tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/digital-art-12733/articles
Digital art – The Conversation
2023-06-23T12:28:05Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207480
2023-06-23T12:28:05Z
2023-06-23T12:28:05Z
The folly of making art with text-to-image generative AI
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533577/original/file-20230622-5172-et0jx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=334%2C162%2C1369%2C838&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Obtaining a desired image can be a long exercise in trial and error.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i0.wp.com/syncedreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-92.png?resize=1153%2C580&ssl=1">OpenAI</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Making art using artificial intelligence isn’t new. <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artificial-intelligence-art-history-2045520">It’s as old as AI itself</a>. </p>
<p>What’s new is that a wave of tools now let most people generate images by entering a text prompt. All you need to do is write “a landscape in the style of van Gogh” into a text box, and the AI can create a beautiful image as instructed. </p>
<p>The power of this technology lies in its capacity to use human language to control art generation. But do these systems accurately translate an artist’s vision? Can bringing language into art-making truly lead to artistic breakthroughs? </p>
<h2>Engineering outputs</h2>
<p>I’ve worked with generative AI <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DxQiCiIAAAAJ&hl=en">as an artist and computer scientist</a> for years, and I would argue that this new type of tool constrains the creative process. </p>
<p>When you write a text prompt to generate an image with AI, there are infinite possibilities. If you’re a casual user, you might be happy with what AI generates for you. And startups and investors <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/08/generative-ai-silicon-valleys-next-trillion-dollar-companies.html">have poured billions</a> into this technology, seeing it as an easy way to generate graphics for articles, video game characters and advertisements.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Grid of many images of cartoon women in various costumes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533578/original/file-20230622-19-fg7z51.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Generative AI is seen as a promising tool for coming up with video game characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/X-Y_plot_of_algorithmically-generated_AI_art_by_different_science-fiction_subgenres.png">Benlisquare/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>In contrast, an artist might need to write an essaylike prompt to generate a high-quality image that reflects their vision – with the right composition, the right lighting and the correct shading. That long prompt is not necessarily descriptive of the image but typically uses lots of keywords to invoke the system of what’s in the artist’s mind. There’s a relatively new term for this: <a href="https://time.com/6272103/ai-prompt-engineer-job/">prompt engineering</a>.</p>
<p>Basically, the role of an artist using these tools is reduced to reverse-engineering the system to find the right keywords to compel the system to generate the desired output. It takes a lot of effort, and much trial and error, to find the right words.</p>
<h2>AI isn’t as intelligent as it seems</h2>
<p>To learn how to better control the outputs, it’s important to recognize that most of these systems <a href="https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-a-minefield-for-copyright-law-207473">are trained on images and captions from the internet</a>. </p>
<p>Think about what a typical image caption tells about an image. Captions are typically written to complement the visual experience in web browsing. </p>
<p>For example, the caption might describe the name of the photographer and the copyright holder. On some websites, like Flickr, a caption typically describes the type of camera and the lens used. On other sites, the caption describes the graphic engine and hardware used to render an image. </p>
<p>So to write a useful text prompt, users need to insert many nondescriptive keywords for the AI system to create a corresponding image.</p>
<p>Today’s AI systems are not as intelligent as they seem; they are essentially smart retrieval systems that have a huge memory and work by association.</p>
<h2>Artists frustrated by a lack of control</h2>
<p>Is this really the sort of tool that can help artists create great work? </p>
<p>At Playform AI, a generative AI art platform that I founded, we <a href="https://www.playform.io/editorial/survey">conducted a survey</a> to better understand artists’ experiences with generative AI. We collected responses from over 500 digital artists, traditional painters, photographers, illustrators and graphic designers who had used platforms such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, among others. </p>
<p>Only 46% of the respondents found such tools to be “very useful,” while 32% found them somewhat useful but couldn’t integrate them to their workflow. The rest of the users – 22% – didn’t find them useful at all. </p>
<p>The main limitation artists and designers highlighted was a lack of control. On a scale 0 to 10, with 10 being most control, respondents described their ability to control the outcome to be between 4 and 5. Half the respondents found the outputs interesting, but not of a high enough quality to be used in their practice. </p>
<p>When it came to beliefs about whether generative AI would influence their practice, 90% of the artists surveyed thought that it would; 46% believed that the effect would be a positive one, with 7% predicting that it would have a negative effect. And 37% thought their practice would be affected but weren’t sure in what way. </p>
<h2>The best visual art transcends language</h2>
<p>Are these limitations fundamental, or will they just go away as the technology improves? </p>
<p>Of course, newer versions of generative AI will give users more control over outputs, along with higher resolutions and better image quality. </p>
<p>But to me, the main limitation, as far as art is concerned, is foundational: it’s the process of using language as the main driver in generating the image. </p>
<p>Visual artists, by definition, are <a href="https://psmag.com/news/the-thinking-process-of-the-visual-artist">visual thinkers</a>. When they imagine their work, they usually draw from visual references, not words – a memory, a collection of photographs or other art they’ve encountered. </p>
<p>When language is in the driver’s seat of image generation, I see an extra barrier between the artist and the digital canvas. Pixels will be rendered only through the lens of language. Artists lose the freedom of manipulating pixels outside the boundaries of semantics.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Grid of different cartoon images of an animal with wings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533559/original/file-20230622-5432-utxd4p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The same input can lead to a range of random outputs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/DALL-E_sample.png">OpenAI/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>There’s another fundamental limitation in text-to-image technology.</p>
<p>If two artists enter the exact same prompt, it’s very unlikely that the system will generate the same image. That’s not due to anything the artist did; the different outcomes are simply due the AI’s <a href="https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2021-07-11-diffusion-models/">starting from different random initial images</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, the artist’s output is boiled down to chance.</p>
<p>Nearly two-thirds of the artists we surveyed had concerns that their AI generations might be similar to other artists’ works and that the technology does not reflect their identity – or even replaces it altogether.</p>
<p>The issue of artist identity is crucial when it comes to making and recognizing art. In the 19th century, when photography started to become popular, there was <a href="https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-a-minefield-for-copyright-law-207473">a debate about whether photography was a form of art</a>. It came down to a court case in France in 1861 to decide whether photography could be copyrighted as an art form. The decision hinged on whether an artist’s unique identity could be expressed through photographs. </p>
<p>Those same questions emerge when considering AI systems that are taught with the internet’s existing images. </p>
<p>Before the emergence of text-to-image prompting, <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-line-between-machine-and-artist-becomes-blurred-103149">creating art with AI was a more elaborate process</a>: Artists usually trained their own AI models based on their own images. That allowed them to use their own work as visual references and retain more control over the outputs, which better reflected their unique style.</p>
<p>Text-to-image tools might be useful for certain creators and casual everyday users who want to create graphics for a work presentation or a social media post. </p>
<p>But when it comes to art, I can’t see how text-to-image software can adequately reflect the artist’s true intentions or capture the beauty and emotional resonance or works that grip viewers and makes them see the world anew.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author is the founder of Playform AI</span></em></p>
Visual artists draw from visual references, not words, as they imagine their work. So when language is in the driver’s seat of making art, it erects a barrier between the artist and the canvas.
Ahmed Elgammal, Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Art & AI Lab, Rutgers University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199882
2023-02-28T02:26:13Z
2023-02-28T02:26:13Z
Is there a way to pay content creators whose work is used to train AI? Yes, but it’s not foolproof
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512148/original/file-20230224-22-j2ktnx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C53%2C4466%2C2937&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, or theft? Perhaps it comes down to the imitator.</p>
<p>Text-to-image artificial intelligence systems such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are trained on huge amounts of image data from the web. As a result, they often generate outputs that resemble real artists’ work and style.</p>
<p>It’s safe to say artists <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/12/australian-artists-accuse-popular-ai-imaging-app-of-stealing-content-call-for-stricter-copyright-laws">aren’t impressed</a>. To further complicate things, although intellectual property law guards against the misappropriation of individual works of art, this doesn’t extend to emulating a person’s style. </p>
<p>It’s becoming difficult for artists to promote their work online without contributing infinitesimally to the creative capacity of generative AI. Many are now asking if it’s possible to compensate creatives whose art is used in this way. </p>
<p>One approach from photo licensing service Shutterstock goes some way towards addressing the issue.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-the-lensa-ai-app-technically-isnt-stealing-artists-work-but-it-will-majorly-shake-up-the-art-world-196480">No, the Lensa AI app technically isn’t stealing artists' work – but it will majorly shake up the art world</a>
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<h2>Old contributor model, meet computer vision</h2>
<p>Media content licensing services such as Shutterstock take contributions from photographers and artists and make them available for third parties to license. </p>
<p>In these cases, the commercial interests of licenser, licensee and creative are straightforward. Customers pay to license an image, and a portion of this payment (in Shutterstock’s <a href="https://support.submit.shutterstock.com/s/article/How-much-will-I-be-paid-as-a-contributor-to-Shutterstock?language=en_US">case</a> 15-40%) goes to the creative who provided the intellectual property. </p>
<p>Issues of intellectual property are cut and dried: if somebody uses a Shutterstock image without a licence, or for a purpose outside its terms, it’s a clear breach of the photographer’s or artist’s rights. </p>
<p>However, Shutterstock’s terms of service also allow it to pursue a new way to generate income from intellectual property. Its current contributors’ site has a large focus on <a href="https://support.submit.shutterstock.com/s/article/Shutterstock-ai-and-Computer-Vision-Contributor-FAQ?language=en_US">computer vision</a>, which it defines as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a scientific discipline that seeks to develop techniques to help computers ‘see’ and understand the content of digital images such as photographs and videos.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Computer vision isn’t new. Have you ever told a website you’re not a robot and identified some warped text or pictures of bicycles? If so, you have been <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-technology-issues-digitization-spamming-artificial-intelligence-9e2aec49792c3a1e31c1f94f1a5e7ede">actively</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/?hl=es/index.html#:%7E:text=reCAPTCHA%20makes%20positive%20use%20of,and%20solve%20hard%20AI%20problems.">training AI-run</a> computer vision algorithms. </p>
<p>Now, computer vision is allowing Shutterstock to <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/generate">create</a> what it calls an “ethically sourced, totally clean, and extremely inclusive” <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/generate?kw=shutterstock">AI image generator</a>.</p>
<h2>What makes Shutterstock’s approach ‘ethical’?</h2>
<p>An immense amount of work goes into classifying millions of images to train the large language models used by AI image generators. But services such as Shutterstock are uniquely positioned to do this. </p>
<p>Shutterstock has access to high-quality images from some <a href="https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2021-financial">two million contributors</a>, all of which are described in some level of detail. It’s the perfect recipe for training a large language model. </p>
<p>These models are essentially vast multidimensional neural networks. The network is fed training data, which it uses to create data points that combine visual and conceptual information. The more information there is, the more data points the network can create and link up.</p>
<p>This distinction between a collection of images and a constellation of abstract data points lies at the heart of the issue of compensating creatives whose work is used to train generative AI. </p>
<p>Even in the case where a system has learnt to associate a very specific image <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.13188.pdf">with a label</a>, there’s no meaningful way to trace a clear line from that training image to the outputs. We can’t really see what the systems measure or how they “understand” the concepts they learn.</p>
<p>Shutterstock’s solution is to compensate every contributor whose work is <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/developers/computer-vision-at-shutterstock">made available</a> to a commercial partner for computer vision training. It describes the approach on its site:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have established a Shutterstock Contributor Fund, which will directly compensate Shutterstock contributors if their IP was used in the development of AI-generative models, like the OpenAI model, through licensing of data from Shutterstock’s library. Additionally, Shutterstock will continue to compensate contributors for the future licensing of AI-generated content through the Shutterstock AI content generation tool.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Problem solved?</h2>
<p>The amount that goes into the Shutterstock Contributor Fund will be proportional to the value of the dataset deal Shutterstock makes. But, of course, the fund will be split among a large proportion of Shutterstock’s <a href="https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2021-financial#:%7E:text=ABOUT%20SHUTTERSTOCK&text=Working%20with%20its%20growing%20community,24%20million%20video%20clips%20available.">contributors</a>.</p>
<p>Whatever equation Shutterstock develops to determine the fund’s size, it’s worth remembering that any compensation isn’t the same as <em>fair</em> compensation. Shutterstock’s model sets the stage for new debates about value and fairness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512149/original/file-20230224-22-seebuv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The LLM process is a bit like an impartial art student learning about techniques and genres by wandering through a gallery of millions of captioned paintings. Can we say any individual painting added more to their generalised knowledge? Probably not.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock AI</span></span>
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<p>Arguably the most important debates will focus on the amount of specific individuals’ contributions to the “knowledge” gleaned by a trained neural network. But there isn’t (and may never be) a way to accurately measure this. </p>
<h2>No picture-perfect solution</h2>
<p>There are, of course, many other user-contributed media libraries on the internet. For now, Shutterstock is the most open about its dealings with computer vision projects, and its terms of use are the most direct in addressing the ethical issues.</p>
<p>Another big AI player, Stable Diffusion, uses an open source image database called <a href="https://laion.ai/blog/laion-5b/">LAION-5B</a> for training. Content creators can use a service called <a href="https://haveibeentrained.com/">Have I Been Trained?</a> to check if their work was included in the dataset, and opt out of it (but this will only be reflected in future versions of Stable Diffusion).</p>
<p>One of my popular CC-licensed photographs of a young girl reading shows up in the database several times. But I don’t mind, so I’ve chosen not to opt out.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511894/original/file-20230223-349-twcyqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Have I Been Trained? results turn up a CC-licensed photo I uploaded to Flickr about a decade ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shutterstock <a href="https://support.submit.shutterstock.com/s/article/Shutterstock-ai-and-Computer-Vision-Contributor-FAQ?language=en_US">has promised</a> to give contributors a choice to opt out of future dataset deals. </p>
<p>Its terms make it the first business of its type to address the ethics of providing contributors’ works for training generative AI (<a href="https://support.submit.shutterstock.com/s/article/Shutterstock-ai-and-Computer-Vision-Contributor-FAQ?language=en_US">and other</a> computer-vision-related uses). It offers what’s perhaps the simplest solution yet to a highly fraught dilemma. </p>
<p>Time will tell if contributors themselves consider this approach fair. Intellectual property law may also evolve to help establish contributors’ rights, so it could be Shutterstock is trying to get ahead of the curve. </p>
<p>Either way, we can expect more give and take before everyone is happy. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-perfect-your-prompt-writing-for-chatgpt-midjourney-and-other-ai-generators-198776">How to perfect your prompt writing for ChatGPT, Midjourney and other AI generators</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Paul Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Artists and photographers have strongly opposed their distinct styles being replicated by AI image generators. And the law has yet to catch up with this issue.
Brendan Paul Murphy, Lecturer in Digital Media, CQUniversity Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198776
2023-02-23T19:03:04Z
2023-02-23T19:03:04Z
How to perfect your prompt writing for ChatGPT, Midjourney and other AI generators
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511835/original/file-20230222-26-q3hv13.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C8%2C2671%2C1525&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midjourney/Marcel Scharth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Generative AI is having a moment. ChatGPT and art generators such as DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney have proven their potential, and now millions are wracking their brains over how to get their outputs to look something like the vision in their head.</p>
<p>This is the goal of prompt engineering: the skill of crafting an input to deliver a desired result from generative AI. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508886/original/file-20230208-29-2nvyyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image created using Midjourney. Prompt: <em>oil painting of a child with their grandparent enjoying a moment together and looking at each other. The child’s face is full of wonder and the grandparent’s face is lined with years of living, nostalgia, happy and sad memories and the wisdom of their years. Detailed faces. – – ar 3:2 – – no glasses</em></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite being trained on more data and computational resources than ever before, generative AI models <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-might-be-seemingly-everywhere-but-there-are-still-plenty-of-things-it-cant-do-for-now-197050">have limitations</a>. For instance, they’re not trained to produce content aligned with goals such as truth, insight, reliability and originality. </p>
<p>They also lack common sense and a fundamental understanding of the world, which means they can generate flawed (and even nonsensical) content. </p>
<p>As such, prompt engineering is essential for unlocking generative AI’s capabilities. And luckily it isn’t a technical skill. It’s mostly about trial and error, and keeping a few things in mind.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-art-is-everywhere-right-now-even-experts-dont-know-what-it-will-mean-189800">AI art is everywhere right now. Even experts don't know what it will mean</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>ChatGPT</h2>
<p>First, let’s use <a href="https://chat.openai.com/">ChatGPT</a> to illustrate how prompt engineering can be used for text outputs. If it’s used effectively, ChatGPT can generate <a href="https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/i-hope-you-werent-getting-too-comfortable">essays</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1611357154514186241?lang=en">computer code</a>, <a href="https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/chatgtp-is-my-co-founder">business plans</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-16/chatgpt-writes-cover-letters-job-seekers">cover letters</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/@Pawel.Sierszen/structuring-creativity-poetry-generation-with-chatgpt-e7ffb4568196">poetry</a>, <a href="https://kavishbaghel.com/jokes-by-chatgpt-5b647fa7d1e5">jokes</a>, and more. </p>
<p>Since it’s a chatbot, you may be inclined to engage with it conversationally. But this isn’t the best approach if you want tailored results. Instead, <a href="https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-use-chatgpt-to-boost-your">adopt the mindset</a> that you’re programming the machine to perform a writing task for you. </p>
<p>Create a content brief similar to what you might give a hired professional writer. The key is to provide as much context as possible and use specific and detailed language. You can include information about:</p>
<ul>
<li>your desired focus, format, style, intended audience and text length</li>
<li>a list of points you want addressed</li>
<li>what perspective you want the text written from, if applicable</li>
<li>and specific requirements, such as <em>no jargon</em>.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you want a longer piece, you can generate it in steps. Start with the first few paragraphs and ask ChatGPT to continue in the next prompt. If you’re unsatisfied with a specific portion, you can ask for it to be rewritten according to new instructions.</p>
<p>But remember: no matter how much you tinker with your prompts, ChatGPT is <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90833017/openai-chatgpt-accuracy-gpt-4">subject to inaccuracies</a> and <a href="https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/chatgpt-is-a-bullshit-generator-but">making things up</a>. So don’t take anything at face value. In the example below, the output mentions a “report” that doesn’t exist. It probably included this because my prompt asked it to <em>use only reliable sources</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508855/original/file-20230208-25-hips9h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I used prompt engineering to get ChatGPT to write this news article, which provides inaccurate information.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Art generators</h2>
<p>Midjourney is one of the most popular tools for art generation, and one of the <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-use-midjourney-to-generate-ai-images/">easiest for beginners</a>. So let’s use it for our next example. </p>
<p>Unlike for text generation, elaborate prompts aren’t necessarily better for image generation. The following example shows how a basic prompt combined with a style keyword is enough to create a variety of interesting images. Your style keyword may refer to a genre, art movement, technique, artist or specific work.</p>
<p>The following images were based on the prompt <em>leopard on tree</em> followed by different style keywords. These were (from the top left clockwise) <em>synthwave</em>, <em>hyperrealist</em>, <em>expressionist</em> and <em>in the style of Zena Holloway</em>. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/zenaholloway/?hl=en">Holloway</a> is a British photographer known for capturing her subjects in ethereal and somewhat surreal scenes, most often underwater.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Midjourney generations for _leopard on tree_." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509069/original/file-20230209-13-pnpjpj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Images generated by Midjourney.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can also add keywords relating to:</p>
<ul>
<li>image qualities, such as “beautiful” or “high definition”</li>
<li>objects you want pictured</li>
<li>and lighting and colours.</li>
</ul>
<p>With Midjourney, you can even use certain specific commands for different features, including <em>––ar</em> or <em>––aspect</em> to set the <a href="https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/aspect-ratios">aspect ratio</a>,
<em>––no</em> to omit certain objects, and <em>––c</em> to produce more “unusual” results. This command accepts values between 0-100 after it, where the default is 0 and 100 leads to the most unusual result. </p>
<p>You can also use <em>––s</em> or <em>––stylize</em> to generate more artistic images (at the expense of following the prompt less closely).</p>
<p>The following example applies some of these ideas to create a fantasy image with a dreamlike and futuristic look. The prompt used here was <em>dreamy futuristic cityscape, beautiful, clouds, interesting colors, cinematic lighting, 8k, 4k ––ar 7:4 ––c 25 ––no windows.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508837/original/file-20230208-27-i6mvrz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image generated by Midjourney.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Midjourney accepts multiple prompts for one image if you use a double colon. This can lead to results such as the image below, where I provided separate prompts for the owl and plants. The full prompt was <em>oil painting of an ethereal owl :: flowers, colors :: abstract :: wisdom ––ar 7:4</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509114/original/file-20230209-26-e938ua.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image generated by Midjourney.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A more advanced type of prompting is to include an image as part of the prompt. Midjourney will then take the style of that image into account when generating a new one.</p>
<p>A good way to find inspiration and ideas is to explore the <a href="https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/recent/">Midjourney gallery</a> and <a href="https://ckovalev.com/midjourney-ai/styles">style libraries</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509191/original/file-20230209-26-gmhmhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Despite stunning results, generative AI is subject to inconsistencies such as the floating branch in this image. Prompt: <em>woman watching the sunset, magical realism, very beautiful, nature, colourful, very detailed – – ar 7:4</em></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A career of the future?</h2>
<p>As generative AI models enter everyday life, prompting skills are likely to become more <a href="https://promptbase.com/">in-demand</a>, especially from <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/02/openai-text-models-google-search-engine-bard-chatbot-chatgpt-prompt-writing/672991/">employers</a> looking to get results using AI generators. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0deda1e7-4fbf-46bc-8eee-c2049d783259">commentators</a> are asking if becoming a “prompt engineer” may be a way for professionals such as designers, software engineers and content writers to save their jobs from automation, by integrating generative AI into their work. Others have <a href="https://shubhamsaboo111.medium.com/prompt-engineering-the-career-of-future-2fb93f90f117">suggested</a> prompt engineering will itself be a career. </p>
<p>It’s hard to <a href="https://www.deeplearning.ai/the-batch/prompt-engineering-future-of-ai-or-hack/">predict</a> what role prompt engineering will play as AI models advance. </p>
<p>But it’s almost a given that more sophisticated generators will be able to handle more complex requests, inviting users to stretch their creativity. They will likely also have a better grasp of our preferences, reducing the need for tinkering. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-the-lensa-ai-app-technically-isnt-stealing-artists-work-but-it-will-majorly-shake-up-the-art-world-196480">No, the Lensa AI app technically isn’t stealing artists' work – but it will majorly shake up the art world</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcel Scharth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Users are having a blast getting creative with AI generators – but your output is only ever as good as your prompt.
Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196480
2022-12-14T02:00:20Z
2022-12-14T02:00:20Z
No, the Lensa AI app technically isn’t stealing artists’ work – but it will majorly shake up the art world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500907/original/file-20221214-27-afti5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1333&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Murphy/Stable Diffusion</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Lensa photo and video editing app has shot into social media prominence in recent weeks, after adding a feature that lets you generate stunning digital portraits of yourself in contemporary art styles. It does that for just a small fee and the effort of uploading 10 to 20 different photographs of yourself. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1600895900905529345"}"></div></p>
<p>2022 has been the year text-to-media AI technology left the labs and started colonising our visual culture, and Lensa may be the slickest commercial application of that technology to date. </p>
<p>It has lit a fire among social media influencers looking to stand out – and a different kind of fire among the art community. Australian artist Kim Leutwyler <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/12/australian-artists-accuse-popular-ai-imaging-app-of-stealing-content-call-for-stricter-copyright-laws">told the Guardian</a> she recognised the styles of particular artists – including her own style – in Lensa’s portraits.</p>
<p>Since Midjourney, OpenAI’s Dall-E and the CompVis group’s Stable Diffusion burst onto the scene earlier this year, the ease with which individual artists’ styles can be emulated has sounded warning bells. Artists feel their intellectual property – and perhaps a bit of their soul – has been compromised. But has it?</p>
<p>Well, not as far as existing copyright law sees it.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599953586699767808"}"></div></p>
<h2>If it’s not direct theft, what is it?</h2>
<p>Text-to-media AI is inherently very complicated, but it is possible for us non-computer-scientists to understand conceptually. </p>
<p>To really grasp the positives and negatives of Lensa, it’s worth taking a couple of steps back to understand how artists’ individual styles can find their way into, and out of, the black boxes that power systems like Lensa.</p>
<p>Lensa is essentially a streamlined and customised front-end for the freely available Stable Diffusion deep learning model. It’s so named because it uses a system called latent diffusion to power its creative output. </p>
<p>The word “latent” is key here. In data science a latent variable is a quality that can’t be measured directly, but can be be inferred from things that can be measured. </p>
<p>When Stable Diffusion was being built, machine-learning algorithms were fed a large number of image-text pairs, and they taught themselves billions of different ways these images and captions could be connected. </p>
<p>This formed a complex knowledge base, none of which is directly intelligible to humans. We might see “modernism” or “thick ink” in its outputs, but Stable Diffusion sees a universe of numbers and connections. And all of this derives from complex mathematics involving the numbers generated from the original image-text pairs.</p>
<p>Because the system ingested both descriptions and image data, it lets us plot a course through the enormous sea of possible outputs by typing in meaningful prompts.</p>
<p>Take the image below as an example. The text prompt included the terms “digital art” and “artstation” – a site that’s home to many contemporary digital artists. During its training, Stable Diffusion learnt to associate these words with certain qualities it identified in the various artworks it was trained on. The result is an image that would fit well on <a href="https://www.artstation.com/?sort_by=community">ArtStation</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500891/original/file-20221214-15-kq7mqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A fake ArtStation-style portrait made in Stable Diffusion could fit perfectly on the website.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stable Diffusion</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What makes Lensa stand out?</h2>
<p>So if Stable Diffusion is a text-to-image system where we navigate through different possibilities, then Lensa seems quite different since it takes in images, not words. That’s because one of Lensa’s biggest innovations is streamlining the process of <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-fine-tune-stable-diffusion-using-textual-inversion-b995d7ecc095">textual inversion</a>. </p>
<p>Lensa takes user-supplied photos and injects them into Stable Diffusion’s existing knowledge base, teaching the system how to “capture” the user’s features so it can then stylise them. While this <em>can</em> be done in the regular Stable Diffusion, it’s far from a streamlined process.</p>
<p>Although you can’t push the images on Lensa in any particular desired direction, the trade-off is a wide variety of options that are almost always impressive. These images borrow ideas from other artists’ work, but do not contain any actual snippets of their work. </p>
<p>The Australian Arts Law Centre <a href="https://www.artslaw.com.au/article/i-like-your-style-part-i-copyright-infringement-or-not/">makes it clear</a> that while individual artworks are subject to copyright, the stylistic elements and ideas behind them are not. Similarly, the Dave Grossman Designs Inc. v Bortin <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/347/1150/1404364/">case</a> in the US established that copyright law does not apply to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I2clgT5T-0">an art style</a>.</p>
<h2>What about the artists?</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, the fact that art styles and techniques are now transferable in this way is immensely disruptive and extremely upsetting for artists. As technologies like Lensa becomes more mainstream and artists feel increasingly ripped-off, there may be pressure for legislation to adapt to it. </p>
<p>For artists who work on small-scale jobs, such as creating digital illustrations for influencers or other web enterprises, the future looks challenging. </p>
<p>However, while it is easy to make an artwork that looks good using AI, it’s still difficult to create a very specific work, with a specific subject and context. So regardless of how apps like Lensa shake up the way art is made, the personality of the artist remains an important context for their work.</p>
<p>It may be that artists themselves will need to borrow a page from the influencer’s handbook and invest more effort in publicising themselves.</p>
<p>It’s early days, and it’s going to be a tumultuous decade for producers and consumers of art. But one thing is for sure: the genie is out of the bottle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500915/original/file-20221214-16-4j61be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rise of AI image generators spells a somewhat uncertain future for artists. Copyright law might need to catch up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stable Diffusion</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-can-produce-prize-winning-art-but-it-still-cant-compete-with-human-creativity-190279">AI can produce prize-winning art, but it still can't compete with human creativity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Paul Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Lensa is the new AI digital artist you can keep in your pocket. Its ‘creations’ have taken over Twitter and Instagram – but the reception has been mixed.
Brendan Paul Murphy, Lecturer in Digital Media, CQUniversity Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188533
2022-10-09T19:10:22Z
2022-10-09T19:10:22Z
Synthetic futures: my journey into the emotional, poetic world of AI art making
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482877/original/file-20220906-5470-djghzt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1920%2C764&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MidJourney text prompt:
'HAL the computer approaching through the foggy morning mist'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Generative art making is flourishing. Algorithms that turn text prompts into images, such as <a href="https://openai.com/dall-e-2/">DALL-E</a> and <a href="https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-announcement">Stable Diffusion</a>, are emerging as viable creative tools. And they’re fuelling <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/757769/ai-beats-out-human-artists-at-art-competition/">much debate</a> about their <a href="https://theconversation.com/give-this-ai-a-few-words-of-description-and-it-produces-a-stunning-image-but-is-it-art-184363">artistic legitimacy</a> and potential to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/when-ai-makes-art/">pinch our jobs</a>.</p>
<p>The sudden leap in fidelity of artificial intelligence (AI) <a href="https://www.vox.com/23150422/text-to-image-ai-deep-learning">art production</a> has been made possible by advances in deep learning technologies, in particular natural language processing and generative adversarial networks. </p>
<p>In essence, a user can input a text description and the algorithm auto-translates this into a cohesive image.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="images generated by MidJourney AI, prompts 'The Singularity emerges fully formed from the mainframe', 'Employees leaving the Lumiere factory, Paris 1890'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486427/original/file-20220926-15536-u141yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MidJourney interface showing the four-panel grid of image results from two separate text prompts. From here the user can choose to either upscale (U) or create further variations (V) from any of the four results.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitch Goodwin/MidJourney</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.midjourney.com/home/">MidJourney</a> – or MJ as it is known to its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/midjourneyai/">passionate users</a> – is perhaps the most seductive technology for its painterly output and poetic interactions. The charm begins from the very first moment, with the command line prompt “/imagine”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/give-this-ai-a-few-words-of-description-and-it-produces-a-stunning-image-but-is-it-art-184363">Give this AI a few words of description and it produces a stunning image – but is it art?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Augmented imagination</h2>
<p>MidJourney founder <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/ai-art-tool-midjourney-answers-what-if-8062647/">David Holz</a> has said users find their text-to-image interactions to be a “deeply emotional experience” with the potential for it to be therapeutic. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a lot of beautiful stuff happening.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Triptych: Larry David as a warrior princess, a design for a phonograph by Trent Reznor, and a close-up of a rose" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482871/original/file-20220906-22-dx1ppg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">L-R: ‘Larry David’ from the Warrior Princess series by Brian Penny (2022-09-03); ‘An intricate schematic of a Victorian phonograph designed by Trent Reznor’ by GM Gleeson, (@NooYawkGurrl, 2022-07-15); ‘A rose is a rose is a rose’ by Mitch Goodwin (2022-07-26).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>MidJourney plays with genre and form, using existing principles that have long informed media arts practice, such as non-linearity, repetition and remix, to <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-i-should-exclude-living-artists-from-its-database-says-one-painter-whose-works-were-used-to-fuel-image-generators-2178352/">exploit the archive</a>. </p>
<p>Holz <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/ai-art-tool-midjourney-answers-what-if-8062647/">has suggested</a> the algorithm’s purpose is to “augment our imagination”. </p>
<p>My first image requests were whimsical queries, nocturnal flights of fancy, gentle tentative casts into the virtual spirit world. </p>
<p>As it turns out, my melancholic prompts were unnervingly well-suited to the algorithm’s default aesthetic.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Triptych: a discarded surgical mask; a cyborg with glowing red eyes; a mother and a child sitting in a flooded railway carriage watching other commuters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482887/original/file-20220906-5961-tlgjx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">L-R: ‘Surgical mask discarded on a wet dirty street. In the distance, the radio plays the Beach Boys’ (2022-07-15); from the portrait series ‘Call Centre Cyborgs, 2037 AD’ (2022-07-27); ‘I thought we were all in this thing together … but I was wrong’(2022-07-14)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Magic lurks within the algorithm too. Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist at OpenAI, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1049061/dalle-openai-gpt3-ai-agi-multimodal-image-generation/">describes</a> the process as “transcendent beauty as a service”. </p>
<p>Artist and theorist Lev Manovich has poetically described his interactions with MidJourney as akin to working with a “memory machine”. </p>
<p>The recognition it is a service but also a metaphysical experience is a new way of thinking about tools of automation.</p>
<p>The technical process can be an imprecise science in which slippages and overlaps are inevitable. As Manovich recognises, MidJourney remixes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>something from real history and popular stereotypes – real knowledge and fantasies. But we should not blame it, because we do exactly the same, all the time.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustrated cloud; a snow-filled stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482888/original/file-20220906-24-o4sm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From the series, ‘My Favourite Century’ and ‘Stage designs for an unwritten play’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lev Manovich/MidJourney/Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Collaborative remixing</h2>
<p>The MidJourney Bot is hosted on the social platform <a href="https://discord.gg/midjourney">Discord</a> creating an intoxicating cascade of generative screen works.</p>
<p>It is an inherently <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/09/ai-art-is-here-and-the-world-is-already-different.html">communal experience</a>. The image stream also functions as a site of shared creation. If another user’s composition catches your eye, you can co-opt their prompt – or the image itself – and refine it according to your own aesthetic preferences. </p>
<p>This collaborative remixing is what makes the MidJourney Discord channel as much a social experiment as a scientific one. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joker's mask in rubbish filled alleway, grubby New York skyline; a raging bushfire consumes a blackened forest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482897/original/file-20220906-16-ioyd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Text prompts: ‘The joker’s grubby mask discarded in an alleyway, Brooklyn, NYC.’ and ‘A new age dawns as the last of the forests are consumed.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitch Goodwin & Kesson/MidJourney</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/472492331">My research</a> into the darkening aesthetics of digital media means I am somewhat predisposed to spotting dystopian visions. The MidJourney Discord channel is certainly a seductive rabbit hole for voyeurs of destruction. </p>
<p>Ghastly cyborg futures and post-nuclear wastelands would seem to be <em>de rigueur</em> for the AI prompt engineer. I regularly see prompts citing the retro-futurist nightmares of artists such as HR Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński and the cinematic tendencies of David Lynch and Andrei Tarkovsky. </p>
<p>As Bowie crooned on the cyber-noir album Outside, itself a chronicle of art world depravity: “there is no hell, like an old hell”.</p>
<p>Users are also finding ways to apply the technology in a moving image context. Notable efforts include a generative <a href="https://80.lv/articles/the-workflow-behind-changing-ai-generated-outfits-in-motion">fashion demo</a>, morphing amoebas narrated by a <a href="https://twitter.com/paultrillo/status/1550551780408209408">synthetic David Attenborough</a>, Fabian Stelzer’s crowdsourced narrative <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/25/tech/ai-film-salt/index.html">SALT_VERSE</a> and Drew Medina’s mesmerising fractal film <a href="https://youtu.be/Aqe4VTob-IQ">Monsters</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q5-PCV-t_MU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The most meaningful assemblage I have come across is Gabriele Dente’s SOLAR (the history of humanity drawn by machines), accompanied by a <a href="https://gabrieledntgo.wixsite.com/gabriele-dente/projects-6">manifesto</a> highlighting the associated ethical and industrial implications of neural networks. </p>
<p>Digital tools have long been enablers of speed, dexterity and adaptability for designers and artists. Studio professionals in the MJ community are already finding efficiencies in their workflows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two pages from a sci-fi comic book; a photographic studio; a hand holding a cold beer can" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482927/original/file-20220906-24-x3ika5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comic book layout, ‘Death’s Dream Kingdom’ by Randall Rozzell (2022-07-27); beer label graphic by Bryan Launier (2022-07-26); Photo shoot using a Nine Inch Nails inspired industrial backdrop by Caleb Hoernschemeyer, Flow Productions, photo credit Jared Jasinski (2022-07-27).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Randall Rozzell, Bryan Launier, Jared Jasinski & Caleb Hoernschemeyer/MidJourney/Facebook</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A startlingly beautiful example of the possibilities for design and concept ideation come from architect and designer <a href="https://www.visionary-architecture.com/">Cesare Battelli</a>.</p>
<p>His series “space-kangaroo” is evocative of a mode of conceptual design thinking that blends aesthetics, functionality and fantasy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482929/original/file-20220906-12-wket7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Architectural hybrid-design, ‘space-kangaroo’ by Cesare Battelli (2022-08-19)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cesare Battelli /MidJourney/Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Spirit photography’</h2>
<p><a href="https://cyberneticforests.substack.com/p/ghosts-of-diffusion">Eryk Salvaggio</a> has described the technology of the more photo-realistic aspirations of the DALL-E platform as “a kind of spirit photography” conjuring images replete with the ghosts and markings of past technologies: the fading image, the decaying medium and the corrosive chemical reaction. </p>
<p>This ability of reconstituting the past and embellishing the outcome with techniques of capture and display and procedural degradation makes MidJourney especially fertile ground for “authentic” gestures of the fabulous and the fake.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A collage of ghostly faces in a severely degraded photographic images; a film studio showing Apollo 11 on a fake moon surface." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482930/original/file-20220906-3132-7w8dnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">DALL-E variation of an image from a dataset of photographs by Romanian photographer Costică Acsinte, by Eryk Salvaggio; The alternate history of the Apollo 11 moon landing, by Mitch Gates (2022-07-21).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eryk Salvaggio/DALL.E/Mitch Gates/MidJourney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How much this sudden uptick of synthetic media will contribute to the glut of misinformation online however is uncertain. How does the visual historical record accommodate its synthetic mirror? </p>
<p>We should also consider the evolutionary implications for language and computation. With the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340971832_Artificial_Intelligence_and_the_Democratization_of_Art">democratisation of AI assistants</a>, the field of human computer interaction is evolving rapidly as are the inherent <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/18/21121286/algorithms-bias-discrimination-facial-recognition-transparency">entanglements</a>. </p>
<p>And so, tonight as the city sleeps I watch the feed and dream along with the machine. I punch in another text prompt and wait impatiently for my MidJourney Bot to conjure its response. All the while I’m wondering as to the reach of the text into the algorithm’s <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/ai-code-generation-language-models-2658217760">code</a>, and to what extent it is, bit by bit, re-coding me?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-art-is-everywhere-right-now-even-experts-dont-know-what-it-will-mean-189800">AI art is everywhere right now. Even experts don't know what it will mean</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mitch Goodwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
My first image requests were whimsical queries, nocturnal flights of fancy, gentle tentative casts into the virtual spirit world.
Mitch Goodwin, Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184363
2022-06-10T12:31:55Z
2022-06-10T12:31:55Z
Give this AI a few words of description and it produces a stunning image – but is it art?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468261/original/file-20220610-35158-lftk4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Each set of images takes less than a minute for DALL-E 2 to generate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/printer-royalty-free-image/831856666?adppopup=true">koktaro/iStock/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A picture may be worth a thousand words, but thanks to an artificial intelligence program called <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/04/06/openai-dall-e-2-photorealistic-images-from-text-descriptions/">DALL-E 2</a>, you can have a professional-looking image with far fewer.</p>
<p>DALL-E 2 is <a href="http://adityaramesh.com/posts/dalle2/dalle2.html">a new neural network</a> algorithm that creates a picture from a short phrase or sentence that you provide. <a href="https://openai.com/dall-e-2/">The program</a>, which was announced by the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI in April 2022, hasn’t been released to the public. But a small and growing number of people – myself included – have been given access to experiment with it.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZcWO2AEAAAAJ&hl=en">As a researcher studying the nexus of technology and art</a>, I was keen to see how well the program worked. After hours of experimentation, it’s clear that DALL-E – while not without shortcomings – is leaps and bounds ahead of existing image generation technology. It raises immediate questions about how these technologies will change how art is made and consumed. It also raises questions about what it means to be creative when DALL-E 2 seems to automate so much of the creative process itself.</p>
<h2>A staggering range of style and subjects</h2>
<p>OpenAI researchers built DALL-E 2 <a href="https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-card.md#model">from an enormous collection of images</a> with captions. They gathered some of the images online and licensed others.</p>
<p>Using DALL-E 2 looks a lot like searching for an image on the web: you type in a short phrase into a text box, and it gives back six images.</p>
<p>But instead of being culled from the web, the program creates six brand-new images, each of which reflect some version of the entered phrase. (Until recently, the program produced 10 images per prompt.) For example, when some friends and I gave DALL-E 2 the text prompt “cats in devo hats,” <a href="https://twitter.com/AaronHertzmann/status/1534947118053355522">it produced 10 images</a> that came in different styles.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1534947118053355522"}"></div></p>
<p>Nearly all of them could plausibly pass for professional photographs or drawings. While the algorithm did not quite grasp “Devo hat” – <a href="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/5761baff746fb9f420bb3ffc/1495765600043-HHVOESOJR2LLK7B820SS/?content-type=image%2Fjpeg">the strange helmets</a> worn by the New Wave band Devo – the headgear in the images it produced came close. </p>
<p>Over the past few years, a small community of artists have been using neural network algorithms to produce art. Many of these artworks have distinctive qualities that almost look like real images, <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-ai-art-has-artists-collaborators-wondering-who-gets-the-credit-112661">but with odd distortions of space</a> – a sort of cyberpunk Cubism. The most recent text-to-image systems <a href="https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/clip-art-and-the-new-aesthetics-of-ai">often produce dreamy, fantastical imagery</a> that can be delightful but rarely looks real.</p>
<p>DALL-E 2 offers a significant leap in the quality and realism of the images. It can also mimic specific styles with remarkable accuracy. If you want images that look like actual photographs, it’ll produce six life-like images. If you want prehistoric cave paintings of Shrek, it’ll generate six pictures of Shrek as if they’d been drawn by a prehistoric artist.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1532062464829161477"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s staggering that an algorithm can do this. Each set of images takes less than a minute to generate. Not all of the images will look pleasing to the eye, nor do they necessarily reflect what you had in mind. But, even with the need to sift through many outputs or try different text prompts, there’s no other existing way to pump out so many great results so quickly – not even by hiring an artist. And, sometimes, the unexpected results are the best.</p>
<p>In principle, <a href="http://adityaramesh.com/posts/dalle2/dalle2.html">anyone with enough resources and expertise can make a system like this</a>. Google Research <a href="https://imagen.research.google/">recently announced an impressive, similar text-to-image system</a>, and one independent developer is publicly developing their own version that <a href="https://huggingface.co/spaces/dalle-mini/dalle-mini">anyone can try right now on the web</a>, although it’s not yet as good as DALL-E or Google’s system.</p>
<p>It’s easy to imagine these tools transforming the way people make images and communicate, whether via memes, greeting cards, advertising – and, yes, art.</p>
<h2>Where’s the art in that?</h2>
<p>I had a moment early on while using DALL-E 2 to generate different kinds of paintings, in all different styles – like “<a href="https://www.odilon-redon.org/">Odilon Redon</a> painting of Seattle” – when it hit me that this was better than any painting algorithm I’ve ever developed. Then I realized that it is, in a way, a better painter than I am.</p>
<p>In fact, no human can do what DALL-E 2 does: create such a high-quality, varied range of images in mere seconds. If someone told you that a person made all these images, of course you’d say they were creative.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/5/244330-computers-do-not-make-art-people-do/fulltext">this does not make DALL-E 2 an artist</a>. Even though it sometimes feels like magic, under the hood it is still a computer algorithm, rigidly following instructions from the algorithm’s authors at OpenAI. </p>
<p>If these images succeed as art, they are products of how the algorithm was designed, the images it was trained on, and – most importantly – how artists use it. </p>
<p>You might be inclined to say there’s little artistic merit in an image produced by a few keystrokes. But in my view, this line of thinking echoes <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/5/244330-computers-do-not-make-art-people-do/fulltext">the classic take</a> that photography cannot be art because a machine did all the work. Today the human authorship and craft involved in artistic photography are recognized, and critics understand that the best photography involves much more than just pushing a button. </p>
<p>Even so, we often discuss works of art as if they directly came from the artist’s intent. The artist intended to show a thing, or express an emotion, and so they made this image. DALL-E 2 does seem to shortcut this process entirely: you have an idea and type it in, and you’re done.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1534919673539608578"}"></div></p>
<p>But when I paint the old-fashioned way, I’ve found that my paintings come from the exploratory process, not just from executing my initial goals. And this is true for many artists.</p>
<p>Take Paul McCartney, who came up with the track “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUvZA5AYhB4&t=35s">Get Back</a>” during a jam session. He didn’t start with a plan for the song; he just started fiddling and experimenting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Back#Early_protest_lyrics">and the band developed it from there</a>. </p>
<p>Picasso <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dZyPAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA2&ots=xYVek5tbjg&dq=%22I%20don't%20know%20in%20advance%20what%20I%20am%20going%20to%20put%20on%20canvas%20any%20more%20than%20I%20decide%20beforehand%20what%20colors%20I%20am%20going%20to%20use&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false">described his process similarly</a>: “I don’t know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more than I decide beforehand what colors I am going to use … Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping into space.”</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.instagram.com/aaronhertzmann_aiart/">my own explorations with DALL-E 2</a>, one idea would lead to another which led to another, and eventually I’d find myself in a completely unexpected, magical new terrain, very far from where I’d started. </p>
<h2>Prompting as art</h2>
<p>I would argue that the art, in using a system like DALL-E 2, comes not just from the final text prompt, but in the entire creative process that led to that prompt. Different artists will follow different processes and end up with different results that reflect their own approaches, skills and obsessions.</p>
<p>I began to see my experiments as a set of series, each a consistent dive into a single theme, rather than a set of independent wacky images. </p>
<p>Ideas for these images and series came from all around, often linked by a set of <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-15524-1">stepping stones</a>. At one point, while making images based on contemporary artists’ work, I wanted to generate an image of site-specific installation art in the style of the contemporary Japanese artist <a href="http://yayoi-kusama.jp/e/biography/index.html">Yayoi Kusama</a>. After trying a few unsatisfactory locations, I hit on the idea of placing it in <a href="https://mezquita-catedraldecordoba.es/en/">La Mezquita</a>, a former mosque and church in Córdoba, Spain. I sent <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CehcE4DvN1d/">the picture</a> to an architect colleague, Manuel Ladron de Guevara, who is from Córdoba, and we began riffing on other architectural ideas together. </p>
<p>This became a series on imaginary new buildings in different architects’ styles.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1526205494624284672"}"></div></p>
<p>So I’ve started to consider what I do with DALL-E 2 to be both a form of exploration as well as a form of art, even if it’s often amateur art like the drawings I make on my iPad. </p>
<p>Indeed some artists, like <a href="https://twitter.com/advadnoun">Ryan Murdoch</a>, have advocated for prompt-based image-making to be recognized as art. He points to the <a href="https://twitter.com/NeuralBricolage">experienced AI artist Helena Sarin</a> as an example. </p>
<p>“When I look at most stuff from <a href="https://www.midjourney.com/">Midjourney</a>” – another popular text-to-image system – “a lot of it will be interesting or fun,” Murdoch told me in an interview. “But with [Sarin’s] work, there’s a through line. It’s easy to see that she has put a lot of thought into it, and has worked at the craft, because the output is more visually appealing and interesting, and follows her style in a continuous way.” </p>
<p>Working with DALL-E 2, or any of the new text-to-image systems, means learning its quirks and developing strategies for avoiding common pitfalls. It’s also important to know about <a href="https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-card.md#probes-and-evaluations">its potential harms</a>, such as its reliance on stereotypes, and potential uses for disinformation. Using DALL-E 2, you’ll also discover surprising correlations, like the way everything becomes old-timey when you use an old painter, filmmaker or photographer’s style.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1534718838377529344"}"></div></p>
<p>When I have something very specific I want to make, DALL-E 2 often can’t do it. The results would require a lot of difficult manual editing afterward. It’s when my goals are vague that the process is most delightful, offering up surprises that lead to new ideas that themselves lead to more ideas and so on.</p>
<h2>Crafting new realities</h2>
<p>These text-to-image systems can help users imagine new possibilities as well. </p>
<p><a href="https://daniellebaskin.com/">Artist-activist Danielle Baskin</a> told me that she always works “to show alternative realities by ‘real’ example: either by setting scenarios up in the physical world or doing meticulous work in Photoshop.” DALL-E 2, however, “is an amazing shortcut because it’s so good at realism. And that’s key to helping others bring possible futures to life – whether its satire, dreams or beauty.” </p>
<p>She has used it to imagine <a href="https://twitter.com/djbaskin/status/1519050225297461249">an alternative transportation system</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/djbaskin_images/status/1533970922146648064">plumbing that transports noodles instead of water</a>, both of which reflect <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2021/02/11/is-twitter-really-offering-verified-badges-for-san-francisco-homes-an-artists-satire-nearly-starts-a-civil-war">her artist-provocateur sensibility</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1519050225297461249"}"></div></p>
<p>Similarly, artist Mario Klingemann’s <a href="https://twitter.com/quasimondo/status/1533877178496163840">architectural renderings with the tents of homeless people</a> could be taken as a rejoinder to <a href="https://twitter.com/AaronHertzmann/status/1526710430751522817">my architectural renderings of fancy dream homes</a>.</p>
<p>It’s too early to judge the significance of this art form. I keep thinking of a phrase from the excellent book “<a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1662-art-in-the-after-culture">Art in the After-Culture</a>” – “The dominant AI aesthetic is novelty.” </p>
<p>Surely this would be true, to some extent, for any new technology used for art. The first films by the <a href="https://iphf.org/inductees/auguste-louis-lumiere/">Lumière brothers</a> in 1890s were novelties, not cinematic masterpieces; it amazed people to see images moving at all. </p>
<p>AI art software develops so quickly that there’s continual technical and artistic novelty. It seems as if, each year, there’s an opportunity to explore an exciting new technology – each more powerful than the last, and each seemingly poised to transform art and society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Hertzmann works for Adobe Research; however, the opinions expressed here are solely his own.</span></em></p>
The text-to-art program DALL-E 2 generates images from brief descriptions. But what does it mean to make art when an algorithm automates so much of the creative process itself?
