- Welcome to The Steampunk Forum at Brass Goggles.
The Lighter Side of Steampunk
News:
For Forum status and technical updates, follow @vonCorax on Twitter X, and @vonCorax@mastodon.social on Mastodon.
Recent posts
#31
Metaphysical / Re: Moonlight Tower
Last post by J. Wilhelm - November 28, 2023, 03:02:05 PMThis necromanced topic is brought to you by the City of Austin!
Subject: historical "Moonlight Towers" or "Moontowers" and the Carbon Arc lamps which became popular through Europe and the United States in the 1880-1890s, and the few examples still extant in Austin (I believe they're the last in the World still in use, albeit with modern LED "bulbs" instead of arc bulbs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower
Subject: historical "Moonlight Towers" or "Moontowers" and the Carbon Arc lamps which became popular through Europe and the United States in the 1880-1890s, and the few examples still extant in Austin (I believe they're the last in the World still in use, albeit with modern LED "bulbs" instead of arc bulbs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower
#32
Metaphysical / Re: Do you even need steampunk...
Last post by J. Wilhelm - November 28, 2023, 02:28:29 PMContext may not be required. A Collage is seldom explained to the public, because good collage should be a readily understandable composition all by itself (an exception would be surrealism, of course).
Graphic AI software is nothing more and nothing less than a collage machine. Someone trains the AI, or the AI trains itself using a subroutine, which is akin to scanning and saving millions, even billions of paper magazine pages in memory and then the same software prompts a human for input. The human specifies what kind of elements they want to see on an image, and then the machine furiously searches the pages, cuts snippets from each page that has an element similar to what the human prompted, does that repeatedly for each element the human requested, and then intelligently pastes and blends those snippets together to make them look like a single piece of artwork.
AI is grossly overrated. People should not make the machine into an artist, or assume that it's "intelligent" (it's not, and we can debate that), nor should they discount the composition of the machine operator.
By the way, the latter of which is the current legal trend being applied; that is, to ignore the human's input altogether and claim the machine did it alone. It's the wrong judgement, because the same argument was used in the 19th century to invalidate photography, under the pretext that the camera was doing all the work and the operator only pushed a trigger. "How can a copy be art?" critics complained - and not without reason. But that argument didn't stand the test of time, did it?
When a photographer is lauded or given a prize for their work, are people lauding the camera's technology? No, of course not. They're lauding the photographer's choice of technique and composition. And let me point out that when photographers publish work, they don't always describe textually what the composition means, nor do they explain what type of equipment they use. Why? Because the composition should be clear enough all by itself.
Eventually, the operator, or rather the user of the AI software will have to be recognized as a legitimate artist, the same way a photographer is recognized as one today.
Graphic AI software is nothing more and nothing less than a collage machine. Someone trains the AI, or the AI trains itself using a subroutine, which is akin to scanning and saving millions, even billions of paper magazine pages in memory and then the same software prompts a human for input. The human specifies what kind of elements they want to see on an image, and then the machine furiously searches the pages, cuts snippets from each page that has an element similar to what the human prompted, does that repeatedly for each element the human requested, and then intelligently pastes and blends those snippets together to make them look like a single piece of artwork.
AI is grossly overrated. People should not make the machine into an artist, or assume that it's "intelligent" (it's not, and we can debate that), nor should they discount the composition of the machine operator.
By the way, the latter of which is the current legal trend being applied; that is, to ignore the human's input altogether and claim the machine did it alone. It's the wrong judgement, because the same argument was used in the 19th century to invalidate photography, under the pretext that the camera was doing all the work and the operator only pushed a trigger. "How can a copy be art?" critics complained - and not without reason. But that argument didn't stand the test of time, did it?
When a photographer is lauded or given a prize for their work, are people lauding the camera's technology? No, of course not. They're lauding the photographer's choice of technique and composition. And let me point out that when photographers publish work, they don't always describe textually what the composition means, nor do they explain what type of equipment they use. Why? Because the composition should be clear enough all by itself.
Eventually, the operator, or rather the user of the AI software will have to be recognized as a legitimate artist, the same way a photographer is recognized as one today.
#33
That's really heavy art.
#34
Metaphysical / Re: Do you even need steampunk...
Last post by Sorontar - November 28, 2023, 11:18:22 AMContext. The artist has an imagination that provides context to the art. The context explains why the art was created and why it was designed that way, even if it is meaningless. If AI users told us how they achieved a certain output, it might help give them context, but they don't do that. They just show the art without context.
Sorontar
Sorontar
#35
Metaphysical / Do you even need steampunk art...
Last post by selectedgrub - November 28, 2023, 09:15:28 AManymore now that AI is plastering the interwebs.
Not only is the art piece (gun) fake but so is the polyester girl.
Sad.
Not only is the art piece (gun) fake but so is the polyester girl.
Sad.
#36
Metaphysical / Re: Instagram
Last post by selectedgrub - November 28, 2023, 08:56:14 AMIt was free when I signed up
#38
Metaphysical / Re: Instagram
Last post by J. Wilhelm - November 27, 2023, 11:11:00 PMPaywall springs up after a few moments on the profile page...
#39
Tactile / Re: New work
Last post by selectedgrub - November 27, 2023, 05:53:41 AMPlaque for model number etc
#40
Aural-Ocular / Re: Hullabaloo Episode 1
Last post by James Harrison - November 26, 2023, 03:58:21 PMSuch a shame that the creator wants to hide their work under a bushel. As one of those who donated to the crowd-funder, I was surprised when it was released that it was 'unlisted' on Youtube.