my images. That's the way I understand it. That's the way it's been explained.

Michael Pierre Price

But I don't know, because I don't know what the engine is underneath it all. So I mean, I can recognize the source image, but I don't know what the engine is underneath it all. So I mean, I can recognize the source image, but I don't know what the engine is underneath it all. So I mean, I can recognize the images in there, but it's fruitful for a lot of experimentation, which I love doing. And for me, just that sheer amount of experimentation gives me new ideas. And that's the artist part of me, that then I can run with that. But like Bernada was just saying, it takes time and work, and you have to be persistent.

Michael Pierre Price

I always find myself going to mid journey when I don't know what to do. When I'm stuck in any way with my own artwork. I say, okay, let's go to mid journey. And all I need are two or three images generated and then I'm off again. It's kind of like an I have another trick when I'm stuck creatively. I take out a very expensive high end interior design publication. Called The World of Interiors. And it takes you into homes all over the world and they're exceptional. And after three or four pages of just looking at these photographs, I just close it and go right to work. It doesn't take a lot. And I have a subscription now to Midjourney. I never thought I would, but it's just a tool. It's just another stimulus creatively.

Michael Pierre Price

And I think for a lot of people, it's just instant gratification. Or instant frustration. Because it can really upset you sometimes when it shows you, you know? I agree. I think it was the night cafe that I was working with. It could have been, no, yeah, it was night cafe where I asked for, you on the trees, you know, southern oak forest with moss on the trees, you know, and Black people populating, you know, the ground and whatnot and like slave cabins nearby and what it generated was a mass lynching instead of moss hanging from the trees the people were hung from the trees you know so that was, I was tempted to destroy the image, but I said, no, this is proof of something, you know, and I may need this one day.

Michael Pierre Price

And I think that's one of the dangers of artificial intelligence is that the pool that it's waiting in image-wise can be very, very, very dark, you know, and sometimes it goes into those areas and it brings forth elements from that realm and it is, it's vicious. And I can understand now why they have disclaimers, at least on the generators that I use that, you know, there's no guarantee that what you're going to get from these machines will be pleasant for you to look at. It can be disturbing. So they have like trigger warnings attached to it. So, yeah, sometimes it can be, you know, very disturbing, very frustrating. But you know what? I think that it is important that we maintain primacy of our point of view as artists and not give into this random darkness that can pop out at you from AI, but rather persist in our aesthetic to the point where whatever it is we're interacting with has to recognize, recognize and yield to it.

Michael Pierre Price

You know, it is possible to train them, but it really takes a lot of determination. You know, you have to be determined. You're fighting for the soul of the world. So in many ways, we are like crusaders. I think images like that, I mean, you know, that in itself is a really interesting, you know, thing to explore conceptually as an artist is to show, you know, this is what the AI gives you when you get a certain prompt, not necessarily representing, you know, your work as an artist other than illustrating the sociological, you know, implications of what the technology is doing. You know, I mean, I think that's that could be a big challenge for us as artists. And I think that could be a very compelling use of AI is, you know, using it to reveal itself, you know, and show these biases in terms of putting together a set of images that is disturbing, you know, that is, you know, illustrating that it's pulling from, you know, a set of images that has its own intrinsic biases, you know?

Michael Pierre Price

Yeah, it does. It does. You're right. Evidence is as evidence does. So it's useful. That's why I kept it. There's some things I throw away, but I didn't throw that one away. Bernadette, can I ask you what software you use? Night Cafe. Night Cafe? Okay. Yep. I was determined to work with Night Cafe because the images were so often disturbing, more so than Dali or any of the others. And I said to myself, okay, this, this, whoever makes this thing here has to do better, but it's never going to do better if it's not confronted.

Michael Pierre Price

You know? So it's a dragon. So, but dragons are not immortal. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm at the point at which I'm at the point of no return. And the only thing I can say is I'm like, what the hell is this? And I'm like, this is an outside world. And I'm like, this is a sort of like a mid L am I so it's not that's an outside world. And I'm like, this is a sort of like a mid L am I so it's not that's an outside world. And I'm like, this is a sort of like a mid L am I so it's not that's an outside world. And I'm like, this is a sort of like a mid L am I so it's not that's an outside world. And I'm like, this is a sort of like a mid L am I so it's not that's an outside world. And I hate to say inappropriate images, but things that I think most of these companies don't want to see their engine creating.