Aaron Hertzmann, Affiliate Faculty of Computer Science, University of Washington
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180662
2022-04-05T03:15:14Z
2022-04-05T03:15:14Z
How r/place – a massive and chaotic collaborative art project on Reddit – showcased the best and worst of online spaces
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456255/original/file-20220405-12-m2wa9n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2370%2C2362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many would be familiar with <a href="https://www.reddit.com">Reddit</a> as one of the largest social networking sites, with a large group of forums (“subreddits”) catering to almost any interest. </p>
<p>Since the beginning of April, Reddit has played host to a massive collaborative art project called <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/place">r/place</a> that simultaneously shows us some of the best and worst attributes of cybercultures. </p>
<p>Originally launched in 2017, r/place ran for 72 hours. The lifespan of the new r/place was also short – ultimately lasting for just five days. Beginning initially as a blank canvas, r/place allows users to place one coloured pixel every five minutes (or 20 minutes for unverified accounts) as they attempt to build a collective art piece. </p>
<p>Traversing through r/place takes you for a journey through time, memes and cultures. </p>
<p>At any one moment you might be looking at a Nine Inch Nails logo, the flags of various countries, a QR code linking you to a YouTube video titled The Most Logical Arguments AGAINST Veganism (In 10 Minutes), and a <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/zyzz">homage to Zyzz</a> – a popular bodybuilding figure who passed away in 2011. </p>
<p>Some artworks on r/place don’t seem to represent anything at all. The sole mission of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBlueCorner/">The Blue Corner</a> is (you guessed it) to have a blue corner depicted on the final art piece. </p>
<p>The artwork constantly changes over its short lifetime. But even if the drawings of some communities may not go the distance, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnRCZK3KjUY">the time lapse videos</a> depicting the ongoing mutation of the canvas has become a key part of this art piece, ensuring all contributions play a vital part in the lifecycle of r/place. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XnRCZK3KjUY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Collaboration – and opposition</h2>
<p>r/place shows us the collaborative nature of humans in online spaces. After its emergence in 2017 it was hailed as “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-place-internet-experiment-579049">the internet’s best experiment yet</a>” and praised for capturing “<a href="https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/04/place-was-the-internet-in-all-its-glory/">the internet, in all its wonderful glory</a>”. </p>
<p>This collaborative online art project allows people to express their individuality as well as collective identities formed through interactions with online spaces. </p>
<p>This year’s iteration of r/place, in contrast to the previous version, demonstrates the interconnectivity of communities in digital spaces. No longer is r/place solely reserved for Reddit users. Now, there is clear power in drawing on communities distributed across Twitch, Discord and Twitter. </p>
<p>This influx of communities from all over the internet has not been well-received by all. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-experiments-taught-us-why-people-troll-72798">Our experiments taught us why people troll</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is a belief Twitch streamers are ruining the work <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/place/comments/tw3fou/eu_streamer_took_over_our_small_asean_artworks/">of smaller communities</a> and are attempting to sabotage the project. </p>
<p>Instead of being a democratic representation of online communities and their art, the argument goes, Twitch streamers are encouraging their fans, numbered in the hundreds of thousands, to capture hotly contested territory.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Text reads: Dominating r/place watch as nerds lose their marbles over pixels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456248/original/file-20220405-22-mc9ont.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitch’s xQc has up to 200,000 viewers on his streams where he is encouraging a take-over of r/place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Factions – such as those formed between <a href="https://twitter.com/Rubiu5/status/1511077247025057793">Spanish streamers and BTS fans</a> – have become the primary way to ensure power and influence over the art project. </p>
<p>Smaller communities are driven out at the expense of larger influencers with more bargaining power in this pixel warfare. </p>
<p>It is not just individuals taking part in this art project. Many believe “bots” are <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/place/comments/tu2gdg/bots_by_the_username_rplace_are_attempting_to/">running rampant</a>, performing automated tasks in a way that is antithetical to the idea of this artwork as a representation of human achievement as opposed to technical prowess. </p>
<p>These examples are just a fraction of the chaos over the internet in the last few days: 4chan operated <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/place/comments/tufngh/4chan_is_trying_to_make_the_trans_community_look/">coordinated attacks</a> on the Trans flag and LGBTQ+ panels, and streamers are receiving an influx of <a href="https://clips.twitch.tv/TrappedBoringKleeCclamChamp-WJ0LwTK-Uhox6MSa">death threats</a>.</p>
<h2>The best and worst of us</h2>
<p>At its best, r/place is a powerful illustration of strangers coming together about their passions online and the collaborative nature of the internet. </p>
<p>At its worst, it represents everything we have come to dislike about the internet: the exclusion of smaller voices at the expense of influencer cultures, factions between communities, and the toxicity of some cybercultures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456250/original/file-20220405-19-5rv176.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The end of r/place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whatever the case, this project has been great for boosting Reddit’s publicity as the company <a href="https://fortune.com/2021/12/16/reddit-goes-public-ipo-filing/">goes public</a>.</p>
<p>In its final moments earlier today, users could only place white tiles and watch the spectacle of a once vibrantly coloured collaborative art piece that caused so much chaos among online communities simply transform back into a blank canvas. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/computing-gives-an-artist-new-tools-to-be-creative-57631">Computing gives an artist new tools to be creative</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Childs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Users can place one pixel every five minutes: it’s collaboration at its best, destructive chaos at its worst.
Andrew Childs, Lecturer, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175263
2022-03-10T11:48:43Z
2022-03-10T11:48:43Z
NFTs: one year after Beeple sale, non-fungible tokens have become mainstream
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450706/original/file-20220308-25-127wt1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=149%2C177%2C6071%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beeple's NFT art sale propelled NFTs into the public consciousness.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/smartphone-beeple-everydays-first-5000-days-1934411729">mundissima / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One year ago, an artwork was sold for <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million">US$69 million</a> (£52.6 million) by the prestigious auction house <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/Monumental-collage-by-Beeple-is-first-purely-digital-artwork-NFT-to-come-to-auction-11510-7.aspx?sc_lang=en">Christie’s</a>. This was no lost Matisse or rarely seen Van Gogh. Instead, it was a composite collection of digital art by the then relatively unknown artist Beeple. </p>
<p>What makes this piece, Everydays: the First 5000 Days, truly remarkable, is that it was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT). In the year since that sale, NFTs have gone from a relatively obscure tech-world phenomenon to the mainstream. </p>
<p>NFTs are tokens that exist on a secure record-keeping system called a blockchain. These tokens are akin to certificates of ownership a gallery might give to an art collector, but for digital items. </p>
<p>Celebrities such as <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2022-01-26/jimmy-fallon-nft-ape-nbc">Eminem and Jimmy Fallon</a> have helped raise the profile of NFTs through the <a href="https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/">Bored Ape Yacht Club</a> profile picture collection. These collections have become so popular that Twitter now <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-blue-fragments-folder/nft">allows users</a> to use their NFTs as their profile image. </p>
<p>For the collectors, NFTs are arguably a digital extension of benign hobbyist pursuits. In recent generations, collectors may have sought rare <a href="https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/magic-the-gathering-game/best-games/most-expensive-mtg-cards">Magic The Gathering cards</a> or obscure stamps. Today, those with an impulse to own rare items are attracted to a world where rarity can be transparently recorded and easily verified.</p>
<p>For the creators, NFTs provide a clear path toward monetisation. Artists have historically struggled to make money from their work, but NFTs are sold through marketplaces that provide creators with royalties. The Ethereum economy sustained by NFTs earned its creators <a href="https://tokenist.com/ethereum-now-processes-highest-flow-of-assets-globally-due-to-creator-economy/">US$3.5 billion</a> (£2.7 billion) in 2021.</p>
<h2>The right-click approach</h2>
<p>Despite their growing popularity, NFTs still baffle most people. This is because we are not used to the concept of owning digital art. After all, can’t I just right-click and save an image to my own computer? I could, naturally, but this would be to miss the point. </p>
<p>As with all currencies, NFTs have value because of the meaning a community ascribes to them. In the online culture NFTs belong to, “on-chain” blockchain items are meaningful – and some have more value than others.</p>
<p>The characteristic missed by the right-click perspective is that when you own an item on the blockchain, everyone in your community can see this. This can translate into prestige, for example, when outrageously wealthy entrepreneurs bid on rare NFT items, like Beeple’s work or a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/cryptopunk-nft-sells-118-million-sothebys-2021-06-10/">rare cryptopunk</a>. Or it can simply be a sign to other community members that you belong.</p>
<h2>Mainstream attention</h2>
<p>Popular attention is not always positive. As NFTs grow, so has the proliferation of cash grabs and scams, especially from social media influencers. Elsewhere I have called this the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/11/10/the-trash-moat-when-the-media-lies-about-crypto/">trash moat</a> that surrounds legitimate projects in the cryptocurrency and NFT world. YouTubers <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-worst-influencer-and-celebrity-nft-cash-grabs-of-2021">Logan and Jake Paul</a>, in particular, are notorious for their litany of low-quality NFT “rug pulls”, when a crypto project is abandoned by their creators once the money flows in.</p>
<p>Melania Trump, to pick another example, has released several NFT projects. However, blockchain analysts were able <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/melania-trump-third-nft-collection-commemorating-trump-presidency/">to uncover</a> how one of these projects was bought by none other than the creator of the NFT themselves. This practice, known as wash trading, involves NFT creators buying their own works either to save face due to a lack of interest or to generate hype around an influencer or artist and boost the price of the next sale. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A hand holds a magnifying glass up to a screen showing several NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450715/original/file-20220308-19-lgb35z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Buying an NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection is like becoming part of an exclusive online club.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kaunas-lithuania-2021-november-2-nfts-2068237091">Rokas Tenys / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet another capacity of NFTs has emerged in their potential for fundraising. In what started as a meme, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22820563/constitution-meme-47-million-crypto-crowdfunding-blockchain-ethereum-constitution">ConstitutionDAO</a> was created by a group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts to buy a rare copy of the US constitution that was on auction at Sotheby’s. This group sold a token in exchange for the cryptocurrency Ether that was then used to bid on the constitution. Within a week, ConstitutionDAO raised <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22820563/constitution-meme-47-million-crypto-crowdfunding-blockchain-ethereum-constitution">US$47 million</a> (£35.8 million). This was not enough to win the auction, but it revealed just how financially powerful this corner of the web has become. </p>
<h2>Failure, or the future?</h2>
<p>Perhaps the harshest critiques of NFTs come from the socially conscious art world that sees the infrastructure of NFTs as the problem. NFTs mostly exist on the Ethereum blockchain, which relies on vast computational resources to function, generating a huge carbon footprint. Ethereum is transitioning away from its current mechanism to <a href="https://ethereum.org/en/upgrades/merge/">another</a>, which will hopefully alleviate this concern. </p>
<p>Perhaps the more subtle defence of NFTs resides in how they push the medium of digital art in interesting directions. Damien Hirst’s <a href="https://www.esquiresg.com/making-choice-damien-hirst-the-currency-art-nft-collection/">The Currency</a> playfully challenges the collector to choose whether to keep the NFT (the digital token) or exchange it later for a physical artwork. This forces the collector to make a bet on the future: physical or digital, which retains the most value? </p>
<p>This places NFTs in a curious spot. They appear at once a benign hobbyist pursuit, a means to value and make money from scarce digital art, a cash grab for unscrupulous influencers and celebrities, a new mechanism for online fundraising and an explored avenue for legitimate art. However you view them, NFTs have crossed fully into the mainstream and deserve our attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Dylan-Ennis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The digital collectors items have become a multi-billion dollar industry in a matter of months.
Paul Dylan-Ennis, Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems, University College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159563
2021-04-26T10:24:52Z
2021-04-26T10:24:52Z
NFTs are much bigger than an art fad – here’s how they could change the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396590/original/file-20210422-21-1ovoydj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Homes fit for zeroes (and ones).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-illustration-abstract-background-real-estate-1933952156">Julien Tromeur</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sotheby’s has become the latest establishment name in art to dive into NFTs (non-fungible tokens) through its collaboration with anonymous <a href="https://www.one37pm.com/nft/art/meet-murat-pak-digital-artist">digital artist Pak</a> and NFT marketplace <a href="https://niftygateway.com/">Nifty Gateway</a>. </p>
<p>The auction house sold <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/digital-catalogues/the-fungible-collection-by-pak?locale=en&cmp=actn_CTP_gg_sea_tffc_onl_nft_pak_fungible_en_04-2021_int__ovr_searesp___general&s_kwcid=AL!13028!3!513206057188!p!!g!!sotheby%27s%20nft%20auction">The Fungible Collection</a>, a “novel collection of digital art redefining our understanding of value”, for more than <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/17-million-realized-in-sothebys-first-nft-sale-with-digital-creator-pak?locale=en">US$17 million</a> (£12 million). </p>
<p>Some pieces, such as “The Switch”, a monochrome 3D construction that is going to be changed by the artist at some unspecified moment in the future, received bids well in excess of <a href="https://niftygateway.com/itemdetail/primary/0xc7cc3e8c6b69dc272ccf64cbff4b7503cbf7c1c5/2">US$1 million</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-nfts-and-why-are-people-paying-millions-for-them-157035">For the uninitiated</a>, NFTs are tokenised versions of assets that can be traded on a blockchain, the digital ledger technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. Whereas one bitcoin is directly interchangeable with another, meaning they are fungible, NFTs are the opposite because the underlying assets are unique in some way and can’t be exchanged like for like. </p>
<p>This uniqueness enabled Christie’s to sell digital artist Beeple’s
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/11/most-expensive-nft-ever-sold-auctions-for-over-60-million.html">“Everydays”</a> NFT in March for an eye-watering US$68 million. For those that don’t have that sort of money, NFTs are also being used for trading collectables like <a href="https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/topps-mlb-baseball-card-nfts-digital-collectibles">baseball cards</a> and <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/nfts-are-creating-robust-economies-in-online-gaming-heres-how/">computer gaming items</a> like swords and avatar skins. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Switch, by Pak" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396517/original/file-20210422-23-ye7ltk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Switch, by Pak.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/digital-catalogues/the-fungible-collection-by-pak">Sotheby's</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bubble trouble?</h2>
<p>The excitement around NFTs feeds a similar narrative to other recent price surges such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/gamestop-hedge-fund-attacks-have-opened-up-powerful-new-front-against-wall-street-154284">GameStop</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-gamestop-the-rise-of-dogecoin-shows-us-how-memes-can-move-markets-154470">dogecoin</a>, in that these are <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/22/lse-law-professor-on-nft-craze-this-is-a-huge-bubble.html">speculative bubbles</a> brought about by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-03/nft-price-crash-stirs-debate-on-whether-stimulus-led-fad-is-over?sref=jKx7unHh">stimulus cheques</a> in the US, lockdown boredom and low interest rates. </p>
<p>Look no further than <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/nfts-how-celebrities-sell-crypto-digital-artworks-for-millions-and-why-people-are-angry-about-them/ar-BB1e9OJQ">celebrities like</a> music star Grimes and YouTuber Logan Paul releasing their own flagship NFTs to ride the wave. Even Vignesh Sundaresan, the entrepreneur who bought Beeple’s record-breaking artwork, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/07/buyer-of-69-million-dollar-beeple-art-metakovan-on-nfts.html">sees investing</a> in NFTs as a “huge risk” and “even crazier than investing in crypto”.</p>
<p>But history also tells us to be careful about dismissing NFTs as a passing fad, since the importance of technological innovations often becomes clearer once the hype dies down. Many commentators dismissed the influx of tech companies around the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, and the first wave of mass cryptocurrency enthusiasm in 2017, only to be proven hopelessly wrong when Amazon and bitcoin re-emerged. </p>
<p>NFTs themselves are actually well down from their highs, with a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-03/nft-price-crash-stirs-debate-on-whether-stimulus-led-fad-is-over">70% drop</a> in average price since February. Perhaps this is less the bursting of a bubble than a “weeding out” of gimmicky tokens now that the initial hype has begun to die down. </p>
<p>This phenomenon is captured well in US consultancy Gartner’s <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle">hype cycle</a>, which illustrates the typical progression of a new technology. With NFTs, we are probably emerging from the “peak of inflated expectations” on a journey towards the same “plateau of productivity” that Amazon reached a long time ago. </p>
<p><strong>Gartner’s hype cycle</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gartner's hype cycle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396539/original/file-20210422-17-lyco96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle">Gartner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This ties in with what Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter said about why capitalism works. Schumpeter viewed capitalism as a relentless churn of old into new, as the latest and most innovative enterprises replace those that came before – he called this “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creativedestruction.asp">creative destruction</a>”. </p>
<p>In this light, NFTs are the newcomers challenging how we perceive and register ownership of assets. And the tension between <a href="https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/46/4/632/5396727?redirectedFrom=fulltext">innovation and incumbency</a> also <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/why-do-people-resist-new-technologies-history-has-answer/">contributes to</a> the scepticism that always surrounds such new technologies. </p>
<h2>What happens next</h2>
<p>NFTs create opportunities for new business models that didn’t exist before. Artists can attach stipulations to an NFT that ensures they get some of the proceeds every time it gets resold, meaning they benefit if their work increases in value. Admittedly football teams have <a href="https://theathletic.co.uk/2134724/2020/10/14/sell-on-fees-ollie-watkins-ben-godfrey-exeter-york/">been using</a> similar contractual clauses when selling on players for a while, but NFTs remove the need to track an asset’s progress and enforce such entitlements on each sale. </p>
<p>New art platforms, such as <a href="https://www.niio.com/site/">Niio Art</a>, are able to demonstrate in a really simple way that they own digital works. When customers borrow or buy art from the platform, they can display it on a screen in the knowledge that there is no issue with copyright or originality because the NFT and blockchain ensures that ownership is authentic. </p>
<p>NFTs give musicians the potential <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/kings-of-leon-when-you-see-yourself-album-nft-crypto-1135192/">to provide</a> enhanced media and special perks to their fans. And with sports memorabilia, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/foul-ball-did-nj-man-get-duped-buying-100k-bogus-n1019676">between 50% and 80%</a> of items are thought to be fake. Putting these items into NFTs with a clear transaction history back to the creator could overcome this counterfeiting problem. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E6iLV4q58QU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But beyond these fields, the potential of NFTs goes much further because they completely change the rules of ownership. Transactions in which ownership of something changes hands have usually depended on layers of middlemen to establish trust in the transaction, exchange contracts and ensure that money changes hands. </p>
<p>None of this will be necessary in future. Transactions recorded on blockchains are reliable because the information cannot be changed. Smart contracts can be used in place of lawyers and escrow accounts to automatically ensure that money and assets change hands and both parties honour their agreements. NFTs convert assets into tokens so that they can move around within this system. </p>
<p>This has the potential to completely transform markets like property and vehicles, for instance. NFTs could also be part of the solution in resolving issues with <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2006-08-27-0608270297-story.html">land ownership</a>. Only <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/7-reasons-land-and-property-rights-be-top-global-agenda">30% of</a> the global population has legally registered rights to their land and property. Those without clearly defined rights find it much harder to access finance and credit. Also, if more of our lives are spent in <a href="https://decentraland.org/">virtual worlds</a> in future, the things that we buy there will probably be bought and sold as NFTs too. </p>
<p>There will be many other developments in this decentralised economy that have yet to be imagined. What we can say is that it will be a much more transparent and direct type of market than what we are used to. Those who think they are seeing a flash in the pan are unlikely to be prepared when it arrives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159563/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Where some see a bubble waiting to burst, others see a reinvention of the way we handle ownership of assets.
