Re: [-empyre-] transparency+digidos

["Damien Everett" <damien.everett@rmit.edu.au>]

>> if you teach someone to paint like degas, how is this different from teaching a computer to do the same? 

>a lot different. when one teaches another to paint like degas, one expects that the other will start there and end up someplace else. one expects the other to learn from degas, not simply to mimic degas, and usually this is the case. it happens naturally that the art student of degas will go off in their own direction, and its impossible to say what that direction will be. 

I can say the same about the program, you teach it the mechanics of painting, and then assign a degas style template. Then it can "mutate" the style template to come up with something new. I don't think its impossible to predict what direction the human artist might go in once you know what influences them, just as in the program. 

>don't get me wrong, i myself use generative methodologies in many pieces, but i'm pretty clear ahead of time, bugs not withstanding, what the range of behavior will be. but with a computer, and with bugs, you can always step through and discover EXACTLY, with double precision floating point accuracy, why something happened the way it happened. can you say the same for a person, let alone a wacky artist? i love what you are suggesting here, but i think you should give yourself more credit!

Hmmm sure but I'm more interested in the chaos of the syncronistic moment, I don't always want to know exactly what is going to happen next, or reproduce events to double precision floating point accuracy, I'm more concerned with generating unique realtime art.  

>> The advantage is I can suggest an idea to it and then it can create millions of variations in the same time as it might take me to make one. "take this building design and mutate it X% then show it to me"

>bad example :). this more or less proves that the computer is an extension of your own hand, simply doing things faster than you can, and presenting the results so you can decide which ones to keep.

I do often choose to see the computer is an extension of my own hand/mind, sure I've desiged autonomous systems with their own "aesthetic sensibilities", but I'm much more interested in playing god and creating my own digital bliss.
 
> >to be precise, "inspiration" *is* human generated, it only exists in our minds. but of course things other than human can be inspirational *to* us.
> 
> Hmmm yep sematics... was the first monkey to learn how to peel a banana inspired, or the octopus who learns how to open a jar with a treat  inside, or a whale who creates a new song?

>hmmm nope not semantics. the monkey and octopus were hungry, the whale horney. is that "inspiration" or just cleverness in the face of need?  arguably, art was first produced when humanity had some free time away from basic need fulfillment (also arguably, art is a basic need unique to humanity, thus inspiration also unique).  if you want to compare inspiration to cleverness, then that's semantics, but i'd prefer to assume that a whale has no idea what inspiration is 'cause it doesn't speak english. 

Are these motives much different from humans? I don't think that art is a purely "human" phenomena, ever see the paintings of that elephant, the nest of a bower bird or listen to a Vulcan lovesong? To me Art is the inspiration of the universe, the universal creative process, which we humans tap into... only human arrogance seeks to claim sole credit for it. I'd suggest not making assumptions, maybe you should learn whalesong and ask the whale itself ;)

Damien
ps. My laptop sends you its love... I think it has a crush on you!  8p

pps. let me know (personally) if the mail server is still adding in strange linebreaks.