Jason Bailey writes about generative art, AI art, art datasets and the blockchain art market.
HN commenters cite it for its artist interviews and public art datasets, and for its piece on why AI art copyright is complicated.
Marc Canter (founder of MacroMind/MacroMedia) one explained to me something revealing about the Director timeline (their original product before Flash, later integrated with the web browser as Shockwave):
It's essentially just a BASIC program rotated 90 degrees on its side, full of GOTOs.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35652164
DonHopkins on April 21, 2023 | parent | context | favorite | on: Show HN: Thoughts on Flash in 2023, in Flash, in 2...
I love all the amazing inspirational open source examples of generative procedural art and artificial life that Jared Tarbell published on his web site https://web.archive.org/web/20070202025610/http://levitated.net/ .
It opened my eyes to using Flash for procedural graphics and simulations, instead of just using timelines like a glorified graphical player piano, or like a BASIC program full of GOTO spaghetti rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise (which is how Macromedia founder Marc Canter described Director's Lingo, which also used frame numbers like BASIC line numbers).
Jared went on to do a lot more amazing stuff in Processing, co-founded Etsy, and built a toy factory!
https://www.artnome.com/news/2020/8/24/interview-with-generative-artist-jared-tarbell
https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/8/8/why-love-generative-art
https://beyondtellerrand.com/events/dusseldorf-2018/speakers/jared-tarbell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_-9UWkgDf8
After topping out on prestige, land, wealth and power. What else is left? But to amass a treasure horde of the rarest artefacts and masterpieces the world has ever known.
Longform profiles of superstar dealers such as Larry Gagosian or David Zwirner provide more insight into the psychology of those who catch the art collecting "bug". And how it can morph into irrational idee fixe territory. Such as Getty's obsession with the Roman Emperor Hadrian.
The Art-World Insider Who Went Too Far
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/the-bouvier-affair
And of course, you don't need to be a millionaire to start building your own collection. Just a keen eye, good taste, and love for making deals ;)
How To Start Collecting Art In Your 20s
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-start-collecting-art-20s
The latest innovation and natural evolution of digital art collecting is potentially the blockchain and distributed ledgers.
The Blockchain Art Market Is Here
https://www.artnome.com/news/2017/12/22/the-blockchain-art-market-is-here
Take a look here "Why Is AI Art Copyright So Complicated?":
https://www.artnome.com/news/2019/3/27/why-is-ai-art-copyright-so-complicated
> Claims that AI is creating art on its own and that machines are somehow entitled to copyright for this art are simply naive or overblown, and they cloud real concerns about authorship disputes between humans. The introduction of machine learning as an art tool is ironically increasing human involvement, not decreasing it. Specifically, the number of people who can potentially be credited as coauthors of an artwork has skyrocketed. This is because machine learning tools are typically built on a stack of software solutions, each layer having been designed by individual persons or groups of people, all of whom are potential candidates for authorial credit.
Free being 'gratis' in this case. There are additional licensing terms that make it non-libre/non-open/non-free (as in freedom) [0].
Finding quality libre or public domain art remains difficult. Here are a few resources that I've found:
Archive.org - https://archive.org/
FOSsil Bank Art(Libre) - http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/category:art-libre
Flickr British Library - https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/albums
Artnome - https://www.artnome.com/art-data
Comic Book Plus - https://comicbookplus.com/ (public domain comics)
And of course, Wikipedia has libre-licensed art. I'm a little embarrassed but PublicDomainPictures and PublicDomainVectors is also a go-to resource for me.
[0] https://pixabay.com/service/terms/#license
Sol LeWitt's Work from Instructions is a canonical example of algorithmic conceptual art.
Sol LeWitt | MoMA
https://www.moma.org/artists/3528#works
Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3863
The recent vogue is using AI/ML techniques such as Joel Simon's Ganbreeder
https://www.joelsimon.net/ganbreeder.html
I'd also check out Artnome blog
https://www.artnome.com/
Best of luck ;)
Some of these are so cool. I have a great piece by Manolo Gamboa Noan, made in Processing.
I think one of the founders of Etsy was also into generative art and produced some neat pieces.
https://www.artnome.com/ had some good interviews and posts with artists in this space.