Michael Pierre Price

But as an artist, there are topics that I would like to be able to explore that are, from an AI standpoint, are barred because either they use concepts or words that they've deemed are not okay. And sometimes they rule with a big sledgehammer to make sure nothing gets through. But I was trying to do something about the future universe and the heat death of the universe. But because death was a word that was included in there, I got the message back saying that's a verboten thing to do. So even though that's... That's the correct term from a scientific standpoint and has nothing to do with human killing each other, I couldn't do that. So I had to figure out, think of different workarounds to do that. But there are topics I think that may be a little bit darker or may be off the normal track of thought that a lot of people have that can be frustrating.

Michael Pierre Price

So I find... I find... I find that they're kind of Disney... Are trying to Disney-fy the use of things. They want everybody to come up with nice subjects that are happy, even though a lot of people still do kind of weird stuff. Yeah. Can you put in your own images or are you... Yeah. Is that possible to... Yeah, you put in your own or others. I was part of this collaborative effort. That was initiated by this company called Artly World, a nonprofit arts advocate organization. And it put together myself and two painters. We're all women. And we were to develop a theme and explore it and create an online gallery from it, you know, based on the images. And so... But we were so different.

Michael Pierre Price

One painter dealt with sports topics and a young audience. Another dealt with sketches of family members using pastels on paper. And I had works on paper and canvas also, but had started to recently explore AI. But our interest was so varied. And our style is so different. And I said, okay, well, let's see if we can unify this thing and submit our images.

Michael Pierre Price

Each of us take four of our best images from what we want to illustrate. My topic was, you know, Wounded Earth. And there's... We're pertaining to their specific interests, the collection of portrait, you know, faces and another sports figures. And I submitted them to AI to see if we could get a uniform presentation of these disparate works of art. And the results were just astonishing.

Michael Pierre Price

It was so beautiful, you know. And I was amazed. I was totally amazed. I mean, I did it serially. Each work I did serially. And I did it serially. And then I also put them all together to see what it would spit out. And I was amazed. And the other artists who had not even thought about AI or much less used it, they were very pleased with the outcome as well. So, yeah, you can use other images, you know, but always like we did have consent if it's not your specific work, you know?

I've been using AI more for illustration then in my own art, you guys probably have seen some of the invites for the salons. And I could share those really quickly. You know, I found that a was an interesting way, or those types of graphics were an interesting way to, let's see, is it actually sharing that screen? Can you guys see the salon graphics? So yeah, you know, it kind of started actually on the salon that was the first salon on AI, which was 51.

Colin Goldberg

So prior to that, they were just sort of images, photo collage images from different things. And from that point on, you know, and some of these are multi-layered images that are manipulated, but most of them were based on the topic of the salon and then the art. And so I think that's a really good way to kind of see the salons. Kind of playing with different variations. Mid-Journey also gives you, you know, four different variations.

Colin Goldberg

So I would start with the prompt, like cultural influences, and then kind of work through a bunch of variations until I found something interesting or nightmares. Sometimes it just came up with something and I was like, whoa, that's pretty cool. And I just ran with it. You know, but you could see sort of like, you know, like this image and that image, they have a very sort of like comic book, like monologues. Yeah. Like manga type style to them.

Colin Goldberg

This one too, you know, this one I thought was particularly fun. The art pirates image, you know, I actually, you know, for a lot of these prompts, actually, what I did was I threw the word Techspressionist into it just for fun. And this one was actually, the prompt was Techspressionist art pirates. So that's how it ended up with the laptop, apparently, you know, and some of these other ones too. I did throw in expressionism or Techspressionist just to see, you know, if it would, if it would come up with something different. So I think this one too, I put in Techspressionist like media platforms or something. And it even came up with things that have like a little Twitter icon in there, you know, which I thought was interesting.

Colin Goldberg

So anyway, that's kind of like what I've been doing, but, you know, and I did try coming up with images that were like based on some of my own, ideas, not the actual images from my artworks, but like wireframe, like the wireframe series that I've been doing as paintings for many years, I tried putting in, you know, like wireframe abstractions or this or that. And it just never felt like something I would actually sign my name to and put out there as my art. But I think in terms of ideation, it's interesting.