James Bowden, Lecturer in Financial Technology, University of Strathclyde
Edward Thomas Jones, Lecturer in Economics, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157489
2021-03-31T12:16:47Z
2021-03-31T12:16:47Z
How nonfungible tokens work and where they get their value – a cryptocurrency expert explains NFTs
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392667/original/file-20210330-23-1h9ipin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C14%2C4978%2C3293&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NFTs can be used to prove who created and who owns digital items like these images by the artist Beeple shown at an exhibition in Beijing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-looks-at-digital-paintings-by-us-artist-beeple-at-a-news-photo/1231940889?adppopup=true">Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Takeaways</strong></p>
<p>· <strong>Nonfungible tokens prove ownership of a digital item – image, sound file or text – in the same way that people own crypto coins.</strong></p>
<p>· <strong>Unlike crypto coins, which are identical and worth the same, NFTs are unique.</strong></p>
<p>· <strong>An NFT is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, which can be a lot if the NFT is made by a famous artist and the buyer is a wealthy collector.</strong></p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<p>An attorney friend recently asked me out of the blue about nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. What prompted his interest was the sale of a collage composed of 5,000 digital pieces, auctioned by Christie’s on March 11, 2021, for a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/style/article/beeple-first-nft-artwork-at-auction-sale-result/index.html">remarkable US$69 million</a>. Mike Winkelmann, an artist known as <a href="https://www.beeple-crap.com/">Beeple</a>, created this piece of digital art, made an NFT of it and offered it for sale. The bidding started at $100, and the rest of the auctioning process transformed it into a historical event.</p>
<p>Similarly, it was hard to miss the news about the iconic GIF <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/18/22287956/nyan-cat-crypto-art-foundation-nft-sale-chris-torres">Nyan Cat</a> being sold as a piece of art, Twitter’s founder transforming the <a href="http://heverge.com/2021/3/5/22316320/jack-dorsey-original-tweet-nft-cent-valuables">first tweet into an NFT</a> and putting it up for sale, or an NFT of a New York Times column <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/technology/nft-sale.html">earning half a million dollars</a> for charity. </p>
<p>My friend’s questions were an attempt to understand where the underlying value of an NFT comes from. The issue is that perceptions of what the buyer is paying for are not easily framed in legal terms. NFT marketplaces do not always accurately describe the value proposition of the goods they are selling. The truth is that the value of any NFT is speculative. Its value is determined by what someone else is willing to pay for it and nothing else. </p>
<p>Turning something as ephemeral as a tweet into an item that can be sold requires two things: making it unique and proving ownership. The process is the same for cryptocurrencies, which turn strings of bits into virtual coins that have real-world value. It boils down to cryptography.</p>
<h2>Keys and blocks</h2>
<p>Cryptography is the technique used to protect privacy of a message by transforming it into a form that can be understood only by the intended recipients. Everyone else will see it as only an unintelligible sequence of random characters. This message manipulation is enabled by a pair of keys, public and private keys: You share your public key with your friend, who uses it to transform his message to you into an unintelligible sequence of random characters. You then use your private key to put it back into its original form. </p>
<p>The special mathematical properties of these two crypto keys are widely used to provide secrecy and integrity. <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/a-relatively-easy-to-understand-primer-on-elliptic-curve-cryptography/">Two crypto keys</a> play the role of digital signatures and are commonly used in blockchain to enable both authentication and anonymity for transactions.</p>
<p>Blockchain is a crucial technology for creating NFTs. It uses cryptography to chain blocks into a growing list of records. Each block is locked by a cryptographic hash, or string of characters that uniquely identifies a set of data, to the previous block. The transaction records of a chain of blocks are stored in a data structure called a <a href="https://blockonomi.com/merkle-tree/">Merkle tree</a>. This allows for fast retrieval of past records. To be a party in blockchain-based transactions, each user needs to create a pair of keys: a public key and a private key. This design makes it very difficult to alter transaction data stored in blockchain. </p>
<p>Although blockchain was initially devised to support fungible assets like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it has evolved to enable users to create a special kind of crypto asset, one that is <a href="https://decrypt.co/resources/non-fungible-tokens-nfts-explained-guide-learn-blockchain">nonfungible</a>, meaning provably unique. Ethereum blockchain is the basis for most of the currently offered NFTs because it supports the <a href="https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/standards/tokens/erc-721/">ERC-721 token standard</a>, enabling NFT creators to capture information of relevance to their digital artifacts and store it as tokens on the blockchain. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A commemorative coin bearing a double-pyramid logo lies in an open leather wallet containing euro coins" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392668/original/file-20210330-17-1dcqawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first NFTs were made using the cryptographic technology underlying the Ethereum cryptocurrency.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/26344495@N05/51014896758/">Ivan Radic/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When you pay for an NFT, what you get is the right to transfer the token to your digital wallet. The token proves that your copy of a digital file is the original, like owning an original painting. And just as masterpiece paintings can be copied and distributed as inexpensive posters, anyone can have a digital copy of your NFT.</p>
<p>Your private crypto key is proof of ownership of the original. The content creator’s public crypto key serves as a certificate of authenticity for that particular digital artifact. This pair of the creator’s public key and the owner’s private key is primarily what determines the value of any NFT token. </p>
<h2>The very short history of NFTs</h2>
<p>NFTs came to prominence in 2017 with a game called <a href="https://www.cryptokitties.co/">CryptoKitties</a>, which enables players to buy and “breed” limited-edition virtual cats. From there, game developers adopted NFTs in a big way to allow gamers to win in-game items such as digital shields, swords or similar prizes, and other game collectibles. Tokenization of game assets is a real game-changer, since it enables transferring tokens between different games or to another player via NFT specialized blockchain marketplaces. </p>
<p>Besides gaming, NFTs are frequently used to sell a wide range of virtual collectibles, including NBA virtual trading cards, music, digital images, video clips and even virtual real estate in <a href="https://decentraland.org/">Decentraland</a>, a virtual world.</p>
<p><a href="https://nonfungible.com/">NonFungible.com</a>, a website that tracks NFT projects and marketplaces, puts the value of the total NFT market at $250 million, a negligible fraction of the total crypto coin market but still highly attractive to content creators. The contract behind the token, based on the <a href="http://erc721.org/">ERC-721</a> standard for creating NFTs, can be set to let content creators continue to earn a percentage from all subsequent sales. </p>
<p>The NFT market is likely to grow further because any piece of digital information can easily be “minted” into an NFT, a highly efficient way of managing and securing digital assets.</p>
<h2>Blockchain’s carbon footprint</h2>
<p>For all the excitement, there are also concerns that NFTs are <a href="https://qz.com/1987590/the-carbon-footprint-of-creating-and-selling-an-nft-artwork/">not eco-friendly</a> because they are built on the same blockchain technology used by some energy-hungry cryptocurrencies. For example, each NFT transaction on the Ethereum network consumes the equivalent of <a href="https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption">daily energy used by two American households</a>. </p>
<p>Security for most of today’s blockchain networks is based on special computers called “miners” competing to solve complex math puzzles. This is the <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/explained/proof-of-work-explained">proof-of-work</a> principle, which keeps people from gaming the system and provides the incentive for building and maintaining it. The miner who solves the math problem first gets awarded with a prize paid in virtual coins. The mining requires a lot of computational power, which drives electricity consumption.</p>
<p>Ethereum blockchain technology is evolving and moving toward <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/ethereum-plans-to-cut-its-absurd-energy-consumption-by-99-percent">a less computationally intensive design</a>. There are also emerging blockchain technologies like <a href="https://cardano.org/">Cardano</a>, which was designed from the outset to have a small carbon footprint and has recently launched its own fast-growing NFT platform called <a href="https://coinpedia.org/non-fungible-token-nft/cardano-towards-new-highs-with-cardanokidz-nft/">Cardano Kidz</a>. </p>
<p>The speed of transformation of blockchain technology into a newer, more eco-friendly variant might well decide the future of the NFT market in the short term. Some artists who feel strongly about global warming trends are opposed to NFTs because of perceived <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/nfts-hot-effect-earth-climate/">ecological impact</a>.</p>
<h2>The coming crypto-economy</h2>
<p>Whether or not the current NFT craze can keep its momentum going, NFTs have already accelerated a larger trend of digital economic innovation. NFTs have confirmed that the public is feeling increasingly favorable toward a crypto-economy and is <a href="https://wirexapp.com/blog/post/2021-the-year-of-crypto-0250">embracing short-term risks</a> in return for creating new business possibilities.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>NFTs have already made significant inroads into the luxury and gaming industries, and have plenty of room to grow beyond these initial applications. The art sector will continue to be an important segment of the overall NFT market and is likely to gradually reach maturity over the next couple of years, although it is likely to be surpassed by other digital certificate applications like trademarks and patents, training and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2019/09/03/upskilling-why-it-might-be-the-most-important-word-in-the-legal-lexicon/?sh=1cc1bdfc36a9">upskilling</a> certificates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157489/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dragan Boscovic receives funding from NSF, Federal and State Government Agencies, industrial corporations. He is affiliated with VizLore LLC, which provides the blockchain as a platform service to other blockchain application developers.</span></em></p>
NFTs are made the same way as crypto coins, but where every crypto coin is like every other, each NFT is a unique digital item – from images to sound files to text.
Dragan Boscovic, Research Professor of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157115
2021-03-15T12:58:55Z
2021-03-15T12:58:55Z
Why would anyone buy crypto art – let alone spend millions on what’s essentially a link to a JPEG file?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389379/original/file-20210313-23-ezvdf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2169%2C0%2C2410%2C1592&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Since so much our social lives are lived online, maybe it makes sense for our art collections to reside online, too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/web-royalty-free-illustration/1162714011?adppopup=true">Ihor Melnyk via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZcWO2AEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">academic researcher</a>, developer of artistic technology and amateur artist, I was quite skeptical about crypto art when <a href="https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/1/14/what-is-cryptoart">I first read about it several years ago</a>. </p>
<p>However, I follow a community of artists on social media, and some of the artists there whom I respect, like Mario Klingemann and Jason Bailey, <a href="https://twitter.com/quasimondo/status/1310612476011175936?s=20">embraced</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/artnome/status/1310614348260352000?s=20">advocated for</a> crypto art. Within the past few months, activity and prices seemed to snowball. I started thinking it deserves to be taken seriously. </p>
<p>Then the Beeple sale happened.</p>
<p>On March 11, Beeple, a computer science graduate whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, auctioned a piece of crypto art at Christie’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/11/976141522/beeple-jpg-file-sells-for-69-million-setting-crypto-art-record">for US$69 million</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1370468587320836099"}"></div></p>
<p>The winning bidder is now named in a digital record that confers ownership. This record, called a <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/explained-non-fungible-tokens-nfts-010049576.html">nonfungible token</a>, or NFT, is stored in a shared global database. This database is decentralized using blockchain, so that no single individual or company controls the database. As long as the specific blockchain survives in the world, anyone can read or access it, and no one can change it.</p>
<p>But “ownership” of crypto art confers no actual rights, other than being able to say that you own the work. You don’t own the copyright, you don’t get a physical print, and anyone can look at the image on the web. There is merely a record in a public database saying that you own the work – really, it says you own the work at a specific URL.</p>
<p>So why would anyone buy crypto art – let alone spend millions on what’s essentially a link to a JPEG file?</p>
<h2>Art is inherently social</h2>
<p>It might be helpful to think about crypto art in the context of why people buy original works of art. </p>
<p>Some people buy art for their homes, hoping to incorporate it into their living spaces for pleasure and inspiration. </p>
<p>But art also plays many important social roles. The art in your home communicates your interests and tastes. Artworks can spark conversation, whether they’re in museums or homes. People form communities around their passion for the arts, whether it’s through museums and galleries, or magazines and websites. Buying work supports the artists and the arts.</p>
<p>Then there are collectors. People get into collecting all sorts of things – model trains, commemorative plates, rare vinyl LPs, sports memorabilia – and, like other collectors, art collectors are passionate about trying to hunt down those rare pieces.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most visible form of art collecting today, and the one that drives so much public discussion about art, is the art purchased for millions of dollars – the pieces by <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1917097_1917096_1917100,00.html">Picasso</a> and <a href="https://www.clc.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/?p=391">Damien Hirst</a> traded by the ultrawealthy. This is still social: Whether they’re at Sotheby’s auctions or museum board dinners, wealthy art collectors mingle, meet and talk about who bought what.</p>
<p>Finally, I think many people buy art strictly as an investment, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42011989">hoping that it will appreciate in value</a>.</p>
<h2>Is crypto art really that different?</h2>
<p>If you look at the reasons people buy art, only one of them – buying art for your home – has to do with the physical work. </p>
<p>Every other reason for buying art that I listed could apply to crypto art. </p>
<p>You can build your own virtual gallery online and share it with other people online. You can convey your tastes and interests through your virtual gallery and support artists by buying their work. You can participate in a community: Some crypto artists, who have felt excluded by the mainstream art world, say they <a href="https://twitter.com/MattKaneArtist/status/1370396745851605008?s=20">have found more support in the crypto community</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/missalsimpson/status/1369798571747389443">can now earn a living making art</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1369798571747389443"}"></div></p>
<p>While Beeple’s big sale made headlines, most crypto art sales are much more affordable, in the tens or hundreds of dollars. This supports a much larger community than just a select few artists. <a href="https://twitter.com/artnome/status/1356708775915384838?s=20">And some resale values have gone up</a>. </p>
<h2>Value as a social construct</h2>
<p>Aside from the visual pleasure of physical objects, nearly all the value art offers is, in some way, a social construct. This does not mean that art is interchangeable, or that the historical significance and technical skill of a <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/rembrandt-master-printmaker-cincinnati-art-museum/uQKi73GQ6NY4IQ?hl=en">Rembrandt</a> is imaginary. It means that the value we place on these attributes is a choice. </p>
<p>When someone pays <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/arts/jeff-koons-rabbit-auction.html">$90 million for a metal balloon animal made by Jeff Koons</a>, it’s hard to believe that the work has that much “intrinsic” value. Even if the materials and craftsmanship are quite good, surely some of those millions are simply buying the right to say “I bought a Koons. And I spent a lot of money on it.” If you just want an artfully made metal balloon animal, there are cheaper ways to get one.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two people take photographs with their smartphones of a banana taped to a wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389373/original/file-20210313-15-5d6ity.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ displayed at Art Basel Miami in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-post-in-front-of-maurizio-cattelans-comedian-news-photo/1186756719?adppopup=true">Cindy Ord/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conversely, the conceptual art tradition has long separated the object itself from the value of the work. Maurizio Cattelan <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/maurizio-cattelan-banana-explained-1732773">sold a banana taped to a wall for six figures, twice</a>; the value of the work was not in the banana or in the duct tape, nor in the way that the two were attached, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/arts/design/a-critics-defense-of-cattelan-banana-.html">in the story and drama around the work</a>. Again, the buyers weren’t really buying a banana, they were buying the right to say they “owned” this artwork.</p>
<p>Depending on your point of view, crypto art could be the ultimate manifestation of conceptual art’s separation of the work of art from any physical object. It is pure conceptual abstraction, applied to ownership.</p>
<p>On the other hand, crypto art could be seen as reducing art to the purest form of buying and selling for conspicuous consumption. </p>
<p>In Victor Pelevin’s satirical novel “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/286440/homo-zapiens-by-victor-pelevin/">Homo Zapiens</a>,” the main character visits an art exhibition where only the names and sale prices of the works are shown. When he says he doesn’t understand – where are the paintings themselves? – it becomes clear that this isn’t the point. Buying and selling is more important than the art. </p>
<p>This story was satire. But crypto art takes this one step further. If the point of ownership is to be able to say you own the work, why bother with anything but a receipt?</p>
<h2>Manufacturing scarcity</h2>
<p>It still seems hard to get used to the idea of spending money for nothing tangible. </p>
<p>Would anyone pay money for NFTs that say they “own” the Brooklyn Bridge or the whole of the Earth or the concept of love? People can create all the NFTs they want about anything, over and over again. I could make my own NFT claiming that I own the Mona Lisa, and record it to the blockchain, and no one could stop me.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1369503225112522755"}"></div></p>
<p>But I think this misses the point.</p>
<p>In crypto art, there is an implicit contract that what you’re buying is unique. The artist makes only one of these tokens, and the one right you get when you buy crypto art is to say that you own that work. No one else can. Note, though, that this is not a legal right, nor is there any enforcement other than social mores. Nonetheless, the value comes from the artist creating scarcity.</p>
<p>This is the same thing that’s happened in the art world <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-specialist-buying-limited-editions">ever since photographers and printmakers had to figure out how to sell their work</a>. In the world of photography, a limited-edition print is considered more valuable than an unlimited edition; the fewer prints in the edition, the more valuable they are. Knowing that you have one of a few prints personally made and signed by the artist gives you an emotional connection to the artist that a mass-produced print doesn’t.</p>
<p>This connection could be even weaker in digital art. But what you are buying is still, in part, a connection with the artist. Artists sometimes <a href="https://twitter.com/MattKaneArtist/status/1370059188660011009?s=20">publicly tweet their thanks to their crypto art patrons</a>, which may strengthen this emotional connection.</p>
<h2>A bubble bound to burst?</h2>
<p>Personally, I want to buy only art I can hang on my walls, so I have no interest in buying crypto art. There are also environmental costs. <a href="https://memoakten.medium.com/the-unreasonable-ecological-cost-of-cryptoart-2221d3eb2053">Certain blockchains used for crypto art are really bad for the climate</a>, because they require computations that consume staggering amounts of energy.</p>
<p>That said, if buying it right now gives you pleasure – and you enjoy sharing what you’ve bought and the community around it and you’re using <a href="https://github.com/memo/eco-nft/">a more environmentally friendly blockchain</a> – that’s great.</p>
<p>If you’re buying it for some future reward, however, that’s risky. Will people care about your personal virtual gallery in the future? Will you care? Will crypto art even be a thing in a few years?</p>
<p>As an investment, it just seems inconceivable to me that the higher prices reflect true value, in the sense of these works having higher resale value in the long term. As in the traditional art world, there are a lot more works being sold than could ever possibly be considered significant in a generation’s time. </p>
<p>And, in the crypto world, we’re seeing highly volatile prices, a sudden frenzy of interest, and huge sums being paid for things that seem, on the surface, not to have the slightest bit of value at all, such as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/9/22321464/jack-dorsey-nft-tweet-auction-bitcoin-donate-charity">the $2.5 million bid to “own” Jack Dorsey’s first tweet</a> or even the <a href="https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/34250611840767046457364755162887744273167171110707576795476315639371094032385">$1,000 bid on a photo of a cease-and-desist letter about NFTs</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/technology/crypto-art-NFTs-trading-cards-investment-manias.html">Much of this energy seems to be driven by price speculation</a>. It’s also worth noting that <a href="https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buyer-and-his-nft-defi-scheme/">the winner of the Beeple auction seems to be heavily invested in the success of crypto art</a>. The cryptocurrencies that drive crypto art are often considered highly speculative.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that, right now, there’s a big NFT bubble. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>There have been lots of bubbles before – <a href="https://www.history.com/news/tulip-mania-financial-crash-holland">tulips</a>, <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2010/03/the-great-baseball-card-bubble.html">baseball cards</a>, <a href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2015/03/02/beanie-baby-bubble">Beanie Babies</a> – objects that were flying off the shelves one year and then piled up in landfills the next. And, in a bubble, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/business/gamestop-stock-losses.html?searchResultPosition=9">a few headline-making winners get rich, while a whole lot of others lose their shirts</a>. Even if crypto art lasts, maybe the particular artist or platform where you’re buying won’t be popular in the future.</p>
<p>My feelings about crypto art aside, I do believe that art is, fundamentally, a social activity. The more our social lives are lived online, the more it may make sense for some people to have their art collections online, too – whether or not blockchain is involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Hertzmann works for Adobe Research, however, opinions expressed here are solely his own.
</span></em></p>
If you look at the reasons people buy art, almost none of them have to do with the physical work.
