Derivative Ai Art from IRL Paintings II
written by Robert Matheson
Ai tools continue to evolve, promising even more possibilities for your art practice
This writing is a follow-up to my article by the same name that focused on DALL-E. Since that time, Midjourney released V4 of their Ai Image GAN which features the ability to prompt their bot with two unique image links. I chose to prompt it with links from my IRL series of paintings titled "Perpetual". Both are abstract paintings which can be seen below.
After submitting the two links, Midjourney generated the following four outputs to choose from:
To appreciate the detail of each piece, I've provided upscaled versions of each iteration below.
Understanding the implications of this technology on traditional art
In less than 6 months from the original Midjourney launch date (July 12th, 2022), the platform now features the ability to import existing work of traditional artists and create unlimited derivatives. The four outputs above were not curated in any way. Midjourney did a fantastic job generating these abstract paintings. Of course, painting is as much about the process as it is the outcome, but the ability for Ai to amplify the expressive creativity of an individual artist at this scale is revolutionary.
Soon, APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) will become widely available for these Ai technologies, allowing the process of submitting image link prompts to be automated. In theory, this will allow an artist to start a perpetual chain of derivative work that is limited only to their computing power. There is no longer a limit to the amount of work that a traditional artist can create in their own style.
We are just getting started...