Colin Goldberg

And I know someone came on the salon a while back, one of the, earlier salons about AI talking about how like, you know, the Star Wars franchise uses it to storyboard out, you know, new Star Wars movies and stuff like that by feeding it the whole library of every single single Star Wars film ever created. And then it can make a really good Luke Skywalker or a really good, you know, Darth Vader doing different stuff. So, I mean, I thought that was kind of interesting. And that's a way that like Hollywood is using this stuff because it would take concept artists a lot more time and it would cost the studios a lot more money to have human artists rendering out these things, you know. In terms of commercial applications, I guess that's one way that it could be used, but not, you know, not at the individual artistic level necessarily or like an industry level.

Colin Goldberg

In terms of commercial uses, let's not forget the NFT world. It's really good for people who want to make projects that are multiple, multiples of themselves. Have you noticed that the color has gotten a lot better since you started? Yeah, it's definitely more varied, you know, but I still see a lot. I mean, at least with Mid Journey, like it seems like each version, it comes from like radically different look for like the same types of prompts.

Colin Goldberg

Usually like I'll go into Photoshop and then I'll go into Photoshop and Photoshop and shift the hue around anyway because like I'm never happy with what it initially starts with but yeah it has improved but it still has that predominant orange and teal that is the mid journey signature palette yeah absolutely I

I'm gonna contribute something I wasn't going to because I have a cold but a sinus state going on but I have put my project with AI aside for some other items and hope to go back to it at the end of april and bay but I can't use anything without making it more my own and that has been my experience with the AI between using my own image as the prompt and also once I've created something I gotta change it to make it more me and the attraction for me is generally generating another layer because I'm so most of my work is about layers and layering and dimension and to me it's attractive because oh another possible way to create a layer that I can make something else as the end product and I think I mentioned this in a previous conversation at the salads about layers and maybe even before that, but I'm gonna just show a couple images.

Susan Detroy

I have a file that I, let's see, I'm gonna try to share content. Oh man, okay. Okay. Okay, here we go. So I am an iPad artist. Most people here know that, but I generated this image with Wabbo because that's what I have on my iPad. And I used, I don't have the prompt, but it was pretty long about, I initiated it when I was having eye surgery and I was using my, the own image of myself with the black and blue that I had, although this doesn't show it as much as some of the others, the black and blue that I was playing with that image of my own face, which I use in a lot of my work have been for about seven years. And so I was using my own face, but I was also talking about, do you think it's possible to use your own face for your own face? My connection to the natural world and the power of female and I was trying to and I generate a lot of work that I hope to use as a series in this year and I've and I've also made some other pieces that this is the one that I've liked the most so far so I used my own face and then this was me with my damage with my black and blackened and purpled eyes and I used that this image of myself I manipulated it more than this and then I ended up with her and so and she also went through you know I don't know if you can see this but I'm going to show you a little bit of a picture a number of changes with eye colorama and other applications that I like to use in my work and my let's see I want to come back okay my interest is to create characters that are me and not me I mean that's been my whole portrait of a woman series is to take my own I started with my own aging face and make something that's unusual and outside possibly outside the cultural idea of what woman is femaleness and so that's where I'm coming from in using my own face and I'm going to show you a little bit of a picture of me like I feel like I wish to resist the idealized female form which is constantly like so much of the work is this constant I when I say idealized I mean culturally idealized female form a certain kind of facial look and all of that and So I'm interested in finding something that's at least not in that category or somewhat than that category and also to use me to become a different I don't know person or creature I would say creature yeah so that's how I'm thinking about AI those are some of my thoughts I probably would have more if I didn't feel sick but I want to be on the edge of it and use it as a tool in my work I hope that's been clear so that's what I'm doing you know I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that but I'm going to be able to do that although I've set it all aside because I'm a bit sick but also I'm doing a grant writing project this week but I want to tune in and I like to hear what other people are saying but all right I'm signing off with my voice thank you susan it's lovely work you know it's very challenging to work with AI in female faces yeah and a lot of people shy away from that particular arena I'll just put up with it you know so it's good to see someone that's actually challenging that and using AI to create something that's multi-dimensional in its meaning you know not just about lips and boobs you know on lips and boobs and tiny waist and legs stop stop no one gets old on the internet right like oh my god it's like another another one but yeah I mean I'm part of the culture so it's it I mean even when I look at the piece today that I generated I can see that there's some of that in there but I'm hoping that I can keep pushing it and forming it into these creatures that I'm going to be able to create and I'm going to be able to create and I'm going to be able to have more resonance and more depth and more imagination that's what I want to say more imagination that than what is provided by the tool like it's more amplified yeah that's my goal I mean that's been the goal for that whole portrait of a woman series forever is to amplify and like give something different is to amplify and like give something different and I like how the concept of fertility spills out in your in your work also Also, the concept of what?