Aaron Hertzmann, Affiliate Faculty of Computer Science, University of Washington
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155738
2021-02-24T19:08:30Z
2021-02-24T19:08:30Z
A token sale: Christie’s to auction its first blockchain-backed digital-only artwork
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Everydays: The First 5000 Days</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beeple</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since May 2007, US-based digital artist Mike Winkelmann (who goes by the name <a href="https://www.beeple-crap.com/">Beeple</a>) has posted a new artwork online every day. He posted the 5,000th one in January, and has now packaged them into an enormous digital collage titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days, which will be <a href="https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/beeple-first-5000-days/beeple-b-1981-1/112924">auctioned online</a> by Christie’s on February 25.</p>
<p>The work will be sold in purely digital form, as a 21,069 × 21,069-pixel JPEG file and a “non-fungible token” or NFT. NFTs use blockchain technology to give the successful bidder unquestioned ownership of the work.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchain-is-useful-for-a-lot-more-than-just-bitcoin-58921">Blockchain is useful for a lot more than just Bitcoin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>NFT artworks are becoming a serious business. Last year, Beeple <a href="https://cryptobriefing.com/digital-art-auction-raises-record-million/">made US$3.5 million</a> on an NFT auction. </p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/Monumental-collage-by-Beeple-is-first-purely-digital-artwork-NFT-to-come-to-auction-11510-7.aspx?sc_lang=en&lid=1">entry</a> of a global blue-chip auction house like Christie’s into this domain may mark a new stage for blockchain technology, as a widespread tool for both maintenance and transformation of digital art markets. </p>
<h2>Not as new as it seems</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386063/original/file-20210224-15-1lm31oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The digital work Ever Blossoming Life – Gold by teamLab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-teamlab-ever-blossoming-life-gold-6142016/?from=searchresults&intObjectID=6142016">teamLab</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christie’s claims the sale of Everydays is the first time a major auction house has offered a <em>purely</em> digital artwork. Christie’s has sold digital works before, including videos (such as Ryan Trecartin’s <a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-ryan-trecartin-a-family-finds-entertainment-5727220/?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5727220">A Family Finds Entertainment</a> in 2013) and software-based installations (such as teamLab’s <a href="https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6142016">Ever Blossoming Life – Gold</a> in 2018). </p>
<p>But these were accompanied by physical trappings, such as certificates of authenticity or fancy hard drives to house the digital files. This time, however, it’s simply <a href="https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/beeple-first-5000-days/beeple-b-1981-1/112924">the image file and an accompanying NFT</a>. </p>
<h2>What are NFTs?</h2>
<p>NFTs support claims to an artwork’s value. While the JPEG file of Everydays may be copied, the collector’s blockchain-based record of ownership will allow them to display the work (and to resell it) on a number of online platforms.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386026/original/file-20210224-23-1edx4ee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Here’s a copy of Everydays: The First 5000 Days. Without an NFT, it’s not worth much.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beeple</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christie’s has teamed up with one such platform, <a href="https://makersplace.com/beeple/5000-days/">Makersplace</a>, for the deal. Makersplace uses an open standard smart contract for its NFTs, which means the work can be sold in many other places in the the increasingly complex <a href="https://nonfungible.com/">NFT ecosystem</a>. </p>
<p>NFTs are useful in the digital art market because they enable claims to authenticity and scarcity, despite the ease with which digital works can ordinarily be copied. Artists and galleries have tried to create scarcity via <a href="https://www.artquest.org.uk/how-to-articles/editioning/">limited-edition works</a> and to assure authenticity with certificates, but NFTs seek to automate this process. </p>
<p>NFTs record ownership on a blockchain, which is a decentralised alternative to a central database. Built through cryptography and peer-to-peer networks, blockchains are resistant to tampering and hacking, which makes them useful for storing important records. Vince Tabora from US tech website <a href="https://hackernoon.com/">Hacker Noon</a> has written an accessible <a href="https://hackernoon.com/databases-and-blockchains-the-difference-is-in-their-purpose-and-design-56ba6335778b">explainer</a> of how blockchain is different from older ways of storing and organising data.</p>
<h2>Why blockchain?</h2>
<p>Ever since blockchains were described in the <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf">white paper</a> published by pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, the idea of a “<a href="https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/trustless">trustless</a>” way to keep secure public records has evolved into a so-called “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X20303067">confidence machine</a>”, fuelling a considerable amount of hype. Simultaneously, voices have emerged to encourage more nuanced and critical engagement with blockchain’s possibilities and limitations.<a href="https://issuu.com/instituteofnetworkcultures/docs/moneylabreader2overcomingthehype">MoneyLab Reader 2: Overcoming the Hype</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39464761/There_is_no_Such_Thing_as_Blockchain_Art_A_report_on_the_current_status_of_the_intersection_of_Blockchain_and_art">There is No Such Thing as Blockchain Art</a> are two key publications exploring these tensions across varied cultural domains. </p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon Researchers have <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/april/art-of-blockchain.html">described</a> potential use-cases for the art industry, including securing artwork provenance (see <a href="https://verisart.com">Verisart</a>) or enabling secure forms of fractional ownership (see <a href="https://www.maecenas.co/">Maecenas</a>). </p>
<p>And Christie’s is no stranger to new technology. The company has hosted regular <a href="https://www.christies.com/exhibitions/art-and-tech">Art+Tech Summits</a> since 2018 (the inaugural topic being blockchain). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386061/original/file-20210224-15-1iu8mzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The algorithmically generated Portrait of Edmond Belamy by French collective Obvious was sold by Christie’s in 2018 for US$432,500.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx">Obvious</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2018, Christie’s proudly announced it was “the first auction house to offer a work of art created by an algorithm”, with the sale of the AI-generated painting <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx">Portrait of Edmond Belamy</a> for more than 40 times its estimate. </p>
<p>So by selling Everydays as “the first purely digital work” to be offered by a major auction house, Christie’s is reinforcing its self-described “position at the forefront of innovation in the art world”.</p>
<h2>Virtual trading cards and CryptoKitties</h2>
<p>At the same time, Christie’s upcoming auction is only the tip of the NFT-collecting iceberg. Industry publication <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-bites-why-buy-an-nft">Coindesk</a> estimates the total value of the NFT market to be US$250 million. Platforms such as <a href="https://opensea.io/">Opensea</a>, <a href="https://niftygateway.com/">Nifty Gateway</a> and <a href="https://superrare.co/">SuperRare</a> host a rapidly expanding range of digital collectibles to buy and sell by a growing community of collectors. </p>
<p>Beyond art, digital collectibles include virtual trading cards, artefacts and attire for virtual gaming worlds. They also underpin games such as <a href="https://www.cryptokitties.co/catalogue">CryptoKitties</a>, in which NFTs serve to secure the “unique genome” of each kitty in the game. These examples reflect the uptake of NFTs across different digital subcultures, providing collectors with claims to uniqueness that were previously considered impossible in the online realm. </p>
<h2>Blockchain for artists</h2>
<p>Artists and other creative practitioners may also benefit from blockchain-backed systems.</p>
<p>Researchers at RMIT published a <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/267131">paper</a> on how blockchain infrastructures could help Australia’s creative economy in 2019. They note how blockchains could support artists in trading, creating contracts, getting their work discovered, sharing resources – and making money to support their livelihoods.</p>
<p>Artists themselves are also searching for new ways to use blockchain and other “distributed ledger” technologies. Over the past decade, <a href="https://www.furtherfield.org/tag/diwo/">Furtherfield</a> in London has worked with artists to explore the possibilities and limitations, partnering most recently with Goethe Institute and Serpentine Galleries for <a href="https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/372459/the-daowo-sessions-artworld-prototypes/">The DAOWO Sessions: Artworld Prototypes</a>. Other notable projects include <a href="https://torquetorque.net/wp-content/uploads/ArtistsReThinkingTheBlockchain.pdf">Artists Re: Thinking the Blockchain</a>, which showcases how artists have a stake in this technological shift, and <a href="https://disco.coop/">DisCo Coop</a>, <a href="https://www.trojanfoundation.com/">Trojan DAO</a> and <a href="https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ver.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&event_id=22087610">Black Swan DAO</a>, which examine how new tools for organisation can challenge the value systems of the traditional art market, rather than further solidify them. </p>
<h2>Blockchain futures</h2>
<p>This reexamination of art in light of blockchain has also been happening in Australia. In 2019, <a href="https://www.badenpailthorpe.com/">Baden Pailthorpe</a> and I worked with the <a href="https://www.bitfwd.com/">Bitfwd</a> community to curate a project called <a href="https://www.artspace.org.au/program/ideas-platform/2019/blocumenta/">Blocumenta</a>, which brought together local artists, designers and hackers to examine how blockchain could affect the arts, culture and heritage in the Asia-Pacific.</p>
<p>More recently, <a href="http://sister0.org/">Nancy Mauro-Flude</a> and I co-curated an event called <a href="https://economythologies.network/">Economythologies – MoneyLab#X</a>, which was co-presented by several universities, galleries and arts organisations. We presented a program of talks, performances and artworks that considered how blockchain’s uprooting of legacy economic systems and narratives opens space to imagine different ways to value, design and organise our creative and cultural practices. </p>
<p>At this stage it’s hard to say exactly what blockchain will mean for art. For now, perhaps we should let Beeple have the <a href="https://niftygateway.com/collections/beeple">last word</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>bruh, i just learned wtf an NFT is like two weeks ago, not gonna act like i have a ton of intelligent shit to say here. this crypto space seems super interesting though and i see a ton of potential to do some weird shit nobody has done yet…</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-australian-art-market-has-flatlined-what-can-be-done-to-revive-it-122932">Friday essay: The Australian art market has flatlined. What can be done to revive it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://economythologies.network/">Economythologies – MoneyLab#X</a> was co-presented by <a href="https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/cccr">Centre for Creative and Cultural Research</a> (University of Canberra), <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics">Institute for Culture and Society </a>(Western Sydney University), <a href="https://soad.cass.anu.edu.au/">School of Art and Design</a> (Australian National University), <a href="http://www.vvvvvvvvvvvv.net/vvhome/">Holistic Computing Aesthetics Network </a>and <a href="https://cvin.com.au/">Cultural Value Impact Network</a> (RMIT University), <a href="http://www.agac.com.au/">Ainslie+Gorman Art Centre</a> and <a href="https://www.bettgallery.com.au/">Bett Gallery </a>, with the support of the <a href="https://networkcultures.org/moneylab/">Institute of Network Cultures</a> and <a href="https://www.miss-hack.org/?about_md">Despoinas Media Coven</a>.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.artspace.org.au/program/ideas-platform/2019/blocumenta/">The Blocumenta Blockathon </a>was co-presented with bitfwd ventures and community, with the generous support of the University of Canberra, ACT Government, the Australian National University, DAOStack and Sigma Prime.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denise Thwaites receives funding from The Australia Council for the Arts and the ACT Government. To facilitate her research, she has small holdings of ether cryptocurrency.</span></em></p>
To quote the artist: ‘bruh… this crypto space seems super interesting though and i see a ton of potential to do some weird shit nobody has done yet.’
Denise Thwaites, Assistant Professor in Digital Arts and Humanities , University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/148716
2020-10-28T00:09:02Z
2020-10-28T00:09:02Z
A litany of losses: a new project maps our abandoned arts events of 2020
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365713/original/file-20201027-15-1u1e55o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1080%2C863&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A re-imagined production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town was cancelled five days before opening.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne-Louise Sarks</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was a time when artists imagined and planned work for 2020. For some, years had gone into the planning. But, as we know, everything scheduled from the middle of March had to be cancelled. Some events may be scheduled again at another time; many will no longer happen.</p>
<p>A group of artists have put together a map of the abandoned artistic projects for 2020. Conceived by artist Anna Tregloan and named <a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/final-archive">The Impossible Project</a>, it is a treasury of lost work and a time capsule of what we missed out on this year due to the pandemic.</p>
<p>There are already over 150 shows and events listed. More projects are being added all the time.</p>
<p>The Impossible Project captures the enormous range of work by Australian artists that could have happened in every Australian city, in regional areas and overseas.</p>
<p>We see the breadth and depth of artistic activity across the country; the loss for audiences, artists, and communities. Select a title, and you see the artists involved, the venue, the dates, the expected audience numbers. </p>
<p>It is a sobering experience.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot of website" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365720/original/file-20201027-19-8q29ch.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An imagined map lists more than 100 cancelled and postponed works.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Impossible Project</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Those that will never be…</h2>
<p>There is a re-imagined production of Thornton Wilder’s <a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/our-town">Our Town</a> (projected audience: 5,000+), to be directed by Australian theatremaker Anne-Louise Sarks in Basel, Switzerland. In planning since 2018, involving performers from countries across the world, the play was cancelled five days before its March premiere.</p>
<p>Patricia Cornelius’s <a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/donotgogentle">Do Not Go Gentle…</a> (projected audience: 8,000) was to be directed by Susie Dee in July at the Malthouse in Melbourne. </p>
<p>The play focuses on the experience of people in an aged care home; Shane Bourne was cast in the lead role. Given the experience of this year, the setting could not be more relevant. The play was presented in one sell-out season in 2009 – this 2020 production was more than 10 years in the making. </p>
<p><a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/therivercrossing">The River Crossing</a> (projected audience: 4,000) was to be a large-scale outdoor performance where professional high-wire walkers and Bundjalung community members would cross the Wilsons River in Lismore in August. SeedArts Australia has been planning the project since 2018. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Development sketches" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365716/original/file-20201027-21-s2aqtd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Planning for The River Crossing took years. The structure remains only sketches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SeedArts</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The all-female Belloo Creative was the resident theatre company at Queensland Theatre for 2019-20. To premiere in 2020, Katherine Lyall-Watson wrote a re-imagined <a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/phaedra">Phaedra</a> (projected audience: 7,140). The play was set in the future, with war taking place between a seceded Queensland and the rest of the country – another strangely pertinent theme. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CGZJ3GQHGOr","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Matt Whittet’s new play <a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/kindness">Kindness</a> (projected audience: 3,500) was to be directed by Lee Lewis at the Griffin Theatre. This loss feels particularly poignant, as the play looked at the experiences of community kindness – kindness we have all witnessed in 2020. </p>
<p>Whittet says he hopes it is only on hold:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nothing is certain in the world at the moment, which means there’s no promises but always hope.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>… and those that found a new life</h2>
<p>The Impossible Project also finds silver linings.</p>
<p>Sydney performance and visual artist Rakini Devi had planned a project with Melbourne video artist Karl Ockelford. With border closures, they were unable to work together. </p>
<p>Instead, Devi developed a solo project examining the position of women from the Indian diaspora who experience violence, being “lockdowned” and various forms of misogyny. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/465289309" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Melbourne musical theatre company Watch This specialises in the work of Stephen Sondheim. It had planned an exhibition of design and creative work for shows spanning seven years of the company’s productions. </p>
<p>Scheduled to start in March at Northcote Town Hall, the exhibition was cancelled six days before opening. But the company was able to re-mount it as a digital documentary series, <a href="https://theimpossibleproject.com.au/theartofmakingart">The Art of Making Art</a>. Through this, Watch This has been able to expand its audience, with the series selected for Canada’s <a href="https://www.socialdistancingfestival.com">Social Distancing Festival</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/406749895" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Further loss</h2>
<p>The Impossible Project documents shows that were meant to appear at the Sydney Opera House, Griffin Theatre, the Riverside Theatre and the Ensemble in Sydney; at Malthouse, the Recital Centre, the Arts Centre and Arts House in Melbourne; at La Boite, QPAC and Queensland Theatre in Brisbane. </p>
<p>There are touring shows scheduled for cities and regional centres. There are festivals – all now cancelled.</p>
<p>We have lost the audiences who haven’t been able to see work in a live venue; the time artists spent developing a new work, only to see it cancelled with no commitment to return; we will, inevitably, lose artists who will give up on the increasingly precarious dream of a creative life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Promo image, a man falls through the sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365715/original/file-20201027-17-ldkgbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kindness was programmed at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre – its season was cancelled.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When we talk about the impact of this year on the arts sector, we often focus on the economic losses. In April, the Grattan Institute estimated <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-3-in-4-australians-employed-in-the-creative-and-performing-arts-could-lose-their-jobs-136505">up to 75% of people</a> employed in the creative and performing arts could lose their jobs. By May, I Lost My Gig had recorded the loss of income for Australian artists of more than <a href="https://ilostmygig.net.au">A$340 million</a>. </p>
<p>Shows began being cancelled in March. The Federal Government didn’t announce a support package until June. Last week it was revealed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/21/arts-rescue-package-worth-250m-still-waiting-to-be-allocated-senate-estimates-told">none of the $250 million</a> package has been allocated (bar $48 million allowing Screen Australia to underwrite the insurance of films in production, which does not represent money spent). </p>
<p>Without support, more work will be lost.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/too-little-too-late-too-confusing-the-funding-criteria-for-the-arts-covid-package-is-a-mess-145397">Too little, too late, too confusing? The funding criteria for the arts COVID package is a mess</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It is a mystery why the government does not take the cultural sector seriously, or value the arts, or see how it contributes to our society.</p>
<p>We are seeing the arts and humanities <a href="https://theconversation.com/monash-university-plans-to-cut-its-musicology-subjects-why-does-this-matter-147172">removed</a> from our universities, artists left out in the cold during this terrible time, and no indication of a way forward. </p>
<p>This is a loss to Australia on a grand scale. The list of cancelled work in The Impossible Project is not one we want to see continue — but it is inevitable the list will grow.</p>
<p><em>Correction: an earlier version of this story misstated the artists involved in The River Crossing. The crossing was to be performed by professional high wire walkers and Bundjalung community members.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has previously received funding from the Australia Council. She is member of NAVA and the Arts Industry Council (SA). </span></em></p>
In a year of lockdowns, The Impossible Project gives life to shows that never reached the stage. More than 150 events are listed on this online archive, and sadly, more are likely to come.
Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140161
2020-09-25T05:39:00Z
2020-09-25T05:39:00Z
Art and online activism amid the pandemic: lessons from around the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359979/original/file-20200925-16-17185er.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C376%2C3990%2C2610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artwork at the site of George Floyd's memorial in Minneapolis, Minnesota.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash/Jean Beller)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, arranging protests and political movements in the streets has proven challenging due to social distancing orders.</p>
<p>Campaigns around the world such as the #ClimateStrike movement initiated by <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/11/21174674/greta-thunberg-coronavirus-climate-change-protests-online-covid19">Greta Thunberg</a> have moved online through the use of social media. The movement has now turned into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/22/climate-strikes-continue-online-we-want-to-keep-the-momentum-going">#ClimateStrikeOnline</a>, where hundreds of social media posts pour in every week.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/climatestrikeonline?src=hashtag_click">Artistic posters</a> on Twitter and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/tiktok-youth-led-climate-activism-school-strike/11520474">dance choreography</a> on TikTok have helped increase appeal for the movement among young people around the world and continue it in a more light-hearted way. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qIBFOx0ZiYk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Students are fighting climate change, one TikTok video at a time.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This movement’s sustainability and its ability to captivate audiences suggests these kinds of artistic approaches can be a great medium for activism in the digital space.</p>
<p>Arts activism — traditionally <a href="https://c4aa.org/2018/04/why-artistic-activism">performed offline</a> in the pre-social media era — combines the creative and emotional capacity of the arts with the strategic planning of activists to push for meaningful change in society online.</p>
<p>These three examples highlight how digital arts can help spark and sustain political engagement as it moves online amid the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Stirring emotions to build political participation</h2>
<p>Digital arts activism has the power to help people <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14781700.2016.1190944">channel suffering</a>, <a href="https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/469/711">trauma</a> or their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07421656.2017.1420124">outrage</a> into persuasive messages.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02615479.2014.885008">Many studies</a> have indicated this can help increase community engagement and political participation — from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1206331217729509">human rights advocacy</a> to campaigns <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1525/irqr.2011.4.1.3">against discrimination</a> and economic inequality.</p>
<p>Twenty-five-year-old <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ohhappydani/">Danielle Coke</a> from Atlanta, for instance, is an illustrator who posts digital drawings on Instagram to advocate for important issues such as ending systemic racism.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_AzK35FhJ7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Although she has criticised people for <a href="https://observer.com/2020/06/instagram-social-posts-stealing-work-by-black-artists/">not crediting her appropriately</a>, her work has been cited and shared by many people and to support a number of political movements such as #BlackLivesMatter.</p>
<p>For instance, some of the art she created discusses the cases of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd — two African-American citizens killed by local police on separate occasions. These artworks have since been <a href="https://www.insider.com/ohhappydani-illustrations-stolen-without-credit-social-media-2020-6">used by thousands of people</a> to voice outrage against institutional racism in America’s law enforcement system.</p>
<p>The iconic poster of the <a href="https://www.micahmwhite.com/read/#/new-yorker-profile">“ballerina and the bull”</a> is another example.</p>
<p>The artwork, created by <a href="https://www.micahmwhite.com/">Micah White</a> through his anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, played a significant role helping initiate the <a href="http://occupywallst.org/">Occupy Wall Street movement</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B2haNDYnFKI/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>The poster contrasted the image of the Wall Street Bull statue — meant to symbolise <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/pre-occupied?currentPage=all">the dynamics of capitalism</a> — with the “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/pre-occupied?currentPage=all">zen stillness</a>” of a ballerina.</p>
<p>These details, along with the shrouded figures in the poster’s background helped evoke a <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/micah-white-occupy-wall-street-davos-grifter-scam">sense of fear and shared urgency</a> regarding the country’s state of economic inequality. This helped pushed some to participate in, or at least become aware of, the #OccupyWallStreet movement.</p>
<p>The New York Times noted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/business/media/the-branding-of-the-occupy-movement.html">in an article</a> that although the magazine through its poster did not come up with the frustrations felt by the movement’s protesters, it significantly shaped the movement’s aesthetic brand.</p>
<h2>Sustaining the complexity of theatrical performances</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many artistic movements to migrate into the digital space. </p>
<p>One example is “<a href="https://www.conexionoax.info/">Conexion: Art and Activism in Oaxaca</a>”. Originally planned as a showcase at the Newcomb Art Museum in Louisiana, United States, Conexion Oaxaca is an interactive digital exhibition by <a href="https://registrar.tulane.edu/news/1648036/digital%20exhibition%20%E2%80%98conexi%C3%B3n:%20art%20and%20activism%20in%20oaxaca%E2%80%99%20showcases%20work%20by%20latin%20american%20studies%20students">Latin American Studies</a> students.</p>
<p>The digital exhibition highlights issues such as gender-based violence, access to education, family separation, and economic inequality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351257/original/file-20200805-22-n43y4k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The digital Coaxaca exhibition was curated by Tulane University students and faculty staff trough a Zoom meeting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.conexionoax.info">(Screenshot from Conexion Oaxaca)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Due to the pandemic, the exhibition has transformed into a fully interactive website that guides viewers throughout its four navigable themes which contain magazines, quilted art and documentary films. </p>
<p>However, it wasn’t always this easy.</p>
<p>The practice of staging art exhibitions online was once criticised for lacking what <a href="https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/walter-benjamin-art-aura-authenticity/">German philosopher Walter Benjamin</a> calls an “aura of authenticity” — a sensory experience that results from an artwork being uniquely present in time and space.</p>
<p>However, the growth of social media has helped online exhibitions fulfil the basic principles of art; that it should be visible, versatile, suggestive and transmissible.</p>
<p>In fact, I argue that the viewing experience is enhanced as now artworks can be played back, examined thoroughly and intensively studied, on demand, by a diverse range of audiences.</p>
<h2>Universities must teach arts activism to students</h2>
<p>An effective way way to start making digital arts activism prevalent among students and young people is by incorporating it within higher education. </p>
<p>In most developing countries, however, art is currently still a highly specialised program in college. Activist movements, on the other hand, are often only studied only under faculties teaching the social sciences or humanities. </p>
<p>In order to complement the scientific methodology used in most natural and social science programs, universities need to incorporate art in each of their department’s <a href="https://languageacts.org/events/art-and-activism-digital-age-event/">curricula</a> as part of the intellectual tradition of higher education.</p>
<p>King’s College London, for example, has been developing an interdisciplinary module titled “<a href="https://languageacts.org/events/art-and-activism-digital-age-event/">Art and Activism in the Digital Age</a>” to be implemented across its study programs. </p>
<p>The university also collaborates with local artist and <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/projects/arts-in-society">provides grants for digital art projects</a> that are accessible even to students outside the Faculty of Humanities.</p>
<p>If we want higher education to have impact, students need to learn how to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07421656.2011.578028">absorb experiences</a> from events happening in their environment and channel them into meaningful initiatives. Digital art activism is a great way to help them do this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kandi Aryani Suwito tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>
Digital artwork has helped campaigns such as the #ClimateStrikeOnline thrive on social media. Through three examples, I explore why digital arts can sustain political engagement amid the pandemic.
