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As someone who's been making art with code for a long time, I'm under the impression that "generative", in the context of computers and art, has had another cha

As someone who's been making art with code for a long time, I'm under the impression that "generative", in the context of computers and art, has had another change of meaning recently. "Making generative art" now seems synonymous to "giving a prompt to a black-box model created by a large corporation". Maybe Genuary is better described as "algorithmic art"? At the very least, you have to be aware that a wall of misunderstanding has appeared between people using different definitions. Maybe this is invisible to people inside a community, but this wall has appeared around the community and it's probably not helping.

holoduke 3y ago
Except that its not a simple prompt when generating high quality art. It requires wiring of loras, controlnets, upscalers, fine tuned models and more. Take a look at some of many he workflow in Comfui. Gigantic workflows wiyh hundreds of connecting nodes
jackstraw14 3y ago
The term "generative art" really has changed the last few years. The wave of interest in generative art a few years ago (along with NFTs) also involved a lot of art that wasn't directly created directly from code [0] and no one seemed to have much problem with it. It's not much of an active market lately, but at the time it was just a different type of generative art from stuff that is much more code-based [1]. [0] https://objkt.com/asset/hicetnunc/416966 https://objkt.com/asset/hicetnunc/416966 [1] https://monogrid.xyz/ https://monogrid.xyz/
Lerc 3y ago
I have done a fair bit of procedural generation http://c50.fingswotidun.com/show/?code=z!eZvz%2F9%2Bduz%2F9%2Bd%3B%3A3w0%3A-%3B%3At8%2F-8%257w%2Bze2*1-%3Az*%3C%7Cxy!%2B http://c50.fingswotidun.com/show/?code=z!eZvz%2F9%2Bduz%2F9%... https://www.dwitter.net/d/20993 https://www.dwitter.net/d/20993 and quite a lot of work on Stable Diffusion techniques. I'm quite comfortable sharing the space. They are not the same thing as each other but neither is it necessary to be dismissive of the approach. People are creating stuff for the sake of creating stuff, that doesn't need to be gatekept As the comment by holoduke mentions. Quality imagery from image generation models is not as simple as giving a prompt to a black box. This https://fingswotidun.com/AITalk/images/DuckRun/FullAnim.gif https://fingswotidun.com/AITalk/images/DuckRun/FullAnim.gif took me a lot of work and it is still far from ideal, (the waistcoat jitter, the collar, the beak, the hair).
- pierrec 3y ago
  I think we agree. "Giving a prompt to a black-box model created by a large corporation" is just the average, and the popular perception of the term "generative art". Genuary is also explicitly about making art with code, so there is a more technical distinction that has nothing to do with the amount of effort required. And maybe the solution is for Genuary to embrace AI art and to stop describing itself as doing things with code specifically. It's something to consider, but I think the AI art would drown out the algorithmic stuff, and the latter would probably have an exodus and be forced to start something else. As for people gatekeeping and being dismissive, yes those people are out there. Hopefully my comment did not imply any of that.
  - Lerc 3y ago
    I don't think one style would be too dominant. Looking at the prompt list I can see some themes favouring code generation and some favouring AI generation. It would be kinda nice to see some people trying to blend the techniques, like particle systems generating depth-map ControlNets. Animation is still a tough proposition for AI, even with the video generation models available now, having control and consistency is a battle.
mattdesl 3y ago
“Generative art” has been around for decades; over the last several years it has often been used as a catch-all term that often covered algorithmic art & computer art, and generally with a focus on coding and computation. A lot of artists who practice this (myself included) have long been using this label to define our work. It has always been a niche topic, but now that “generative AI” is beginning to enter mainstream conversation, it’s basically competing with the terminology.
squigz 3y ago
It seems synonymous to those who have no idea what they're talking about, much like 'programming' is synonymous with 'hitting keys on a keyboard', or really any layman understanding of any field.

holoduke 3y ago

Except that its not a simple prompt when generating high quality art. It requires wiring of loras, controlnets, upscalers, fine tuned models and more. Take a look at some of many he workflow in Comfui. Gigantic workflows wiyh hundreds of connecting nodes

jackstraw14 3y ago

The term "generative art" really has changed the last few years. The wave of interest in generative art a few years ago (along with NFTs) also involved a lot of art that wasn't directly created directly from code [0] and no one seemed to have much problem with it. It's not much of an active market lately, but at the time it was just a different type of generative art from stuff that is much more code-based [1]. [0] https://objkt.com/asset/hicetnunc/416966 https://objkt.com/asset/hicetnunc/416966 [1] https://monogrid.xyz/ https://monogrid.xyz/

Lerc 3y ago

I have done a fair bit of procedural generation http://c50.fingswotidun.com/show/?code=z!eZvz%2F9%2Bduz%2F9%2Bd%3B%3A3w0%3A-%3B%3At8%2F-8%257w%2Bze2*1-%3Az*%3C%7Cxy!%2B http://c50.fingswotidun.com/show/?code=z!eZvz%2F9%2Bduz%2F9%... https://www.dwitter.net/d/20993 https://www.dwitter.net/d/20993 and quite a lot of work on Stable Diffusion techniques. I'm quite comfortable sharing the space. They are not the same thing as each other but neither is it necessary to be dismissive of the approach. People are creating stuff for the sake of creating stuff, that doesn't need to be gatekept As the comment by holoduke mentions. Quality imagery from image generation models is not as simple as giving a prompt to a black box. This https://fingswotidun.com/AITalk/images/DuckRun/FullAnim.gif https://fingswotidun.com/AITalk/images/DuckRun/FullAnim.gif took me a lot of work and it is still far from ideal, (the waistcoat jitter, the collar, the beak, the hair).

pierrec 3y ago
I think we agree. "Giving a prompt to a black-box model created by a large corporation" is just the average, and the popular perception of the term "generative art". Genuary is also explicitly about making art with code, so there is a more technical distinction that has nothing to do with the amount of effort required. And maybe the solution is for Genuary to embrace AI art and to stop describing itself as doing things with code specifically. It's something to consider, but I think the AI art would drown out the algorithmic stuff, and the latter would probably have an exodus and be forced to start something else. As for people gatekeeping and being dismissive, yes those people are out there. Hopefully my comment did not imply any of that.
- Lerc 3y ago
  I don't think one style would be too dominant. Looking at the prompt list I can see some themes favouring code generation and some favouring AI generation. It would be kinda nice to see some people trying to blend the techniques, like particle systems generating depth-map ControlNets. Animation is still a tough proposition for AI, even with the video generation models available now, having control and consistency is a battle.

mattdesl 3y ago

“Generative art” has been around for decades; over the last several years it has often been used as a catch-all term that often covered algorithmic art & computer art, and generally with a focus on coding and computation. A lot of artists who practice this (myself included) have long been using this label to define our work. It has always been a niche topic, but now that “generative AI” is beginning to enter mainstream conversation, it’s basically competing with the terminology.

squigz 3y ago

It seems synonymous to those who have no idea what they're talking about, much like 'programming' is synonymous with 'hitting keys on a keyboard', or really any layman understanding of any field.