Susan Detroy

Of fertility, actually. And usually, I mean, we associate fertility with women in general. But generally, that affiliation wanes over time. Oh, yeah, yeah. But what your images say to me is that is not a quality that wanes with time. It just changes. Wane it changes you know metamorphosis so you see the these fairy-like or otherworldly emanations associated with the face and you know the form itself and I think that it speaks to that particular quality interesting thanks yeah whenever I do searches or and I've talked about this before whenever I do searches for mature female or aging female it's this is like it's devastating every once in a while I find an artist who is using the actual face of somebody that's you know over 40 50 60 and I'm always like oh my god I found something but it happens very rarely and mostly most of the work is about kind of like a kind of ageist isn't doesn't encompass the kind of thought I have it's so it's so narrow it's so narrow and that is the thing that I'm trying to do is I'm trying to do is I'm trying to do is in response to what you said like there's this narrow view of people as they age like there's just so few categories to be in and I think that's it's insulting I mean you're either like the wise person or their grandma or they're the it's just like we're it's so much we're as humans we're so much bigger than that and it's unfortunate that it gets reiterated over and over and over about the, our own limitations.

Susan Detroy

And, and, you know, there's not a lot of people pushing back on that as much. I'd like to see more pushback on the, idealized female form, but I, I am not going to bring, I have to tell you, I am not going to bring it up on Twitter because I don't want to have that conversation. I feel fortunate to be able to have that conversation here because there's not a lot of places where I can have that conversation that people don't, it's harder, harder. So I appreciate that to be able to do that here. Are you, are you familiar with the artist Egon Schiele, Austrian artist around 1910?

Susan Detroy

Say the first name? Egon. I don't think so. I'm going to write it down. I would, I would suggest you look him up. He, he was striving to do something very similar to what you are talking about. Oh, presenting images of the female form that do not fit the accepted ways of presenting the female form. Say the last name again. My head's called Schiele.

Susan Detroy

Okay. There's a woman on Sheila. It's S-C-H-I-E-L-E. Oh, Sheila. He died very young. Okay. There's a woman, that I connected with on Twitter who's, she does, handwork, but she's ambidextrous. She draws with both hands at the same time. And she does a lot of line drawings of, of, of the female form for sure. Yeah, there's that.

Susan Detroy

And, and, I can't remember the other woman I found through Twitter, but, oh, thanks for the, information about that person. But yeah, if you ever see anything, look up Austrian artist 1910 and you'll be on the list. Okay. So Susan, you, you bring up a rather interesting idea that I think would make maybe for a good topic for a future, salon meeting is, with digital tools, since they are, programs and not all of them are necessarily created, for artists use or maybe artist centric, artists use them. I, I like the idea of when you said I need to make it mine. And I think that's a great topic for, for a salon is what does that mean? And how do we, as artists using digital tools, what does it mean to make it mine? Because we can often see the stamp of Photoshop on something or the stamp of mid journey or the, you know, pick a tool and you have to, you have to be creative in order to make it yours.

Susan Detroy

But, you know, what that means for you is different than what it means for me. And I, I just find that an interesting, because I'm, I'm right there with you. I'm always striving to, to, to say, well, that isn't quite me yet. You know, what does, you know, how do I make it me? And what does that mean to make it mine? So I, I'm glad you said that because I've heard so many artists say the same thing. We say it, but you know, like what the hell does it mean actually?