Kandi Aryani Suwito, Lecturer at the Department of Communication, Universitas Airlangga and PhD Candidate in Digital Humanities, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140344
2020-06-16T20:00:20Z
2020-06-16T20:00:20Z
Beauty in code – 5 ways digital poetry combines human and computer languages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342041/original/file-20200616-23247-16dkmi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C4176%2C2794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1488229297570-58520851e868?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2698&q=80">Joshua Sortino/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since lockdown, everyone has had to rely heavily on digital technologies: be it Zoom work meetings and lengthy email chains, gaming and streaming services for entertainment, or social media platforms to organise everything from groceries to protests. Human existence is now permeated by non-human computer language.</p>
<p>This includes poetry. Digital technologies can disseminate and publish contemporary poetry, and also create it. </p>
<p>Digital artists combine human and computer languages to create digital poetry, which can be grouped into at least five genres.</p>
<h2>1. Generative poetry</h2>
<p>Generative poems use a program or algorithm to generate poetic text from a database of words and phrases written or gathered by the digital poet.</p>
<p>The poem may run for a fixed period, a fixed number of times, or indefinitely. <a href="https://nickm.com/fan_montfort/dial/?5=%F0%9F%95%94">Dial</a> by <a href="https://laitzefan.com">Lai-Tze Fan</a> and <a href="https://nickm.com">Nick Montfort</a>, for example, is a generative poem that represents networked, distant communication. It depicts two isolated voices engaged in a dialogue over time. Time can be adjusted by clicking the clocks at the bottom of this emoji-embedded work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341638/original/file-20200614-153832-19bj8ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from generative poem Dial (2020) by Lai-Tze Fan and Nick Montfort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nickm.com/fan_montfort/dial/?5=%F0%9F%95%94">nickm.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The recent web-based work <a href="https://dtc-wsuv.org/remembering-the-dead/say-their-names/">Say Their Names!</a> by digital artist John Barber generates a list from more than 5,000 names of Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans who have been killed by police officers in the United States from 2015 to the present day. No judgement regarding the victims’ guilt or innocence is made. Each name is simply spoken – in a sometimes incongruously cheerful tone – by a computerised voice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-me-machines-learn-to-understand-how-we-speak-42812">Listen to me: machines learn to understand how we speak</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Remixed poetry</h2>
<p>Nick Montfort’s generative poem <a href="https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/">Taroko Gorge</a> was inspired by a visit to Taroko Gorge in Taiwan. </p>
<p>Montfort <a href="http://collection.eliterature.org/3/work.html?work=taroko-gorge">writes</a>: “If others could go to a place of natural beauty and write a poem about that place, why couldn’t I write a poetry generator, instead?” <a href="https://www.uib.no/en/persons/Scott.Rettberg">Scott Rettberg</a> then took the code from Montfort’s poem and replaced the vocabulary to produce <a href="https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/tokyo_garage/">Tokyo Garage</a>, turning Montfort’s minimalist nature poem into a maximalist urban poem. </p>
<p><a href="https://luckysoap.com">J.R. Carpenter</a> undertook a similar transformation – replacing the nature vocabulary with words associated with eating. </p>
<p>There are now dozens of <a href="https://collection.eliterature.org/3/collection-taroko.html">Taroko Gorge remixes</a>. By inspecting the source of Montfort’s poem, one can carve into the code to remix one’s own version.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341642/original/file-20200614-153812-dgk9de.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scott Rettberg’s Taroko Gorge remix.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Visual verse</h2>
<p>For centuries, poets have combined poetry and images. In the late 1700s, William Blake combined poetry with engraved artwork in his conceptual collection <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39/blakes-songs-innocence-experience">Songs of Innocence</a>. Contemporary poets use digital technologies to similarly adorn poetry with imagery. </p>
<p>The title of <a href="https://chenqianxun.com">Qianxun Chen</a>’s work <a href="https://curamag.s3.amazonaws.com/renderings/shanshui/ShanshuiV2/index.html">Shan Shui</a> means mountain and water in Chinese, and landscape when combined as <em>shanshui</em>. It also refers to traditional Chinese landscape painting and a style of poetry that conveys the beauty of nature. With each click, a new Shan Shui poem is generated with a corresponding Shan Shui landscape painting.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341639/original/file-20200614-153812-1bl1fq4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shan Shui (2014) by Qianxun Chen makes a new illuminated poem with each click.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://elmcip.net">elmcip.net</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visuals also find their way into poetry performance. <a href="https://meredithmorran.com/-the-buoy">The Buoy</a> by <a href="https://meredithmorran.com">Meredith Morran</a> is a <a href="https://elmcip.net/sites/default/files/media/work/media/buoy-excerpt.mp4">poetic work of auto-fiction</a> that uses a series of diagrams to create a new form of language to address political issues involving marginalised identities. </p>
<p>Morran combines abstract images, performance and PowerPoint presentation software to indirectly address a personal history of growing up queer in Texas. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r-BWkNuRkZY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Brief History of How Life Works (2017) by Meredith Morran.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-real-life-experiment-illuminates-the-future-of-books-and-reading-131832">Friday essay: a real life experiment illuminates the future of books and reading</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. Video game poem plays</h2>
<p>The 1960s and 70s saw the emergence of text-based computer games, such as Zork, the <a href="https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/347748">source code</a> of which is archived at the MIT libraries. </p>
<p>Queensland digital poet <a href="http://www.secrettechnology.com">Jason Nelson</a> has created a number of works that fuse these two modes. One is called <a href="https://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/nelson_game_game_game/gamegame.html">game, game, game, and again game</a>, which Nelson describes as “<a href="http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/nelson_game.html">a digital poem, retro-game, an anti-design statement, and a personal exploration of the artist’s changing worldview lens</a>”. The work disrupts commercial video game design with the player not striving for a high score – but instead moving, jumping, and falling through an excessive, disjointed, poetic atmosphere.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341640/original/file-20200614-153827-1fsr36n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from game, game, game, and again game (2007) by Jason Nelson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://elmcip.net">elmcip.net</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The emergence of virtual reality games, such as <a href="https://half-life.com/en/alyx">Half-Life: Alyx</a>, has also met with poetry. </p>
<p>Australian digital artist <a href="http://mezbreezedesign.com">Mez Breeze</a>’s <a href="http://mezbreezedesign.com/vr-literature/vrignettes/">V[R]ignettes</a> is a virtual reality microstory series. The audience can experience this work by donning a virtual reality headset or viewing it in 3D space in browser. Each V[R]ignette combines poetic text, 3D models, and atmospheric sound design. The reader (or user) can navigate by clicking on the “Select an annotation” bar at the bottom of the screen, or simply look around in 3D space and freely explore the work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341641/original/file-20200614-153839-48rirb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from V[R]ignettes (2019) by Mez Breeze.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://elmcip.net">elmcip.net</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Coded messages</h2>
<p>Code poetry is a genre that combines classical poetry with computer language. </p>
<p>Code poems, such as those compiled by <a href="http://ishback.com">Ishac Bertran</a> in the print collection <a href="http://code-poems.com/book.html">code {poems}</a>, do not require a computer to exist. However, they do use computer languages, so to comprehend the poem one must be able to read computer code. </p>
<p>Like so many untranslatable Russian and Chinese poems, these works require a knowledge of the original language to be appreciated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342035/original/file-20200616-23227-1u0rrgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ignotus/10805668893/in/photolist-hsRSU6-JDNgi9-aq5bXA-2dbDKKM-29URvey-2feWn9d-2e6NMUF-es8qbj-9Ma3yk-BdDk76-2htvSbH-7zn7Fy-DMkZjY-MovHrf-35DHVc-pHY5eb-XthRmd-4eYfJ6-egoFaj-9ccyxQ-2dwtZzQ-2j2WHRq-2UJeB2-28gz6MM-5Ueqr6-HoAoWm-NL6M5k-miwrf2-2dLQxj8-YKxKqy-e3anFm-R7ivQX-dMLNL8-TSFLTm-79KTxm-ehwBtD-8a2AAN-2dMtKGa-6mTx6x-Rfz2FF-oWkmod-6mbRY5-cczEfJ-3n36vg-2h95zpa-ezuZ62-eqG42k-e2XtxB-iibXq6-beM5jZ">Ignotus the Mage/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Thomas Henry Wright is the recipient of a Griffith Review Queensland Writing Fellowship. He is a member of the Electronic Literature Organisation and an international consultant for the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4.</span></em></p>
Human existence is now permeated by computer language. Digital artists combine human and computer codes to create digital poetry.
David Thomas Henry Wright, Associate Professor, Nagoya University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112642
2019-04-01T11:16:06Z
2019-04-01T11:16:06Z
How 3D printing is transforming our relationship with cultural heritage
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264885/original/file-20190320-93060-1q0qsy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-printinted-model-human-head-336055742">Dabarti CGI/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A few years ago, we were promised that 3D printing would transform the world. In 2011, <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2011/02/10/print-me-a-stradivarius">The Economist</a> featured a 3D-printed Stradivarius violin on its front page, claiming that 3D printing “may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did”. These enormous hopes for digital fabrication, and especially 3D printing, may have seemed overinflated. But perhaps the impacts are finally materialising.</p>
<p>The last few years have seen a steady period of experimentation and incremental technical advances. Fabricators realised that 3D printing had many limitations that needed to be taken on board for its successful application. In addition, the public’s initial excitement seemed, to many, to be overblown. But despite this, enthusiastic claims about the technology should not be considered utterly absurd. The technology and its applications just need a bit more time, testing and evaluation to enter into our everyday lives.</p>
<p>Over the last decade, museums and other cultural institutions around the world have constituted one of the most exciting test-beds for 3D printing. This is probably driven by the nature of objects and sites which cultural institutions study, collect and display. Given their fragility and historical importance, collection objects cannot be touched and are normally exhibited to people behind enclosed glass displays. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264887/original/file-20190320-93054-as8u4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The traditional way of engaging with cultural heritage: through glass.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-england-october-2018-interior-hall-1313219309">aaabbbccc/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Please touch</h2>
<p>But this is changing. One of the most well-known digital fabrication projects is the replica of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, made by the company <a href="http://www.factum-arte.com/">Factum Arte</a>. The replica – or facsimile, as the company calls it – allows tourists to experience the inside of the King’s tomb without harming the original burial site. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the American Museum of Natural History <a href="https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/education-posts/students-use-3d-printing-to-reconstruct-dinosaurs">has asked students</a> to digitise, print and assemble dinosaur bones and identify species like palaeontologists do, and the MediaLab of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has created <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/digital-underground/2015/edible-met">edible replicas</a> of museum artefacts from ingredients like chocolate, cheese and rice for visitors to enjoy through taste.</p>
<p>And in January, Google’s Arts and Culture institute, the non-profit organisation CyArk and the American 3D printing manufacturer Stratasys announced an extended collaboration on the <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/project/cyark">Open Heritage</a> project. They aim to bring important monuments and artefacts around the world to life by physically producing <a href="http://blog.stratasys.com/2019/01/30/3d-printed-realism-from-stratasys-helps-bring-ancient-artifacts-to-life/">small-scale versions</a> of cultural heritage sites. </p>
<p>All of these examples demonstrate the breadth of 3D printing applications in cultural heritage. Some deployments might seem unusual. Others might spark discussions about the originality of artwork compared to “fake” reproductions or about the right to capture and widely distribute 3D printable models of museum artefacts online. Nonetheless, they all seem to contribute to the same quest: enabling people to learn, enjoy and better appreciate cultural heritage through multi-sensory experiences.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1072176800560791553"}"></div></p>
<h2>The power of replicas</h2>
<p>Of course, replicas have long been produced. Copies of museum objects to touch have been made for centuries using traditional methods. After all, the material aspect of objects has a key role in our ability to perceive and understand the world through meaningful experiences. Being able to touch, explore the shape, feel the weight and even smell the replica of an artefact has the potential to transform cultural heritage experiences. In reality, these connections are the closest that most people could ever have with heritage objects.</p>
<p>What is new about digitally-fabricated replicas is that they can be extremely accurate with regards to the shape of the original – the reproduction process uses, among other means, high-tech laser scanners. The power of digitally fabricated replicas also lies in their digital nature. This means they can easily be stored, edited and shared across the world. </p>
<p>People interested in cultural heritage can access these digital replicas, for example from museum websites, and print them at home or at a nearby Fablab on a desktop 3D printer. Most importantly, these digital representations can also be easily manipulated or customised to satisfy different audience requirements under different interpretation scenarios.</p>
<h2>Overcoming barriers</h2>
<p>Given the variety of applications and the popularity of the technology, exploring the way people perceive replicas and relate to them is therefore becoming more crucial. In <a href="https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/postgraduate-research-degrees/research-students/myrsini-samaroudi.aspx">our research</a>, we seek to illuminate an audience’s connections with the physicality of replicas. Only by analysing these connections will we be able to design and produce the best possible replicas and activities to satisfy the needs of the audience.</p>
<p>Our research examines the potential of replicas to engage diverse audiences of cultural institutions. For example, visually impaired people can now experience custom-made replicas of objects to enhance their understanding of historical artefacts. </p>
<p>When testing a 3D printed relief of a Victorian environmental display from the Booth Museum in Brighton with visually impaired visitors, we discovered that people need particular guidance when navigating the relief and its individual shapes. Visually impaired people find complex forms more challenging to understand. Visitors also discussed the idea of realism, saying that they would like to have complementary material to touch, such as feathers. The existence of sound to complement the experience was also reported to be of great importance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264876/original/file-20190320-93060-sscq7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">3D printed puzzle of an Iron Age pot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Brighton Museum & Art Gallery</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition, when examining people’s interactions with 3D printed artefacts at the new Archaeology Gallery of the Brighton Museum, we observed that visitors were hesitant to touch replicas or try hands-on activities with replicas. Interestingly, it seems that some of the “no-touch” qualities of the original artefacts have been inherited by the replicas. In these cases, clear guidance, thoughtful design and audience motivation should make the replicas and the environments in which they are displayed as inviting as possible for visitors to interact with.</p>
<p>Despite the efforts of the cultural heritage sector, it seems that physical barriers are still raised between museum artefacts and people. And perhaps the learned mental barrier is greater than the physical one. But research and practice can find ways to overcome this legacy: one replica at a time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Museums are experimenting with 3D printed replicas of artefacts – meaning that the public can get closer to cultural heritage than ever.
Myrsini Samaroudi, PhD Candidate, University of Brighton
Karina Rodriguez Echavarria, Principal Lecturer, University of Brighton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103925
2018-10-02T13:55:28Z
2018-10-02T13:55:28Z
How the humanities can equip students for the fourth industrial revolution
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238442/original/file-20180928-48653-n3qtif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A humanities degree can open people's minds in the fourth industrial revolution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The term “<a href="https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab">fourth industrial revolution</a>” is understood in various ways. Some people are excited about it. Others are cautious. Some assume it means that technology and robots will take over every human activity. And still others imagine that this “revolution” will lead only to joblessness and automation.</p>
<p>There are also those who are sceptical and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/there-s-no-such-thing-as-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-a7441966.html%20and%20insist%20that">insist</a> it’s no revolution at all. They argue that it’s just an improvement and fusion of various technologies – like artificial intelligence and 3D printing – and acceleration in productivity. </p>
<p>In all these instances, the interaction of technology with humans and humans with technology is underestimated. The emphasis on interaction is key to understanding the fourth industrial revolution. And this epoch will, like all times of change, require universities to push the boundaries of teaching and learning. </p>
<p>Universities will need to ensure that students are equipped with approaches to learning that involve agility, adaptability and curiosity. It will be a challenge for us all. </p>
<p>The fourth industrial revolution will also raise many questions for universities to consider. What needs to shift in how lecturers teach and how students learn and will be learning? What does the blurring of the lines between the physical, digital and technological mean for social relationships and for student learning? What do these shifts mean for different countries? Is learning in an environment with peers (virtually or in a class) better than learning online?</p>
<p>In seeking answers, societies must create the space to have conversations across social, academic, industry and community boundaries. The purpose of these conversations is to determine priority areas that need to be improved by the rapid technological changes we are currently experiencing as well as thinking about how we redefine the human condition. </p>
<p>Universities have a crucial role to play in these conversations. And a humanities education has a lot to offer when it comes to preparing students for the fourth industrial revolution.</p>
<h2>Harnessing the humanities</h2>
<p>A humanities education inculcates the importance of reflecting on the vast array of methodological and societal issues that arise from any practices. These include the technological and computational practices that underpin the fourth industrial revolution.</p>
<p>Critical thinking, debating and creative problem solving are taught in the humanities. This kind of critical orientation allows students to explore the complex human-to-human relations and the <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2017/2017-09/human-vs-machine.html">human to robotic relations</a> that we are already encountering and that will become ever more common.</p>
<p>This isn’t to suggest that <em>only</em> the humanities are relevant. Cross-disciplinary communities of researchers and educators matter and will matter now more than ever. </p>
<p>This is particularly true in South Africa where the education system hasn’t provided for the breaking down of boundaries between the sciences, let alone between the disciplines in the humanities. Collectively we will need to do more when it comes to drawing on approaches from various disciplines, which will allow for quantitative reasoning, problem solving and systems thinking that are socially relevant. </p>
<p>Such partnerships are already happening in small pockets, and are yielding promising results.</p>
<h2>Collaborating and mutuality</h2>
<p>For instance, the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg collaborates with the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment to offer a <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/digital-arts/undergraduate/game-design-/">joint undergraduate programme</a> that meshes engineering with arts to make a programme in game design and digital arts. </p>
<p>Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Engineering students work alongside each other in courses that are team-taught to design innovative high tech games. It’s not all fun: games, after all, are a means of challenging ourselves, controlling outcomes, competing, and figuring out successful strategies of doing things. </p>
<p>Students from this programme draw on a variety of skills like problem solving, inferential thinking and visualisation. They have produced games that are frequently downloaded from various app stores.</p>
<p>Similarly, the university’s faculties of science and humanities offer a postgraduate programme on <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/course-finder/postgraduate/humanities/e-science/">e-Science</a> or Data Science. The programme brings together science and humanities students and staff to work on complex, big data problems. They’re also taught to think of ways to visualise and communicate this information and to question the predictive powers of big data. </p>
<p>Students are exposed to various interdisciplinary approaches like statistical computing and modelling, data visualisation, text analysis, and geographical information systems. Master of Arts students take courses in data privacy and ethics alongside MSc students. This course is team-taught and students engage with complex problems from two or more science and humanities disciplines.</p>
<p>These and other examples of innovative teaching and learning help to disrupt the current techno talk that dominates conversations about the fourth industrial revolution. It’s essential that we bring our ideas to the fore and reshape the conversations in ways that resonate with who we are, where we are located and what this means for us and our futures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruksana Osman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
More innovative teaching and learning is needed to disrupt the current techno talk about the fourth industrial revolution.
Ruksana Osman, Professor and Dean of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79300
2017-07-24T10:34:22Z
2017-07-24T10:34:22Z
How activist artists on the US-Mexico border contest Donald Trump’s wall
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177839/original/file-20170712-15626-7213fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/15999598736/in/photolist-qnQ8hC-6XBaka-Sf8jgM-rvvoND-9115k-A8YBz-SFv2BY-zaMPxn-smRSkj-dFuWcC-4jBM1r-KUB4C-UbLULY-qZ2XEu-x3wns-gGm532-6iJWCW-voAWL-ps3npo-pGswgr-GGZ67-q5YhqX-faDX44-tWDkW-cWKkYu-gGkqHW-7ag5eW-tWDbu-35rCyQ-fDycrJ-2JQzLf-qoNTs9-qoNQaN-79WrQP-brJ62m-78ohfv-58gNQ-fzRNew-6SLiQm-7biuYV-aft764-qr5XLV-5bi8JQ-gGm3gr-7bntEw-6ZrG1Y-5MY3iq-9AbVek-4MxL5f-8vvE48">diversey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years we have seen a rise of what has been termed “artivism”: the bringing together of art and activism. Artivists see art as a social practice. They address particular societal concerns or inequalities and involve communities and activists, as well as other artists. For many of these artivists, new media technologies have provided particularly fruitful ways to engage in this. Different groups and collectives are variously promoting “<a href="http://geertlovink.org/texts/tactical-media-the-second-decade/">tactical media</a>”, “<a href="http://critical-art.net/siteapps/WordPress-49402/htdocs/books/ecd/">electronic civil disobedience</a>”, and “<a href="http://www.thing.net/%7Erdom/ucsd/3somesPlus/hacktivismcyberwars.pdf">hactivism</a>” as ways of employing digital technologies in order to make creative, artistic protests.</p>
<p>Some particularly interesting examples of these types of conjunctions of art, activism, and new media, have focused on the US-Mexico border region, a space which has come under increased scrutiny in recent months, particularly in the light of Trump’s infamous plans to build a wall between Mexico and the US. </p>
<p>As part of my ongoing research on digital art and activism in Latin America, I’ve looked at artists whose work has focused on the US-Mexico border. Some of the features that they highlight in their work make clear that the situation is a lot more complex than the “them/us” rhetoric that Trump uses – a rhetoric that it is extremely important to overcome. These artists make work that attempts to express a non-nation state identity and provide a critique of the late capitalist conditions of the border economy.</p>
<h2>Activist art</h2>
<p>There have been many festivals and interventions on the border, including the <a href="http://borderhack.org/">Borderhack</a> festivals that began in 2000, which aim to protest “the inequalities and dangerous conditions” that Mexican immigrants face. There is also the <a href="https://www.marktribe.net/tijuana-calling/">Tijuana Calling</a> online exhibition, which makes use of new media technologies to explore the concerns of the border, and to investigate the ways in which technologies – often put to use to police these very borders – may be re-encoded in a resistant fashion.</p>
<p>One such work is “<em>Turista Fronterizo</em>”, made in collaboration between Cuban-American performance and multimedia artist Coco Fusco and media hactivist Ricardo Domínguez. Turista Fronterizo takes the format of an electronic board game, loosely similar to the Monopoly format, but with the properties spaced along the San Diego-Tijuana border.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176036/original/file-20170628-5101-1h8gn09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turista Fronterizo (2005), Coco Fusco and Ricardo Domínguez.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image reproduced courtesy of Coco Fusco.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When we play the game – which can be done <a href="https://www.thing.net/%7Ecocofusco/StartPage.html">online</a> – by moving our avatar to a new square, a short animation appears in the centre of the board commenting on the socio-political realities associated with each particular location. These avatars frequently make reference to real-life controversies, disputes and human rights abuses that have taken place within the border region. This is a work that encourages us to critique the structural inequalities of the border economy, and to take an active, critical position.</p>
<p>Another example is the work of Latino artist Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga. His recent project, A Geography of Being (2012), is an interactive installation consisting of a video game along with sculptures that contain electronic circuits that react to the game. Far from drawing the user into a purely ludic, pleasurable world, this game encourages them to reflect on social issues. It narrates the experiences of undocumented young immigrants in the US – young people who enter the US in search of better life opportunities. The game positions the player in the role of an undocumented youth who needs to negotiate the virtual world and learn about the hardships that such young people face.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176037/original/file-20170628-7303-dnua2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Geography of Being (2012), Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image reproduced courtesy of Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps one of the most high-profile examples of the creative use of digital technologies to contest dominant neoliberal logic and enable cross-border identities is the <a href="https://post.thing.net/node/1642">Transborder Immigrant Tool</a> (2010). This is a mobile phone app that uses GPS to aid undocumented migrants to find sources of water when crossing the US-Mexico border, as well as showing the location of the nearest US Border Patrol stations and other landmarks on both sides of the border. Installed onto recycled mobile phones, and distributed free to migrants, the tool <a href="https://doi.org/10.1068/d10110">has been dubbed</a> a “virtual divining rod”. As well as providing practical support, the tool raises important issues about inequalities and access in the border region.</p>
<p>These artists often present the US-Mexico border as a continuous space. They emphasise that the US-Mexico border has a complex – if fraught – shared history, that doesn’t fit neatly into national borders.</p>
<h2>Protest politics</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most important role of these artists and activists is the way they often protest against the sorts of neoliberal policies imposed on the border region by the US. </p>
<p>It’s widely accepted that <a href="http://www.naftanow.org/">NAFTA</a>, the North American Free Trade Agreement has ensured the US access to an abundant supply of cheap labour south of the border. NAFTA has long been the subject of criticism by Mexican activists for its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215532529_Fifteen_Years_of_NAFTA_The_Impact_on_Rural_Mexico">devastation of the traditional Mexican rural economy</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, the reality of the border is that the US economy relies on a disavowed underclass of cheap Mexican labour. This labour comes from the same US policies, enacted through NAFTA, which drove Mexican peasants from their land, and created a disposed class who were forced to look for work in the <em>maquiladoras</em> – factories run by a foreign company exporting its products – so common on the border. The rhetoric of President Donald Trump, in which Mexicans (them) are coming to steal our jobs (us) is therefore much more complex than it appears.</p>
<p>In these ways, artists – both those living in the border regions and elsewhere – have been engaging creatively with border experiences for years. Their works provide a nuanced and complex take on what it is like to live in the border region, and encourage viewers to take a critical stance as regards the inequalities faced by many living there. </p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest indicator of the importance of their work is the reactions that they have generated. In 2010 for instance, three Republican congressmen called for an investigation of the Transborder Immigrant Tool, and Ricardo Domínguez was <a href="http://www.furtherfield.org/features/global-positioning-interview-ricardo-dominguez">threatened with loss of tenure</a> from University of California San Diego. Fortunately, Dóminguez remained in post, and his work, and that of other artivists, continues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Taylor has received grants from the AHRC and the ESRC.</span></em></p>
Activist art makes clear that the border dynamic is a lot more complex than Trumps’s ‘them/us’ rhetoric.
