Creating art with artificial intelligence
Every creative has a moment when they are stuck and need new inspiration. Sometimes we have many! Combining ideas is a useful way to overcome creative blocks and to discover useful new pathways. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be an excellent tool for coming up with new ideas. Over the last few years, I’ve been studying the use of creative machines and working with data scientists to create a generative adversarial network using data from my own body of work. I add to this data set after weekly painting sessions, and for specific pieces I add new data sets to inspire ideas. By combining traditional art techniques with AI, it is possible to navigate new territories for art in the age of machines. The AI has insights I would never have seen because at looks at my art in different ways to how I look. Quite literally - it uses robotic vision, which is entirely different to human vision. This combination of science and art is a fascinating space and I shall make sure to share more articles that go deeper into the process. I recently created a new AI collaboration piece and describe it below.
Creating Rose de Freycinet (Courage et Genie) 2022
This painting was inspired by the path of Rose de Freycinet across the coast of Tasmania and her deep curiosity into this new terrain. Rose didn't want to stay in France. She secretly boarded her husband Louis' ship and between 1817 and 1820 took part in a scientific expedition to circumnavigate the globe, initially disguised as a man. She was the first woman to document her experiences. The creative process for this piece included using an AI generative adversarial network uploaded with aerial landscape paintings of Freycinet National Park and maps of the route of her ship, the Uranie. Using a human-machine collaboration process to generate the overall direction, the final piece was hand-painted in oil on canvas. The title of the piece was adapted from a poem by Jacques Mallac to Madame Rose de Freycinet (1818).
Rose de Freycinet (Courage et Genie), Sarah Daly, 2022
The machine was guided by my own artwork and saw the ultramarine blues, merging into the pink and red tones of the Freycinet coastal landscape. I’ve increased the levels of rose, quite literally to reflect the namesake of the painting.
AI process image 0.3 for Rose de Freycinet (2022)
This image shows the third layer of processing and how the stylistic direction was developed.
Rose de Freycinet
Rose de Freycinet, 1812.
From an engraving of the original portrait in the possession of Baron Claude de Freycinet.
Rose recorded life aboard the Uranie, observations of the people and places they visited, scientific work of the expedition, relationships between men and women, and the work of artist Jacques Arago. She had a keen eye for detail and created vivid descriptions of the strange and exotic places they visited. In a wonderful letter to her friend in Paris, she describes the absolute joy of eating oysters, fresh shucked on the Australian beach, with wine in hand - how they tasted in comparison to a Parisian restaurant.
If you have any questions about the process, you are welcome to email me directly at sarah@dalyandx.com.