Susan Detroy

That's a good idea. I never really thought about Photoshop, but I remember, you know, when I first started seeing people using filters and then all of a sudden every image had like the twirl filter or the difference, you know, layer, the difference, what do you call it? You know, the, the blend mode, you know, they all like, everyone was just doing that same thing. And then eventually like now it's sort of just, I mean, it's really well Photoshopped images. Like you don't, you don't really know that, that it's used, you know what I mean? Like a lot of commercial images probably are Photoshopped. And I certainly did my share of that stuff, you know, commercially. And, you know, I feel like, with AI, I mean, the, the, the, the thing that I think is sort of frightening is like the deep fakes that are, that are so photorealistic.

Susan Detroy

And, you know, I mean, that could just seep into mass media or become propaganda so easily, you know? And, I was starting to think, you know, I was starting to think, you know, I was starting to think in this conversation too, like, it'd be really interesting if this, technology extended to sculpture, you know, generating three-dimensional objects. I remember seeing something recently about, you know, AI generated, spaces like in the metaverse, you know, where it could be creating, you know, an, an actual environment based on prompts that then you can go into and navigate, you know, which I think would be pretty, interesting. No, Colin, that's actually started to happen already there. I read an article very recently, and I'm trying to remember where, but they were using AI to generate, 3d printed buildings.

Susan Detroy

So it's, it's already starting. Yeah. They have, 3d images being produced from photos now. I thought that was fascinating. But I've gotten the word that they used to apply to it, but, I was amazed that situation had evolved to that point. You know, we go back for just a moment here. Statement about make it mine. It immediately brings to my mind, the discussions between Van Gogh and Gauguin. Van Gogh and Gauguin. And Gauguin insisted that he had to be able to sit and see the landscape in order to make it the landscape on his canvas where Gauguin said, no, I make it mine comes out of my head. Okay. But in the long run, in the long run, Gauguin won that argument because in the long run, Van Gogh would sit there and look at the landscape and then he would make it his. It would no longer look like that landscape.

Susan Detroy

He made it a Van Gogh landscape. Mm-hmm.

So, it's a very different kind of idea. So, I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say.

Lee Schnaiberg

And I think that's the first thing I want to say. And I think that's the first thing I want to say. At a painting we know we know that's a that's a that's a Gauguin or we know that's a Monet or we know that's Van Gogh or we know it's a you know if Bacon you know you even if you haven't ever seen the painting but it's by Francis Bacon you know it's a Bacon if you know his work so having that signature or having that the essence of the artist coming out is a really tough one and I noticed that with I thought that your pieces that you showed today were really beautiful and I've often tried to use these images in AI and I've yet to really get them to do anything that I'm trying to do I've got a couple and I and I like melding them a bit but it's really it's really it's such a different kind of language but I did want to show you actually because I did dabble in AI a little bit for this woman she's doing blockchain projects for homelessness and getting housing for blocked for using blockchain and I don't fully understand it but I was like well that's really cool maybe I can donate some pieces for you so I did a little series I call it intensities and if you don't mind I'd love to show them get your opinion but they are they are reappropriated imagery so does this I don't know if that's sharing am I sharing the screen right now nope share screen okay let's share this one is that hmm it didn't work it did okay so intensities I basically took as many tensities as I could find and I apologize technology I can't seem to scroll through them oh I can't okay so I looked and tried to find images that we might pass by on the street or see in a magazine or anywhere in a new way and I found that they were not in the same way as I found them in the same way so I really got an idea of what and with and what I've been doing with the night cafe is you can meld different styles and they offer you like a palette of like 40 different paintings where they'll try to mix them so the at the bottom here is one painting but it usually I'll mix about 40 different pieces together or you know sometimes I try to see how many I can do before it breaks Thank you.

Lee Schnaiberg

But it's just really wanted to get the idea out to people that these are images that we, we see, but we don't think about too much. And can I find a way to, to sort of make them a little bit more, more have a little bit more permanence in people's memory and in their consciousness. And so I ended up donating 50 of these to these people. They were in Florida, in Miami last winter. And, and obviously I didn't shoot these photos. I mean, I, they're, they're all re reappropriated. And I mean, that's a whole other political issue. I don't, I profess that these are my own. I just made something so that, and this one's obviously got like, it's like, it can be more cliche this one, you know, it's the scream kind of pours out. But I just wanted to support the organization. And I thought maybe they could raise money and get their message out.