Claire Taylor, Professor in Hispanic Studies, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80480
2017-07-14T06:17:18Z
2017-07-14T06:17:18Z
Now is the summer of our discontent: memes, national identity and the globalisation of rage
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177834/original/file-20170712-14488-19lw3sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's the meme war all about?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/starwarsmeme/photos/a.460451397387301.1073741827.242542612511515/683439485088490/?type=3&theater">Star Wars Memes/Facebook</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Memes may be all the rage in these heady days of digital trending, but they’re not a new thing. Ever since Richard Dawkins coined the term in his popular 1976 book <a href="https://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199291152/braipick09-21">The Selfish Gene</a>, scientists have been putting memes under the microscope. </p>
<p>For Dawkins, memes were discrete <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iHZi-z7H4o">units of cultural inheritance</a> (gossip, images, fashion fads, catchphrases) that, by virtue of their rapid dissemination and adoption, drive cultural evolution, just as genes propel forth our biology. </p>
<p>In other words, memes can change the world with “likes” and “shares”.</p>
<h2>Global meme wars</h2>
<p>There’s even a field dedicated to their study: <a href="https://theconversation.com/memetics-and-the-science-of-going-viral-64416?sa=pg1&sq=meme&sr=5">memetics</a> considers how certain cultural artefacts go “viral”. Mentally and socially “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thought-Contagion-Aaron-Lynch/dp/0465084672">contagious</a>”, memes provide immediate, visual expressions of our common humanity as they jump from brain to brain. </p>
<p>Since memes are simplified versions of reality, their intended meaning can be easily subverted or simplified to serve a new political purpose. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29644591">Hitler’s appropriation of the sacred Hindu swastika</a>, which symbolised well-being, is a prime example. </p>
<p>Once the brain makes the memetic association, it’s next to impossible for it to restore the original content. What traveller doesn’t <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swastika-Symbol-Beyond-Redemption/dp/1581155077">think of the Nazis when they see swastikas</a> at holy sites across Southeast Asia?</p>
<p>This is how memes are helping to redraw the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable political discourse, particularly since the 2016 US presidential election, when <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-donald-trump-won-the-2016-meme-wars-68580">meme wars</a> raged between left and right. </p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>These online battles, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/business/how-a-cnn-investigation-set-off-an-internet-meme-war.html?mcubz=0">which continue today in America</a>, skewering everyone from the news network CNN to Trump supporters and Hillary enthusiasts, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-39534080/us-internet-warriors-send-racially-charged-symbols-to-france">came to France</a>, too, just in time for its 2017 election season.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-05/us-alt-right-meme-war-sway-french-election-failing">Memes failed to sway the French citizenry</a>, as several commentators have noted. But France’s meme wars demonstrated the transnational influence of the so-called “<a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/alt-right-trump-washington-dc-power-milo-214629">alt-right</a>” hate groups that managed to transform <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/pepe-the-frog">Pepe the Frog</a> into a racist mouthpiece and, in doing so, set a precedent for future memetic wars.</p>
<h2>The alt-right rises online</h2>
<p>The meme maelstrom is pushing us to rethink questions of national identity that have been with us for quite some time. </p>
<p>Since the Enlightenment, Western scholars have largely been sympathetic to the notion of an <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713669060?src=recsys">international, cosmopolitan identity</a> shared by a global citizenry. This was the view promoted in Martha Nussbaum’s 1994 essay on <a href="http://bostonreview.net/martha-nussbaum-patriotism-and-cosmopolitanism">cosmopolitan education</a>, in which she promotes the “embrace of humanity” wherever it is encountered, “undeterred by traits that are strange”, and an eagerness to “understand humanity in its ‘strange’ guises.” </p>
<p>That same year, Homi K. Bhabha’s <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Location-Culture-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415336392">Location of Culture</a> theorised that cosmopolitans inhabited a hybrid “third space”, comfortably in the interstice between two national cultures or passport identities.</p>
<p>The historian and anthropologist James Clifford, too, saw that Western identity was at a crossroads in the late 20th century. His <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674698437&content=reviews">Predicament of Culture</a> (1988) described modern identity as one that “is always, to varying degrees, ‘inauthentic’: caught between cultures, implicated in others”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GjOeZ2xk96Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>What these cultural critics missed as they gazed across the planet <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-series-globalisation-under-pressure-78056">at the height of globalisation</a> was that some elements then just barely on the horizon – including the pain and anger of a less privileged, untraveled, often rural electorate – would soon build serious momentum.</p>
<p>Nor did their visions include the digital advent of an array of anti-cosmopolitan provocateurs, from conservative intellectuals, hackers, reactionaries and anarchists to anti-Semites, fascists, Islamophobes and homophobes, who would eventually form the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-seeds-of-the-alt-right-americas-emergent-right-wing-populist-movement-69036">alt-right</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-help-kids-navigate-fake-news-and-misinformation-online-79342">Fake news</a> and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-dank-memes-that-are-disrupting-politics">dark memes</a> are not limited to the West, nor to any one political leaning, of course. Many other democracies, some of them secular, are struggling with their own multicultural identities. </p>
<p>The disenfranchised of the world don’t celebrate their global citizenship; they take their <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14781150802659390">political rage</a> to the internet. The Arab world is grappling with <a href="http://time.com/magazine/us/4457098/august-29th-2016-vol-188-no-8-u-s/">online calls to jihadism</a>, and India with violent nationalism that has spawned a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-lynching-the-new-normal-in-india-80415">wave of Hindu attacks on Muslims</a>.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/">Reddit</a> to <a href="http://boards.4chan.org/pol/">4Chan</a>, the anti-cosmopolitans can voice their <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/politicallyincorrect/">anti-establishment views</a> anonymously loosening or dispatching entirely with the straitjacket of political correctness. </p>
<p>All of this reflects what author Pankaj Mishra calls the “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2016-10-17/globalization-rage">globalisation of rage</a>”.
His new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-Anger-Pankaj-Mishra/dp/024129939X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=P84KJESH62WE030VRCCG">Age of Anger</a>, explores the paranoia, hatred, and pain of those who remain beyond the reach of liberal cosmopolitanism. </p>
<p>Triggered by the influx of new and diverse populations, the conservative instinct <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.html?mcubz=0">seeks out familiarity and attempts to ward off foreignness</a> more intensely than the average. Now, thanks to memes and social media, these defensive impulses can spiral outward much faster, and hit a lot harder. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177923/original/file-20170712-19638-winbfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.georgianjournal.ge/entertainment/30676-shopped-photos-of-angela-merkel-talking-to-barack-obama-take-the-internet-by-storm.html?slcont=5">Georgian Journal</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Free speech or hate speech?</h2>
<p>The use of memes to promote hate complements more traditional forms of communication, such as physical poster boards, signage and advertising. We can see their confluence at universities around the globe.</p>
<p>In May 2017, leaders of an <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/watch-alleged-stellies-nazi-poster-spokesperson-silenced-9068818">Anglo-Afrikaaner</a> student group at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University updated, in meme-like fashion, old <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39871059">Nazi propaganda posters</a> to publicise their group.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"862307042438066176"}"></div></p>
<p>Spurring a debate on privacy, free speech and social media, the college <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/business/technology/the-college-meme-wars-trend-explained/2017/06/05/0c130720-4a1d-11e7-987c-42ab5745db2e_video.html">meme war</a> has even gone Ivy League, a surprising twist in the narrative of the dispossessed. </p>
<p>In June 2017, Harvard announced that it would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/05/harvard-withdraws-10-acceptances-for-offensive-memes-in-private-chat/?utm_term=.4f99f9bb782f">withdraw offers made to ten admitted freshmen</a> for starting a Class of 2021 Facebook group that promoted offensive memes that “mocked sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children”. </p>
<p>Harvard is not alone. Across the United States, college campuses are ablaze with the debate over what constitutes <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2017/04/21/431002/theres-world-difference-free-speech-hate-speech/">free speech versus hate speech</a>, demonstrating that we are not at the beginning of something new here, but rather well immersed already in a cultural identity war.</p>
<h2>Banalising evil</h2>
<p>Unlike Nussbaum and other cultural critics, American philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/">Richard Rorty</a> (1931-2007) foresaw the dangers of turning a blind eye to America’s underprivileged. In the 1990s, he envisioned an environment of “sadism[,] which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students, will come flooding back”. </p>
<p>Ten years after his death, Rorty’s dual predictions that “the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans and by homosexuals will be wiped out” and that “contempt for women will come back into fashion” <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-marching-worldwide-revive-a-long-sought-dream-global-feminism-71777">are now bearing out</a>.</p>
<p>While many of his contemporaries <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/advice-for-the-left-on-achieving-a-more-perfect-union/531054/">dismissed or ignored Rorty’s dire predictions</a>, philosopher Hannah Arendt had also foreseen these identity wars, as early as 1963. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"798647679932891136"}"></div></p>
<p>Dissecting the trail of war criminal Adolf Eichmann, Arendt observed the systemic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/hannah-arendt-adolf-eichmann-banality-of-evil">failure to think</a> among Nazis and their followers and concluded, famously, that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9780140187656">evil can easily be banalized</a>. </p>
<p>As we now know only too well, evil can easily become banal online, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Mielly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The term “meme” was coined in 1976. Today, these cultural artefacts have gone viral, and are redrawing the boundaries of acceptable political discourse.
Michelle Mielly, Associate Professor in People, Organizations, Society, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80208
2017-06-28T11:55:48Z
2017-06-28T11:55:48Z
The iPhone at ten: mobile devices have opened a new era of tech storytelling
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176009/original/file-20170628-7339-123fvr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=731%2C5%2C2274%2C1482&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DisobeyArt / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are now <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/there-are-officially-more-mobile-devices-than-people-in-the-world-9780518.html">more mobile devices than people</a> on the planet. You only have to glance around on trains, in the street, or in cafes to see how increasingly lost we are in screen time. We don’t just hold our phones, we cradle them. </p>
<p>It is ten years since the iPhone’s release to the general public. And so now seems a perfect time to reconsider our love of technology.</p>
<p>I’m fascinated by our relationship with mobile phones, both past and present. Nokia has recently released <a href="https://theconversation.com/nokias-revised-3310-mobile-phone-is-the-latest-tech-to-target-retro-adopters-72270?sr=2">a new version of the classic Nokia 3310</a>. Originally launched in 2000, it was the company’s most successful phone, selling over <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/nokia-3310-review-2017-specs-uk-release-date">126 million units</a>. This technology nostalgia speaks of simpler times when a phone was a phone, not a computer; when we weren’t tethered to our workplace. A time when we met the gaze of others rather than the ever constant glow of our interactive screens. </p>
<p>Our phones track, trace and archive our lives almost seamlessly. We’re leaving increasingly complex trails of messages, updates and other bits of our life stories online. We have access to a seemingly infinite archive of our emotional pasts. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/im-moving-to-spain-now-online-memoirs-are-being-created-from-life-defining-texts-25063?sr=1">I’ve written previously</a>, this is something that I am particularly aware of. One morning I found an old Nokia at the back of a kitchen drawer, and scrolling through its inbox I realised I’d unwittingly archived a three-year text message dialogue between my son’s father and me: a relationship that unfolded in just 100 texts and told the story of how we met, dated for just a few months, broke up and subsequently dealt with an unplanned pregnancy. His last and final text message read: “I’m Moving to Spain.”</p>
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<p>I recently bought this story to life in <a href="https://vimeo.com/189536800">160 Characters</a>, a smartphone short I filmed and directed for <a href="http://filmlondon.org.uk/160-characters">Film London</a>. It is currently <a href="https://www.picturehouses.com/cinema/Crouch_End_Picturehouse/film/docheads-the-past-in-the-present">playing at Picturehouse Cinemas</a> across London. The film explores the consequences of our access to our past. It aims to capture the challenges and limitations of early digital dialogues, to explore the space between words, the pauses, the moments in which I struggled to compress big emotions into what was then a 160 character message limit.</p>
<p>My own text message thread was just 100 texts, sent over three years. Now, my teenage niece can send 100 texts before lunchtime, on a phone that enables her to share these dialogues with the rest of the world. And so I decided to use my iPhone as a tool to explore the present as well as the past. I shot all the contemporary sequences on my iPhone 6, filming at the London locations where I sent or received the original text thread. Stories and relationships that were originally mediated through mobile phones were bought to life using the latest in smartphone production techniques.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176012/original/file-20170628-7313-adtdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Big question from 160 Characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Victoria Mapplebeck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The digital traces we leave behind us create a wealth of data about our lives, an ever evolving archive which creates a map of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Over the last decade many directors and artists have attempted to capture the emotional subtext of mobile phone dialogues, to convert the vernacular of digital dialogues and interactive screens into great drama. When writing a screenplay, once hidden text messages can reveal the secret lives of the central characters.</p>
<p>This has resulted in an evolving genre of films, TV and artworks which reflect our ever changing relationship to technology. The BBC series <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-to-sherlocks-success-at-the-emmys-30947">Sherlock</a> and Charlie Brooker’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/">Black Mirror</a> are just two obvious examples of the ways in which cinema and TV have been influenced by the aesthetics and affordances of mobile media. The other night I enjoyed two such dramas back to back: BBC drama documentary <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08w29jm">Theresa vs Boris: How May became PM</a> and Channel 4’s <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/ackley-bridge">Ackley Bridge</a>, which both featured text dialogues between the central characters. </p>
<p>There are also some interesting and experimental shorts that have evolved from this genre, such as Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman’s <a href="https://vimeo.com/65935223">Noah</a> or Trim Lamda’s <a href="https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/02/11/cracked-screen-snapchat-story/">Cracked Screen: A Snapchat Story</a></p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/65935223" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Our mobile phone has become like a time machine: it connects us with our past, our present and our future. The past is always with us, in the phones we cradle. The digital traces we leave behind us create a wealth of data about our lives, an archive of stories which artists and filmmakers will continue to capture and preserve. </p>
<p>We’re at the dawn of a new genre of technological storytelling which will continue to explore how we can collect, curate and share stories from our digital past. As technology continues to evolve, so too will representations of the increasingly complex ways in which emotions and technology converge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Mapplebeck received funding from Film London.</span></em></p>
We don’t just hold our phones, we cradle them – and make films like this one with them.
Victoria Mapplebeck, Reader in Digital Arts, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/57631
2016-06-03T04:39:00Z
2016-06-03T04:39:00Z
Computing gives an artist new tools to be creative
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122808/original/image-20160517-15920-167id3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Creating images with fractals thanks to a computer program.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cornishdave/4907132541/">Flickr/cornishdave</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The latest in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/computing-turns-60">Computing turns 60</a> series, to mark the 60th anniversary of the first computer in an Australian university, looks at how the emerging technology helped unleash the imagination of creative artists.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The greatest tool of artists is their imagination but it is limited by their knowledge (try imagining something you don’t know). But the diversity computing offers may address this problem.</p>
<p>For the creative artist, computers supply three basic tools: access to information, software, and new ways to interact.</p>
<p>In 1945, the American engineer and inventor <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/">Vannevar Bush</a> predicted a world where:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, information at the click of a finger can expand the artist’s imagination, letting them know about the existence of things they may never have found.</p>
<p>In 1949, Australia got <a href="https://museumvictoria.com.au/csirac/index.aspx">CSIRAC</a>, its first computer, and in 1951 it played the world’s first computer <a href="http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/">music</a>, preceding the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-never-before-told-story-of-the-worlds-first-computer-art-its-a-sexy-dame/267439/">first computer image</a> by five years.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RocLdMyUG-4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Computer animation followed in the 1960s (see video, above) and computer music <a href="http://www.doornbusch.net/chronology/">developed apace</a>. Over the past 60 years, the creative capacity and availability of computers has developed faster than any other creative tool in history.</p>
<p>This has had three main effects: anyone with the right software can be creative; the tool is constantly evolving; and it is difficult to develop tradition or generational history, as aesthetic and conceptual paradigms are constantly subverted by the newest tools.</p>
<h2>Software</h2>
<p>In the arts, computers have a variety of uses, based on software, that range from implementing the artist’s ideas to creating ideas.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://www.avid.com/">Avid</a> and word processing software suites represent the artist’s ideas. While they offer convenient ways to test ideas, they mostly implement the artist’s imagination, and are based on pre-computer processes.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jrnJKS7XREo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.1manband.nl/omb.htm">OneManBand</a> and <a href="http://www.pgmusic.com/">Band-in-a-Box</a> help make artworks using generative algorithms that semi-independently create, based on the artists input therefore contributing to the creative outcome.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/">AARON</a> and <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/experiments.htm">Experiments in Musical Intelligence</a> extend this by independently creating new artworks based on historic approaches and/or the artists input. These tools collaborate under the artist’s instruction.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Ecema/nodal/">Nodal</a>, <a href="http://www.generativemusic.com/bloom.html">Bloom</a>, <a href="http://weavesilk.com/">Silk</a> and <a href="http://www.contextfreeart.org/index.html">Context Free</a> offer new ways of <a href="https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPX0SCl7OzWilt9LnuQliattX4OUCj_8EP65_cTVnBmS1jnYgsGQAieQUc1VQWdgQ?key=aVBxWjhwSzg2RjJWLWRuVFBBZEN1d205bUdEMnhB">seeing</a>, and <a href="http://research.it.uts.edu.au/creative/eae/intart/pdfs/generative-art.pdf">generating</a> artworks.</p>
<p><a href="https://cycling74.com/">Max</a> and <a href="https://puredata.info/">PureData</a> integrate audio and vision, and programming languages such as <a href="https://processing.org/">Processing</a> and <a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> allow artists to create bespoke expressive tools. These <a href="http://blog.hvidtfeldts.net/index.php/generative-art-links/">generative</a> tools are often used as creative, albeit somewhat independent, collaborators in art making.</p>
<p><a href="https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source">Open source-</a> and <a href="http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/documents/FLOSS+Art.pdf">FLOSS-based (meaning free software and open source software)</a> approaches offer tools artists can make and remake themselves or with help from a large, collaborative community.</p>
<p>Computing is used extensively for scheduling sound and visual effects in the performing arts, often created in the programs above. 3D animation programs are used in visualising choreography or blocking in drama performances, but are rarely used to generate new creative outcomes, <a href="http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=15088">Merce Cunningham</a> being an occasional exception.</p>
<p>But it is possible to computer-generate cohesive <a href="http://www.500letters.org/">text (follow the link “this application”)</a> that can be used in developing work.</p>
<p>This list is cursory, indicating the main approaches to computers in the arts. These may merge at their edges, and by being responsive, contributory, or generative, range from proto/mesa-creative to meta-creative tools.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119927/original/image-20160424-22383-17kcknx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Level of computer contribution to the creative artists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roger Alsop</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interaction</h2>
<p>Computers can blend things that may not have any obvious relationships, and can make real things not thought of, or thought possible, such as using <a href="http://www.avatar.com.au/papers/sonicArticulationOfMarketData.pdf">sound to track share trades</a>.</p>
<p>The artist may experience what was previously unimaginable, and be able to share it with their audience. The potential diversity of expression through computer programs and processes available puts the artist in an enviable position.</p>
<p>Current computer systems also make it possible for the audience to <a href="http://www.scenocosme.com/creation_e.htm">co-create the experience</a> of an artwork, more than ever before, creating works the artist may not have imagined.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IuygOYZ1Ngo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Computer creativity is very diverse. Computer-generated <a href="https://www.nextrembrandt.com/">Rembrandt</a>, <a href="http://fractalarts.com/ASF/Tutor1.html">fractal art</a> and <a href="http://www.ams.org/mathimagery/thumbnails.php?album=45">mathematical art</a> are examples of meta-creative computers making beautiful and fascinating images, indicating new ways to understand <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/r/x/rxm10/artists/pdf/pollock.pdf">Jackson Pollock’s</a> work.</p>
<p>Similar processes have been used in the creation of <a href="http://www.auralfractals.net/demo-songs/">music</a> and images in many styles.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u9VMfdG873E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Warning: this will eat ten hours of your life if you watch it all.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://imagination-engines.com/iei_pcai.php">Machines that imagine</a> can provide a process for completely original outcomes with minimal human contribution.</p>
<p>To stand out, the human artist must be more creative, diversified and willing to take aesthetic and intellectual risks. They can, and must, know the field they are creating in practically and philosophically, and confidence in their position and contribution to it is essential. </p>
<p>Their work is seen in an almost infinite universal context. Comparisons are easily drawn, and their field is in constant flux. Uniqueness is almost impossible, yet novelty is anticipated and valued.</p>
<p>Computer systems offer ways to create but can retard creativity. Many artists believe that the next tool will improve their art; this is particularly problematic in music. </p>
<p>But while new immersive technologies such as the <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us">Hololens</a> or <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/06/microsofts-roomalive-turns-your-living-room-into-a-holodeck/">RoomAlive</a> offer new tools, they also require new ways of considering art thinking and art making.</p>
<p>Artists inhabit a most fertile time, with new possibilities crowding the horizon. They should, as always, use that fertility to enhance culture and society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Alsop receives funding from Melbourne Univesity. He is affiliated with Melbourne University and Box Hill Institute. </span></em></p>
The greatest tool of artists is their imagination but throw in a computer and things never imagined become possible.
