Photography AI as art

[warden]

But surely all this digitisation, AI and can't believe any image you see, is making chemical photograph unique in the history of art.

Yes, I would say both unique and desirable. AI is making its own history at a rapid clip, but it's not photography.

There is nothing quite like using photosensitive film and paper in the traditional manner, and even though film based images can be altered too, it is more difficult to alter a negative. Film based photography results in something tangible: an unfiltered record of what was in front of you when the shutter clicked.

 

[TomR55]

Yes!

One would think/hope so insofar as it confers some epistemic foundation (i.e., show me the negative!). Of course, this might hold until they come up with a process whereby a program can etch negatives!

 

[Pieter12]

One would think/hope so insofar as it confers some epistemic foundation (i.e., show me the negative!). Of course, this might hold until they come up with a process whereby a program can etch negatives!

LTV negatives can be made from digital files.

 

[TomR55]

LTV negatives can be made from digital files.

Yikes! I guess this is good to know?

 

[gary mulder]

The definition of art is one of the most difficult ones. You are trying to nail a moving target. Once you think, or a chatbot thinks, you have got it, it has moved away. A copy of yesterday’s art will mostly not be today’s art.

 

[koraks]

Yikes! I guess this is good to know?

Well, yes and no; LVT tech and other means of recording on film (e.g. using lasers) can yield a negative that looks just like a regular negative. We have @avandesande making his own negatives from an LCD projected image using an enlarger: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/negatives-from-a-digital-enlarger.210346/ There are several ways to do this.
But...it's of course still not literally the same as capturing the light that bounced off the same scene that you saw with the naked eye; you could argue that the physical chain of events was broken once the data was encoded digitally before it entered back into the material world again. Does that argument hold water? Maybe not under very close scrutiny. But it feels plausible at least to an extent, to me. And in the end, I think how it feels is every bit as important as how it looks, or how it reasons out.

A copy of yesterday’s art will mostly not be today’s art.

It's funny how the opposite sometimes also turns out to be the case. Although I think there's a very fundamental, albeit rarely mentioned divide between modern art and historic art. We've touched upon it before, on the forum, though, so it's acknowledged from time to time.

 

[gary mulder]

It's funny how the opposite sometimes also turns out to be the case. Although I think there's a very fundamental, albeit rarely mentioned divide between modern art and historic art. We've touched upon it before, on the forum, though, so it's acknowledged from time to time.

Naturally yesterday’s art will be art. But a copy will be a whole different story.

 

[koraks]

No, I meant that there's stuff that yesterday was just, well, stuff, that we today consider art. It seems to get more pronounced as the artefacts are older. As to copies...in general, I suppose, although some copies evidently have made it into the 'proper art' realm. I think Solari's copy of Da Vinci's Last Supper is uncontested 'art', even though if it were to be made today, we may have considered it a knockoff.

 

[warden]

Yikes! I guess this is good to know?

Don't sweat the small stuff. You already know what you have when you hold one of your negatives in your hand: the authentic article. There are many interesting things you can do to that negative afterwards, but the original is the original.

 

[cliveh]

Don't sweat the small stuff. You already know what you have when you hold one of your negatives in your hand: the authentic article. There are many interesting things you can do to that negative afterwards, but the original is the original.

Well said.

 

[Arthurwg]

But surely all this digitisation, AI and can't believe any image you see, is making chemical photograph unique in the history of art.

May also raise the value of traditional photography.

 

[BMbikerider]

In a word NO, they are not art! They are art wannabes and will never be art. Art is human made, not machine made.

100% agreed. The two should never have met. AI is fine for commercial subjects such as advertising where specific details or a subject is required and as a cost saving method, but art as it is/was currently understood is an individuals perception not an amalgam of different ideas from different people put together and is to my mind a contradiction of terms.

There was a bit of a problem with forensic photography when digital reared its head and this is still looked upon as having some doubts with authenticity to be accepted in court. AI is just one step too far.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

It was time for him to go. Most illustrators I know embrace all the technology available to them.

Old dogs and all of that. He moved on to doing storyboards and other stuff, then began to teach and was semiretired. He's passed since. I think AI will have the same effect on many trades, eliminating jobs just as digital cameras and cell phones eliminated many photojournalism jobs.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

In commercial setting - possibly and has already happened. For hobbyists and artists out there - I can't see AI taking over the activities one loves doing as often the activity itself is what drives one forward.


Uncompressed music responds neatly to Volume knobs and buttons too

When I bought my new 4K UHD 75" TV with great speakers, I bought a sound bar to place under it. It has a setting that increases voice sounds so you can hear the people speaking better. A volume switch would just raise the levels of all frequencies. I keep the TV speakers off and just the sound bar.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

100% agreed. The two should never have met. AI is fine for commercial subjects such as advertising where specific details or a subject is required and as a cost saving method, but art as it is/was currently understood is an individuals perception not an amalgam of different ideas from different people put together and is to my mind a contradiction of terms.

There was a bit of a problem with forensic photography when digital reared its head and this is still looked upon as having some doubts with authenticity to be accepted in court. AI is just one step too far.

"Great photo. Did you Photoshop it?" What will we say with AI?

 

[TJones]

May also raise the value of traditional photography.

Some thought digital photography would do that, but I don’t think it happened.

 

[koraks]

"Great photo. Did you Photoshop it?" What will we say with AI?

Something along the same lines, which points to the same predominantly technical interest on behalf of the person who asks it, which automatically bars any subsequent meaningful exchange about the content or intent of the image as such.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

When I bought my new 4K UHD 75" TV with great speakers, I bought a sound bar to place under it. It has a setting that increases voice sounds so you can hear the people speaking better. A volume switch would just raise the levels of all frequencies. I keep the TV speakers off and just the sound bar.

Probably mixed for 5.1 or higher and since center-channel was missing or not enough volume... Either way this is a completely different thing.

 

[warden]

"Great photo. Did you Photoshop it?" What will we say with AI?

I suppose we could ask AI to write some dismissive conversation killers for us. I bet it would be good at it.

 

[bjorke]

The real problem with AI generated or altered images is one can no longer trust any image on a screen.

You haven't really been trusting images you saw on a screen, have you?

Sorry.

 

[Pieter12]

You haven't really been trusting images you saw on a screen, have you?

Sorry.

There was a time...

 

[Ivo Stunga]

There was a time...

Was there any really? It was just assumed I think. Darkroom people shot skies to later collage into blandscapes and Stalin removed his friends from photographs and life too!

 

[Pieter12]

Was there any really? It was just assumed I think. Darkroom people shot skies to later collage into blandscapes and Stalin removed his friends from photographs and life too!

Yes but it required skill, talent and time. Now every Tom, Dick and Harriet can change just about anything in any image, or not even need an image to start with.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Results are the same regardless if talented human or bot: you hardly can take an image at face value - default trust goes only so far.

Art matters and it hardly strives to be documental

 

[Pieter12]

Results are the same regardless if talented human or bot: you hardly can take an image at face value - default trust goes only so far.

Art matters and it hardly strives to be documental

Sure. But until recently it took specialists to convincingly alter an image.