Lee Schnaiberg

They're trying to work with homelessness. And, and what I found was interesting, what I found interesting was okay. This one it's obvious that it's taken like a Japanese line cut. But my goal with all these was that you wouldn't know, like there's, there's probably like, you know, 16 different images mixed in there. So just ends up being sort of painterly and colorful and like, yeah, it's a homeless guy. He's sleeping on an Nish in a, a bus shelter.

Lee Schnaiberg

But yeah, I mean, you can actually, I know I'm scrolling right through them, which is the opposite of what my goal was, but I, I wanted to create something that, that, that doesn't necessarily scream AI. And this one does, cause it looks like a starry night, but they, I like the idea of trying to make it a little bit more human, you know, and, and that's not a, not an easy thing to do with, with something like night cafe. Anyway, that's thank you. I'm glad I was able to show these and how do I not stop sharing?

Lee Schnaiberg

Stop sharing. Sorry. Okay. Thanks. Thanks very much for letting me peep in there. It's beautiful work Lee, very painterly. And I don't see how you could not see that as your work. I mean, how was that going to come about without you? Well, I need the, the, the photographer who took those photos. I mean, it might've been like a news report. A lot of those were, you know, actually I screen grab images, like a news report and the cameras panning over a little shelter, but the photographer shot that a videographer shot that and that they own it. And if it was printed, you know, you know, you know, you know, they could've printed it somewhere. Somebody owns that image and then.

Lee Schnaiberg

It would be very difficult to like do a sort of forensic. Split of all the different paintings that night night cafe mixed together. And I don't even remember because I was just like, oh, throw this one. Try this one. You know, and they tried to like, they want you. Either. They want you to have an image with the sync palette.

Lee Schnaiberg

As the image. That you're taking so that they meld together. And if you don't do that, then paintings come out in different places. And because I did 50 of these, I saw it. Well, because I did finished 50, I did like probably 200. But I noticed things. I noticed like, okay, don't use that image because that image, the impasto is really thick right in the middle and there's one spot. So like if you have five pieces and you have that as one of the ingredients, you're gonna have this tell. And I didn't like that. So I was like, okay, it's interesting the way they meld the images, but I don't really know if it's necessarily intelligent.

Lee Schnaiberg

You know, it's funny, you know, Bruce Sterling, right? He calls it a stochastic parrots and stochastic parroting. Like even if you're doing, you know, you're doing a prompting and you say Nixon Pez dispenser, it'll throw a Pez dispenser and Nixon or bobblehead. It'll throw those images together and be like, is this what you're looking like? This is what you said. But it's a lot like a parrot.

Lee Schnaiberg

The parrot hears the word, could repeat the word, but doesn't really know what it means, you know? And maybe some parrots will eventually learn if they're domesticated. What a word means, but they usually just know the word and they can repeat it. Usually all the time and without really any intelligence.

Lee Schnaiberg

So it's kind of funny that this is the intelligence that we see. But so, yeah, I don't know. It's fine. Based on the lecture I listened to from the lawyer, I would say that you have reached the 70% threshold for sure. You've changed those images more than 70% if they started off being naturalistic photographs. So I agree with Renata. You are there. That's you. Thanks, Lee. Thanks. You were just inspired by a photograph that you went way past the photograph. I have another series that I've been doing about climate change. Same kind of thing of these ghastly situations, flooded cars where the water is right up till here and a whole parking lot flooded or all these things that we see these images. But I figure if we can make them, like you said, Renata, make them look painterly. Make them look like not just another news photograph, but actually something.

Lee Schnaiberg

Like if I had the skills, somebody who has known me for a long time, when I posted a few of these, it was like, Lee, are you painting again? Like they were all excited. And I'm like, who has the time to like get an easel? And like, I'm not going to like, how would I, where would I go? I'm not going to be in a flood, hopefully. So how would I create those images without taking a piece from here and a piece from there?

Lee Schnaiberg

But I'm glad you said that. So I'm not going to be as shy with them. I was kind of afraid to show them. So can I just ask for clarification? The original is from one photograph or multiple photographs? I get the different painterly styles going on, but. Multiple photographs, multiple photographs. Although each individual image is a photograph. Well, no, that's what I wanted to know. Right. So one image. So there was an image of homeless tents like this. You didn't. Take another image of homeless tents and multiply the number of homeless tents. Yeah. No, no, I didn't. And so sometimes I do a screen grab like if the camera's panning across a news report. But most often I just like look, you know, I just do Google searches and I'd be like, you know, Tent City and pick a name of a city, Tent City, Chicago, Tent City, London, Tent City, you know, and yeah, pull up and be like, wow, that's a dramatic image.

