Midjourney takes on Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall Drawings’ aren’t actually drawings at all but, rather, instructions for drawings. These instructions have been implemented in many ways, by many different people, revealing how they are both prescriptive and ambiguous. Control over the final output lies somewhere between the instruction giver and the instruction follower.

A few weeks ago I used AI chatbot ChatGPT to implement the instructions, first using GPT-3 and then using GPT-4. Continuing my mission to use AI tools for things they really weren’t designed for and aren’t very good at, in this article I’ll be using AI image generation tool...

AI Generations: ChatGPT-3 vs ChatGPT-4 on Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

About six weeks ago, I used ChatGPT to implement Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, this article explains what’s going on and contains ChatGPT outputs compared to human drawings.

In that article, I used GPT-3, which was all that was available at the time. In this one, I’m trying out the newly released GPT-4.

Let’s compare and contrast.

Note: here are the GPT-4 p5js editor sketches and here are the GPT-3 sketches. The code for each is also linked under the images.

“On...

Parametric Art Systems

https://player.vimeo.com/video/771241731

Parametric Art Systems from Denis Kozlov on Vimeo.

The video spans about a decade of work and much more of research. Below I’ve gathered some links providing additional details, examples and explanations.

More videos:
vimeo.com/211742962 - Procedural Aircraft Design Toolkit
vimeo.com/703402772 - Procedural Creature Generator

The key article covering my vision, process and approach. I’ve notably advanced in each since the time of writing, but still find it largely relevant:
the-working-man.org/2018/04/procedural-bestiary-and-next-generation.html

A general overview of the technology involved (at the time of writing my primary 3D tool being Houdini). No prior knowledge required:
the-working-man.org/2017/04/procedural-content-creation-faq-project.html

The initial 2015 essay noticed by ACM SIGGRAPH:
the-working-man.org/2015/04/on-wings-tails-and-procedural-modeling.html

While the above links mostly focus on...

Forecast

Forecast is a long-form generative art project coming to fxhash on 16th Feb 2023. This article contains info about techniques I used, and some rambling about concepts and emotions.

You can see the project live on fxhash here and explore the variations before it drops.

Using ChatGPT to implement Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

Sol LeWitt was an artist who worked across many mediums but is probably most famous for his Wall Drawings series. These artworks aren’t actually drawings at all but, rather, instructions for drawings.

The instructions have been implemented in many ways, by many different people, revealing how they are at once prescriptive and ambiguous. Control over a final output lies somewhere between the instruction giver and the instruction follower. The idea popped into my head to put these instructions into ChatGPT, and ask for p5js sketches.

Distributing Randomness

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

A good pseudorandom number generator gives an even distribution of results from 0 to 1 but sometimes in generative art we might want something different. It’s possible to skew or weight the distribution of results, so that certain outcomes are more or less likely. This is useful to manage rarities in a collection, or to control positions, dimensions and other choices within each piece.

This article is a guide on how I manage randomness in my projects. There are two main methods I use:

Skewing randomness across a continuous range with mathematical equations.

Defining discrete options and...

Playing dice: Randomness, determinism and the quantum world

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

As generative artists we use “randomness” all the time but what does that actually mean? What’s the difference between unexpected, random and chaotic? Does the universe contain any truly random events, or is it operating like clockwork, ticking from one event to the next?

I got thinking about determinism while discussing randomness in my article ‘What is Generative Art’. After a bit of research, I realised that I needed to know more about quantum physics to be able to investigate determinism in the way I wanted to. I did a 12-week introductory course about the quantum world and,...

Emergence and Generative Art

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

Sometimes, a system is more than the sum of its parts. Simple rules and behaviours at an individual level can lead to complex and surprising phenomena at a macro level. This is emergence - common in the natural world and in generative art.

Let’s take a look at some definitions:

"You have this very simple set of rules that doesn't look like it's going to do anything interesting, but (...) these large...

Packing & Expanding Polygons : An ongoing exploration

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

I've been packing lots of irregular polygons into the canvas, and discovered some interesting (and some annoying) geometry along the way.

I started out detecting collisions in the same way as in my project Maplands, which you can read about in detail here.

Here’s how the collision checking worked:

Create a potential new polygon, with a path of points as the outline.

Check distances from each new point to all the points in existing polygons.

If any points are too close, discard that new polygon and try again.

This method...

What is Generative Art?

https://amygoodchild.substack.com/embed

An artwork may be generative in some ways and not in others. A piece could have generative aspects even if the artist didn’t have that intention. There are ways in which a painting could be considered generative.

I prefer definitions to be inclusive, not restrictive, and my definitions are for the purposes of discussing generative art, not for the purposes of ruling on what “is or isn’t” generative art.

Header image: Forecast #23

Okay, how about…

Amy Goodchild

Posted at 2022-02-02 19:14:41 | Art_and_design | read on