Peter Roger Alsop, Research and RHD Coordinator & Lecturer in Sound, Production, Lecturer in Interactive Art Media, VCA., The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/56365
2016-03-22T19:38:06Z
2016-03-22T19:38:06Z
Ten cool applications for virtual reality that aren’t just games
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115763/original/image-20160321-30935-1yakicj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virtual reality is improving in leaps and bounds.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When you mention virtual reality (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/virtual-reality">VR</a>), most people’s thoughts turn to video games. Indeed, Sony has just announced its new <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-au/explore/playstation-vr/">Playstation VR</a> headset. But VR isn’t just about gaming. There are many other interesting and exciting uses for VR.</p>
<p>Education is a prime candidate for VR applications. Imagine immersing a student entirely into another world. One such is the <a href="http://www.roadtovr.com/world-of-comenius-education-interaction-virtual-reality-oculus-rift-leap-motion/">World of Comenius</a>, named after a 17th Century Czech teacher, John Amos Comenius. It enables students to learn about anatomy and to drill down into the various parts and systems of the human body. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-W18BylZk6o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video about Comenius educational software.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile in Japan, in the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/tsunami">tsunami</a>, researchers at <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/vr-preparedness-5-years-after-japanese-disaster/">Aichi University of Technology</a> are working on a VR simulation that will actually train people to cope with a similar disaster.</p>
<p>There is also great news for artists, as 3D drawing and painting are becoming a reality. <a href="https://storystudio.oculus.com/en-us/">Oculus Story Studio</a> is working on software that will allow an artist using a VR Headset and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/haptics">haptic devices</a> to take digital art to a new level.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K_rLAfvxn6g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Oculus Story Studio Art Software.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a similar vein, HTC is bringing out Google’s 3D painting app, <a href="http://www.tiltbrush.com/">Tilt Brush</a>, to the <a href="https://www.htcvive.com/anz/">HTC Vive</a> VR headset.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EYY-DZ14i9E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">HTC Tilt Brush review.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Deep therapy</h2>
<p>On a more serious side, VR can help with problems such as depression, post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. An <a href="http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/02/15/Virtual-reality-treatment-helps-depression-patients-in-study/4601455543019/">early study</a> has shown promise in using VR to treat depression.</p>
<p>Researchers are also looking at whether VR can improve the experience of being in hospital, and even undergoing a medical procedure. In one the latest studies, the Cedars Sinai hospital in the US has been <a href="http://vrworld.com/2016/02/16/cedars-sinai-hospital-adopts-virtual-reality/">testing the use of VR</a> with patients, and the results seem promising. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0pizYFG8F3A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cedars Sinai Hospital VR experiment.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>VR might also help relieve the tedium of flying, especially on long haul flights. One French airline, XL airways, <a href="http://www.stereoscopynews.com/hotnews/3d-technology/vr-ar/4228-enjoy-3d-vr-during-fly">is looking to introduce VR</a> into its planes on a trial basis. </p>
<p>The technology is provided by a company called <a href="http://www.skylights.aero/">Skylights</a> and could soon become a common feature in air travel. So instead of being on a plane, you could be enjoying the sights and sounds of some virtual venue or exploring your destination, all in full 3D.</p>
<p>VR is also entering the world of sport, not only being used for games but for actually training athletes, as in the case of <a href="http://abc7news.com/technology/virtual-reality-technology-helping-football-players-master-the-game/1182990/">American Football players</a>. VR allows a quarterback to test their reactions to certain plays and situations over and over again without actually having to go onto the football field. these skills then translate into performance on the field. </p>
<p>When talking VR applications, sex often comes up. While the obvious ideas will become part of the VR offerings, such as with virtual strip clubs, one firm is investing in the technology as a form of sexual therapy. This includes devices where that can <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/01/28/virtual-reality-sex-life/">“improve your sex life”</a> with the help of their VR experience.</p>
<h2>Walk among the pixels</h2>
<p>On a more staid topic, architects and designers are looking to VR to allow them to do a <a href="http://www.startribune.com/virtual-reality-brings-architect-s-blueprints-to-life/366269581/">virtual walk through</a> of a building, and thus iron out any problems and design changes before the foundations go down. </p>
<p>There are also some groundbreaking moves afoot with regard to film making using VR. A number of VR projects are already underway and have been featured at the <a href="http://www.sundance.org/festivals/sundance-film-festival/program/NFF-guide">Sundance Film Festival</a>. </p>
<p>The way the viewer perceives and interacts with the story in VR can be very different to the experience of film on a flat screen. The clip below discusses a story about a hedgehog called “Henry” and how the viewer can react in very different ways to the encounter.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/51ECD0-CV9o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">All about Henry the Hedghog.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even the news may be portrayed in a new way using VR. Some news organisations are already investing in 360-degree news videos, which can be viewed on a normal screen. Nonny de la Pena, a journalist, <a href="http://www.immersivejournalism.com/">explains</a> how her projects are aimed at taking viewers right into real life simulations of situations using VR.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zsLz0mRmEG0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Nona de la Pena TED Talk.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Virtual reality is still in its early experimental days. Which of these applications will become mainstream is an open question. But what is more certain is that gaming is just the tip of the immersive iceberg.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr David Evans Bailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From education to sport to sex, virtual reality has dozens of applications, and we’re only just scratching the surface of its potential today.
Dr David Evans Bailey, PhD Student in Virtual Reality, Auckland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53526
2016-02-01T13:00:22Z
2016-02-01T13:00:22Z
Why we need to remember how to forget
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109486/original/image-20160128-3058-1ui954z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Three US neuroscientists published a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13554790500473680">case study</a> in 2005 detailing how a woman, AJ, was plagued by memories of her own life and of public events such as the dates of death of Elvis and Princess Diana. The discussion of AJ’s memory never mentions it, but it seemed clear to me that her overactive remembering was structured like our digital biographies – personal “moments”, as Twitter like to call them, tagged to Wikipedia facts. The researchers named this case “hyperthymestic syndrome”, from the Greek <em>thymesis</em>, remembering.</p>
<p>AJ’s situation may indeed be remarkable, but it’s clear that we all live in this age of hyperthymesis. Memory has become prosthetic – outsourced to the internet, to external hard drive or cloud storage system. What should we remember? What should be preserved? The paradox of the digital future is the burden of the past that we are constantly archiving.</p>
<p>Theatre offers a particularly pressing case study. Because theatre is a live medium – subject to the vagaries and imperfections of the moment – it is perhaps the art most similar to life. Therefore its particular attitude to archiving and to memory has wider implications. <a href="http://artsdigitalrnd.org.uk">Industry statistics</a> show the increasing importance to theatres of digitally preserving and archiving live content. Some 78% of theatres digitally preserve and archive their productions by capturing their live productions and make them available online. </p>
<p>In this archival process, the word “live” is under some pressure. “Live” streaming of theatrical events into cinemas is morphing towards designing productions specifically for the camera rather than the theatre audience; routine “encore” showings now make clear that those formerly “live” events are in fact recorded; DVD productions advertised as “recorded live” bring out the paradox. “Recorded live” might summarise human existence in the digital age. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109490/original/image-20160128-3039-1mknepc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not quite the same on screen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Padmayogini / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Looking over a similar revolution in representational technologies, Walter Benjamin observed that “even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be”. Perhaps theatre is the art form that has most retained what Benjamin calls “aura” – that unique existence within time and space – but the implications of “recorded live” make clear how much that is changing. The availability of recorded theatre online has increased substantially over the past 18 months: it won’t be long before almost all theatre productions are available online. </p>
<p>Writing about a similar process in the area of pop music, Simon Reynolds suggests in his book <a href="http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk">Retromania</a> that contemporary music is clogged up with retromania, the endlessly easy online availability of its past. In his words, “history must have a dustbin, or history will be a dustbin, a gigantic, sprawling garbage heap”. So much of our discussion about the future potential of the digital sphere is how it will better enable us to preserve the past. The paradox is clear: the defining characteristic of being human in the digital age is that of being overwhelmed by the past – and the threat to our creative present and future is that the past becomes too omnipresent for us to move forward. Enter the creative potential of forgetting. </p>
<p>The so-called right to be forgotten is usually discussed as part of the rights of the rehabilitation of offenders. But what I want to suggest here is that the right to be digitally forgotten should be extended. Rather than always looking to record and archive we might want to reinstate the idea that being “live” demands impermanence, ephemerality and forgetting. The best theatrical experiences are the ones we have half-forgotten, where the subjective highlights have crystallised in inauthentic and highly personal tableaux of remembrance. Forgetting – or half-remembering – is the way we collude with art to make it our own. We construct our own “highlights package” that is unique to our own often faulty memories of an experience.</p>
<p>Changes in expectations of the theatrical medium are symptoms of a wider phenomenon: the deadening hand of recording everything for posterity. We don’t have time to watch all this stuff now, so why should the future? It’s not only those things we regret that might have the right to be forgotten. My academic work is on Shakespeare – perhaps it’s because we have allowed ourselves to forget how Shakespeare’s plays looked in the 16th century that we are still able to perform them 400 years later. </p>
<p>Remembering, not forgetting, is the enemy of creative reinvention. Not everything that is live should be recorded.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Smith has held a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship, funded by the University of Oxford, with the Royal Shakespeare Company. </span></em></p>
Memory has become prosthetic – outsourced to the internet. But remembering, not forgetting, is the enemy of creative reinvention.
Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53894
2016-01-29T14:14:04Z
2016-01-29T14:14:04Z
When the internet got nasty: art on the electronic superhighway
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109659/original/image-20160129-3883-ys29km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aristarkh Chernyshev, Loading, 2007.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Whitechapel Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How has the internet changed art? It is this ambitious question that an exhibition enticingly named <a href="http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/about/press/electronic-superhighway/">Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966)</a> at the Whitechapel Gallery in London sets out to answer. </p>
<p>The exhibition takes you through a reverse chronology of major digital and internet-themed artworks. We begin in the present before being transported along a helter-skelter tour into the past, all the way back to 1967 when Bell Laboratory began sponsoring <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/experiments-in-art-and-technology">collaborations between artists and technologists</a>. These collaborations coincided with the birth of the internet. In 1968 the first packet switching network, ARPANET, went online, and formed the technological foundation of the modern internet. </p>
<p>The show is remarkable in its breadth. Its historical journey encourages reflection on the rapidly accelerating development of our information-heavy society and its social, economic and political consequences. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109658/original/image-20160129-3883-1hms4ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amalia Ulman, Excellences & Perfections (Instagram Update, 18th June 2014), 2015.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition begins with the most banal of images: a blown up picture of a female bottom with SMS bubbles streaming out of it. Olaf Breuning’s <em>Text Butt</em> is quite literally talking out of its arse, perhaps a cheeky riposte to the art critics assembled before it. It’s also an immediate reminder that though the culture of the internet is increasingly celebrated as art, most of it remains trivial. </p>
<p>Banality is a running theme through many of the contemporary pieces in the opening section of the exhibition – James Bridle’s airport-style hologram, <em>Homo Sacer</em>, for example, drones out the securocratic bromides of the national security state. Of course, this also begins to suggest a darker side to the mundaneness of our technological age. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109655/original/image-20160129-3876-ar22e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Douglas Coupland, Deep Face, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Whitechapel Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Douglas Coupland, renowned author of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/sep/11/book-club-generation-x-douglas-coupland">Generation X</a>, and Trevor Paglen, famed for his long-exposure <a href="https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/new-photos-of-nsa-and-others/">photographs</a> of NSA facilities, develop that darker side still further with ruminations on the corporate and state surveillance of the internet. <em>Deep Face</em>, Coupland’s series of portraits with the faces blocked out by Mondrian-like abstractions, are a protest (we are told) against Facebook’s development of facial recognition software. Paglen highlights both the problem of, and solution to, state surveillance. His map of NSA-tapped undersea internet cables hangs behind his Autonomy Cube, a working Wi-Fi hotspot that routes all traffic through the anonymous Tor network.</p>
<p>As you make your way back in time through the exhibition it is striking how the paranoia and banality inspired by the internet of today contrasts with the early optimism that initially greeted it. This retrospective view encourages reflection upon the broken promises and lost opportunities for social and political change that the early Utopian impulse of an interconnected world conveyed. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109654/original/image-20160129-3888-ylmi25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nam June Paik, Internet Dream, 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Whitechapel Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fulcrum of the exhibit sets two works against each other to bring this home. The technological sublime of Nam June Paik’s 1994 video installation <em>Internet Dream</em> contrasts sharply with the voyeuristic, even pornographic resonances of Jill Magid’s <em>Surveillance Shoe</em> (2000). Though only six years apart, an epoch divides them. The former was created amid the boom years of the world wide web’s still nascent emergence. The latter was produced during the bursting of the dot-com bubble that coincided with the early development of many of the tools (such as <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/u-s-never-really-ended-creepy-total-information-awareness-program/">Total Information Awareness</a>) that laid the foundations of the 21st-century surveillance state – a period and a subject dealt with masterfully by Thomas Pynchon in his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/28/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-review">latest novel</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109657/original/image-20160129-3898-idtkyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frieder Nake, Walk-Through-Raster Vancouver Version, 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Whitechapel Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Walk past Magid’s shoe and we’re back to the future of the internet’s innocent first decades. The final few rooms conjure the sense of discovery and possibility that the early internet rendered. Abstract experiments in technique and form by Tony Longson and Frieder Nake, among others, are indicative of that sense of possibility that came with the emergence of an entirely new medium. </p>
<p>One of the final exhibits is a poster of the 1968 <a href="http://cyberneticserendipity.net/">Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition</a>. Its slogans promise “happy chance discoveries” generated by the meeting of human and machine in an “exhibition demonstrating how man can use the computer and new technology to extend the scope of his creativity and inventiveness”. Despite its techno-futuristic design, its cheerful language and unfettered optimism about computational technology betray it as an ancient relic of a bygone age when sexting, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ashley-madison-breach-reveals-the-rise-of-the-moralist-hacker-44996">Ashley Madison hacks</a>, “<a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/24/gchq-tempora-101">Tempora</a>” mass surveillance programmes and all the detritus of our digital age were not foreseen. </p>
<p>Turn around and walk back through the exhibition – returning progressively to the present – and you experience the rapid evaporation of that “cybernetic meadow” <a href="http://allpoetry.com/All-Watched-Over-By-Machines-Of-Loving-Grace">described</a> by Richard Brautigan in 1967: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>where mammals and computers<br>
live together in mutually<br>
programming harmony<br>
like pure water<br>
touching clear sky.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109656/original/image-20160129-3910-12dpbax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Addie Wagenknecht, Asymetric Love, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Whitechapel Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leaving the exhibition I looked up and noticed Addie Wagenknecht’s steel chandelier of CCTV cameras watching over us, which I’d missed on the way in. And then just outside the gallery, on the short walk back to Aldgate tube station, I spotted a configuration of cameras as elaborate and evocative as any of the artworks I’d just seen. Only I wasn’t in the safe space of an art gallery anymore, I was back on the streets of one of the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533054/Britain-the-most-spied-on-nation-in-the-world.html">most surveilled cities on the planet</a>. </p>
<p>How has the internet changed art? Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the internet has changed us – our lives, relationships, careers, governments, morals, language, communities – and art has changed with them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Willmetts receives funding from the UK Economics and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC). To read more about the ESRC project he is involved with, which focusses on the ethics and rights of cybersecurity, visit the project website here: <a href="http://cgercs.wix.com/ercs">http://cgercs.wix.com/ercs</a></span></em></p>
Time travelling back into internet art of the past, the contrast between today’s paranoia and banality and the early optimism that initially greeted it is striking.
Simon Willmetts, Lecturer in American Studies, University of Hull
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/52464
2016-01-28T12:05:06Z
2016-01-28T12:05:06Z
Click here for art
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109270/original/image-20160126-20387-50xfgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To many, museums are like dinosaurs: fossilised. They call to mind Renaissance paintings, Roman sculpture, “don’t touch!” admonishments, and Indiana Jones demanding “it belongs in a museum!” But these associations won’t be true for much longer. While there will always be a Louvre and a National Portrait Gallery, today there are many more types of museum exhibits and art, thanks to the constant evolution of technology and computing. </p>
<p>The new age of digital art doesn’t even restrict itself to museum spaces; interactive and digital works are spreading out into online galleries, public places, and real-time performances. They can even invite you into the artwork itself, asking you to wander through it, to roll your hands over it, to touch, to play, and even to make the art yourself.</p>
<h2>Art in the museum</h2>
<p>Museums have always been spaces that embrace the fresh and the experimental, the avant garde of art and culture. So it’s no surprise that digital and multi-media art (in the sense of film, text, image, sound, and texture) have found homes in exhibits and installations all over the world. Notable examples include the <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/videos/d/video-decode-digital-design-sensations/">V&A’s Decode: Digital Design</a> exhibit in 2009-2010, which featured digital interactive pieces that were collaborations between designers and users. These works asked – even required – the museum visitor to touch, poke, prod, move through, peer into, and play in order to garner a response from the technology.</p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>Other artworks use their museum space to immerse the interactive audience deeply into a <a href="http://wallpaper.dreamingmethods.com/">narrative</a>, a <a href="http://www.aether-hemera.com/Work/Detail/Pollinators">cause</a>, or physical experiences (such as the <a href="http://www.scenocosme.com/souffles_e.htm">visitor’s own breathing</a>). These works invite their visitors to play, to physically interact with the digital technologies, and to cooperate in creating the final realisations of the pieces.</p>
<p>Some ventures outside the hallowed museum halls, turning public spaces into interactive art displays. The <a href="http://www.artnews.com/2012/10/16/ben-rubin-shakespeare-machine/">Shakespeare Machine</a>, for example, reshuffles the bard’s lines in an algorithmic <a href="https://vimeo.com/55963191">display</a> in New York’s Public Theater, immersing the audience in Shakespeare’s poetic language in the lobby while actors do the same next door. <a href="http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/tag/interactive+installation">Interactive installations</a> of this sort are emerging all over the world in <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/l/the-london-design-festival-at-the-v-and-a/">festivals</a>, <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/ik-prize">prizes</a>, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-34984885">fairs</a>. They play with LEDs, speakers, conductivity, input, output, motherboards, algorithms, robots, and the viewers of the works themselves.</p>
<h2>Art online</h2>
<p>Even Indiana Jones’s brand of art is going digital, as curators seek to preserve, catalogue, and archive their collections using new technologies. In the UK, the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/19/tate-digital-strategy-2013-15-digital-as-a-dimension-of-everything">Tate’s digital strategy</a> includes an outline for creating digital versions of its collections. The aim is to take the physical museum to the realm of the virtual. Online communities such as <a href="http://secondlife.com/destinations/arts">Second Life</a> and <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/tate-worlds-art-reimagined-minecraft">Minecraft</a> are also delivering digital art, through virtual exhibits, online archives, and original digital pieces in virtual spaces.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fVqFPa9mR9U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Online platforms also provide opportunities for artists, curators and art lovers to interact and collaborate. The wildly successful <a href="http://tagger.thepcf.org.uk/">Your Paintings Tagger</a> uses site visitors – the public in general – to catalogue and crowdsource metadata for 200,000 publicly owned oil paintings, an enormous task made easy and educational via digital interfaces. Other projects, such as <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/wondermind">Wondermind</a>, <a href="http://inanimatealice.com/">Inanimate Alice</a>, and the National Gallery of Art’s <a href="http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/education/kids.html">NGAkids</a>, seek to engage and educate through multimedia tasks in art, games, and video, whether in museums, classrooms, or on a home computer.</p>
<h2>Mobile art</h2>
<p>The mobile aspects of digital media are also moving art outside of museums and into public spaces via mobile devices and public displays. Art installations live inside our mobile phones and our daily environment, combining into “geo-locative” art, stories and histories. There’s Joel Cahen’s soundwalk narrative <a href="https://joelcahen.wordpress.com/installations/interzone-theatre-geo-locative-sound-walks/">The Oneironaut</a> for example, and Rebecca Horrox’s Snowdonia opera walk, <a href="http://lahorrox.com/soundworks/teffradot-opera-walk/">Teffradot</a>. These works make use of your mobile devices in the actual physical location, enhancing the visitor’s experience of the geographical space with multimedia.</p>
<p>Mobile apps, <a href="http://www.thirdwoman.com/">QR-codes</a>, <a href="http://www.projectionartworks.com/work">projected artwork</a> on buildings and in public spaces, embedded <a href="http://we-make-money-not-art.com/rfid_workshop_at_imal_in/">RFIDs</a>, <a href="http://betakit.com/disrupting-art-with-wearable-technology/">wearable tech art</a>, and <a href="http://richardwilhelmer.com/projects/fuhl-o-meter">public installations</a> that turn ubiquitous surveillance into real-time displays all bring art into the 21st century, into our hands, and into our everyday environments. Banksy’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/25/banksy-refugee-protest-political-street-art-stik-stewy">latest piece</a>, for example, features a QR code that takes the viewer to a video of teargas being used in a raid on the Calais refugee camps. Mobile phones are making art part of our lives, rather than a brief Saturday outing for the express purpose of “culture”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109496/original/image-20160128-3046-1rwvtr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new artwork by Banksy, depicting the girl from Les Miserables affected by tear gas, opposite the French embassy in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yui Mok/PA Wire</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Creating digital art</h2>
<p>And phones can take this one step further, transforming the art consumer and participant into artists themselves. The combination of a general frustration with rampant consumerism, poor quality consumer products, and the availability of raw materials on the cheap – from projectors to robotics to computing components – has ushered in the current “maker” culture. </p>
<p>Using inexpensive, open source tools that allow anyone to build small computer interfaces, such as the <a href="https://www.arduino.cc/">Arduino</a> and <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a> systems, <a href="http://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts/interactive-design-arduino-8127908">anyone can become</a> a “physical computing artist”. The internet is full of <a href="http://arduinoarts.com/tag/tutorial-2/">tutorials</a>, <a href="https://vimeo.com/groups/arduinoart">projects</a> and <a href="http://arduinoarts.com/2014/05/9-amazing-projects-where-arduino-art-meet/">examples</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109264/original/image-20160126-19637-1y5lae3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glowing silk screen steaks, governed by an Arduino board.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bekathwia/297908095/in/photolist-sjRGt-3EAgU2-by4KN-7Zzrcc-adQqaY-fa7aQD-aCTkn4-5vhJcc-eRBNH-3kCyDK-dumdLx-drpMiz-adQqb3-euAT7A-aLebFB-5EC27P-fa7aLT-3Lf1Fr-4RspWS-5MteZi-HczTQ-aqzAxZ-9zADJH-8hQcFC-5b1qa2-5Zcr1h-a5yLTf-e3MTdX-f3qTCx-aZkZfv-5SFA5U-5DqQn8-7CjHqD-hXzQ4X-aZhtH8-7qrKSa-79uCSg-79ymo7-8hQcM1-8hLXBM-8hQcHo-aCX4pj-4PXBXR-fqLG7X-8hLXCn-azDEM3-6gYhJm-9UTBCj-aPzD9-AFmkw">bekathwia/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No one is on their own in trying to play with these new arts tools; museums such as the Tate and the V&A hold regular digital <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/4874/digital-futures-868697657/">workshops</a> and <a href="http://museummaking.com/post/97592623345/whats-so-special-about-maker-spaces-anyway">maker sessions</a>, often free or low-cost, to patrons. Self-made works can be posted online, featured in online galleries, and linked through virtual spaces. The line between artist and visitor is blurred in the myriad interchanges and interactivities between the work, the sourcing of the work’s data and algorithms, and the patron’s input into the work of others as well as their own creations.</p>
<p>What is yet to come in the open creative spaces of museums? Certainly the digital festivals and “hack sessions” will continue, and ramp up as experimentation with digital tools and physical computing gains more and more traction. Expect more digital homes, virtual worlds, and public spaces transformed into art installations. Expect the walls separating museums, art, and artists from the everyday world to break open.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyle Skains receives funding from the AHRC's Reading Digital Fiction project.</span></em></p>
That traditional monolith of culture, the museum, has begun to embrace the digital world. As a series of projects reveal, the possibilities are endless.
Lyle Skains, Lecturer in Writing, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.