Lee Schnaiberg

Okay. Let's see. What I could do with that one. But so it's kind of. I mean, my whole life I've been a VJ and I used to be an analog VJ. Sorry. And I mixed my imagery. Some of the images were images that I made, but I had a, you know, when I go to VJ, I'd have a back when I started, I'd have milk crates full of VHS cassettes.

Lee Schnaiberg

This is before digital. I mean, when we went digital. It's so amazing. But so I'd curate and part of the work was curating. Part of the work was knowing what clip like I, because VJing is a lot in the dance clubs. So I, you know, go and look for old Bob Fosse movies and see what I can loop. And then I'd make a loop from one of those movies and then key other images into it. And then have that being beat reactive. So if it's like in a house music at 120 beats per minute, I'll be making like 60 cuts. So those aren't my imagery. The thing that I own is the mix that would come out. And even then there'd be a, you know, questions about authorship. But I've always been like, you know, found fitted footage filmmaking when I was in film school, the idea of the archival imagery. And, you know, back then they used to.

Lee Schnaiberg

I don't know if you call it junksmithing. Just like going through all the all the cretinizing images and the television commercials and everything else and trying to create something with it. And before I think Michael said no, Lee said about Disney and how you could Disney wouldn't let you ever use their footage. And then there's a band Negative Land who went out of their way. They had a bit of a kerfuffle with Disney and they made a whole a whole. Well, they recorded their law, the Disney lawyer yelling at how he'll sue them if they use any of their footage. And they switched it to the mermaid Ariel, the mermaid, the Disney mermaid. And it was just a pretty fantastic piece about, you know, using found footage. And so I think there is something. I think there is something. I think there is something to that.

Lee Schnaiberg

But at the same time, I feel like a bit of a thief taking these images of all these tent cities and pretty. It was legal. It is legal. It's called compilation. And a compilation is where you take many images that other people have done and you create a new image that is very much more expanded. Very much more. Very different from the individual images that comprise the whole. So, yes. So it's legal. It's recognized by law compilation. If you want to copyright them, that's how you would do so as a compilation. But these are not actually compilations. They're modified.

Lee Schnaiberg

But they're from one identifiable photograph. So then it's this question about how much it gets changed. And it seems that you've changed. You've changed it dramatically. So I would. I understood that he used multiple images in many of the pieces. Am I correct, Lee? Well, there's. But I didn't composite any imagery. Like I'd take the photo and maybe I'd crop it. But I'd look for images and I'd take it and then I'd start processing it. I wouldn't do a composite or a collage of like a bunch of images. I wouldn't take this tent and put it in this field. I'd just take what's there. I mean, part of it was. Isn't it true that anything on the web is like up for grabs? No, that's not true. Absolutely not true. That is like so, so much not true. Well, like if you put something on Facebook, they own it.

Lee Schnaiberg

No, they don't. No, they don't. I found the words. You know, they can use it. But they don't own it. And they can modify it. I don't mean they own it, but. But. You know. It's up there for grabs. No, it's not. You own the copyright on your work. Yeah. From the time you created. You own the copyright. You are very well protected under U.S. Copyright law. You own the copyright. So that is the question of what. You own the copyright. And that is what Lee brought up. Which is how much you've changed it. And have you, I mean, Lee Musgrave said that.

Lee Schnaiberg

Have you changed it enough that you've. Enhanced its value, modified it, et cetera. But absolutely. A hundred percent. Just putting it online. You do not give up ownership. Nobody would. And no artist would have a website. Right. Right. Hey guys, we are. We're a little bit past the time limit. You guys are all welcome to stay around for the.

Lee Schnaiberg

Advisory board meeting, which you're all part of. And you know, at that point we'll discuss the topic for the next salon. And. You know, if anyone who's watching this on YouTube or on the website wants to be on the advisory board. They can come on the advisory board. You're not going to be able to participate in the recording. The application process involves showing up and hanging out after the recording stops. So I thank you guys all for participating and we are going to. End the recording in three, two, one. And cut.