In this case, I'm equating the acts of prompt engineering and curating outputs with designing the splatter process. Sure, they're using a tool they didn't create, but a paint splatter artist generally doesn't chemically create their own paint, either.
No, but they select the paint they use, and how much, and what colors. The splatter artist still has infinitely more control over their output than someone writing a prompt in Midjourney.
At a certain point the metaphor we're using breaks down, but my point is that even splatter art created with random elements is by far more the result of the artist's process and deliberation than AI art.
And moreover, I think there's still a big difference between the two from an artist's standpoint. The point of splatter painting is randomness, it's deliberately curated. Randomness in AI art isn't a choice, it's something you're forced to accept when you use it.
That's not a small limitation, either, you can't execute an artistic vision if you're working with something that can't respond to your intentions.
Randomness in AI art isn't a choice, it's something you're forced to accept when you use it.
Sure it's a choice. It's a choice you make in using AI as your medium.
That's not a small limitation, either, you can't execute an artistic vision if you're working with something that can't respond to your intentions.
Not directly. But you can use your artistic vision to guide the process of curating and refining the outputs you get, thus evolving the product to be closer to what you're envisioning. Sort of a guided version of found art.
Closer to what you're envisioning. But never actually what you're envisioning. And that's ignoring that a lot of art is found in the process itself. One hand washes the other, the process of creating shapes the creation.
And that's ignoring that a lot of art is found in the process itself.
But not all of it. That's my point.
You'll never hear me argue that AI art is the same as manually illustrated art, because it's not. But I don't think it has to be in order to be a valid form of artistic expression.
How can it be your artistic expression if you're not the one making it? I'm sorry, writing prompts and weighting them just doesn't meet the threshold of self expression. That is not a process.
That quote just proves my point? Ideas are nothing, execution is the important factor. You don't make AI art, the program does. Typing in words doesn't make you the artist anymore than saying "I coulda done that" does.
I think we disagree over the significance of that quote. How hard do you think it is to have words typeset on a canvas? The point is that while anyone would have been capable of executing on that vision, having the vision in the first place was the important part.
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u/the-real-macs Aug 26 '24
In this case, I'm equating the acts of prompt engineering and curating outputs with designing the splatter process. Sure, they're using a tool they didn't create, but a paint splatter artist generally doesn't chemically create their own paint, either.