21 posts tagged “art”
2026
This is the difference between Data and a large language model, at least the ones operating right now. Data created art because he wanted to grow. He wanted to become something. He wanted to understand. Art is the means by which we become what we want to be. [...]
The book, the painting, the film script is not the only art. It's important, but in a way it's a receipt. It's a diploma. The book you write, the painting you create, the music you compose is important and artistic, but it's also a mark of proof that you have done the work to learn, because in the end of it all, you are the art. The most important change made by an artistic endeavor is the change it makes in you. The most important emotions are the ones you feel when writing that story and holding the completed work. I don't care if the AI can create something that is better than what we can create, because it cannot be changed by that creation.
TIL from taking Neon I at the Crucible. Things I learned about making neon signs after a week long intensive evening class at the Crucible in Oakland.
2025
Creating art is a nonlinear process. I start with a rough goal. But then I head into dead ends and get lost or stuck.
The secret to my process is to be on high alert in this deep jungle for unexpected twists and turns, because this is where a new idea is born.
I can't make art when I'm excluded from the most crucial moments.
— Christoph Niemann, An Illustrator Confronts His Fears About A.I. Art
I built an automaton called Squadron
I believe that the price you have to pay for taking on a project is writing about it afterwards. On that basis, I feel compelled to write up my decidedly non-software project from this weekend: Squadron, an automaton.
[... 1,142 words]Stimulation Clicker (via) Neal Agarwal just created the worst webpage. It's extraordinary. All of the audio was created specially for this project, so absolutely listen in to the true crime podcast and other delightfully weird little details.
Works best on a laptop - on mobile I ran into some bugs.
2024
Art is notoriously hard to define, and so are the differences between good art and bad art. But let me offer a generalization: art is something that results from making a lot of choices. […] to oversimplify, we can imagine that a ten-thousand-word short story requires something on the order of ten thousand choices. When you give a generative-A.I. program a prompt, you are making very few choices; if you supply a hundred-word prompt, you have made on the order of a hundred choices.
If an A.I. generates a ten-thousand-word story based on your prompt, it has to fill in for all of the choices that you are not making.
Ralph Sheldon’s Portrait of Henry VIII Reidentified (via) Here's a delightful two part story on art historian Adam Busiakiewicz's blog. Adam was browsing Twitter when he spotted this tweet by Tim Cox, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire, celebrating a reception.
He noticed a curve-framed painting mounted on a wall in the top left of the photo:
Adam had previously researched a similar painting while working at Sotheby's:
Seeing this round topped portrait immediately reminded me of a famous set of likenesses commissioned by the local politician and tapestry maker Ralph Sheldon (c. 1537--1613) for his home Weston House, Warwickshire, during the 1590s. Consisting of twenty-two portraits, mostly images of Kings, Queens and significant contemporary international figures, only a handful are known today.
Adam contacted Warwickshire County Council and was invited to Shire Hall. In his follow-up post he describes his first-hand observations from the visit.
It turns out the painting really was one of those 22 portraits made for tapestry maker Ralph Sheldon in the 1590s, long thought lost. The discovery has now made international news:
I understand people are upset about AI art making it to the final cut, but please try to also google artist names and compare to their portfolio before accusing them of using AI. I'm genuinely pretty upset to be accused of this. It's no fun to work on your craft for decades and then be told by some 'detection site' that your work is machine generated and people are spreading this around as a fact.
2023
Floor796 (via) “An ever-expanding animation scene showing the life of the 796th floor of the huge space station” by Russian artist 0x00, who built their own custom browser-based pixel animation tool with which they are constructing this project. Absolutely crammed with pop culture references and easter eggs. The “Changes” link at the top shows almost daily updates, with links to jump to the latest content.
2022
A 4.2GiB file isn’t a heist of every single artwork on the Internet, and those who think it is are the ones undervaluing their own contributions and creativity. It’s an amazing summary of what we know about art, and everyone should be able to use it to learn, grow, and create.
2019
In the five years since the shark was erected, no other examples have occurred … any system of control must make some small place for the dynamic, the unexpected, the downright quirky. I therefore recommend that the Headington Shark be allowed to remain.
I commissioned an oil painting of Barbra Streisand’s cloned dogs
Last year, Barbra Streisand cloned her dog, Sammie.
[... 517 words]2018
Datasette: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (via) The Metropolitan Museum of Art publish a CSV file on GitHub with details of 464,360 items from their collection. I turned it into a searchable Datasette instance.
2017
Game developer’s guide to graphical projections (with video game examples), Part 1: Introduction. Absolutely delightful series of illustrated essays by Matej ‘Retro’ Jan explaining how different graphical projections can be used for video game art. Each concept is illustrated by screenshots or gifs from a mixture of games spanning four decades. Reading this was a real treat.
2016
Practical gift ideas to positively improve a friend’s life and hobbies
I’m a big fan of the Dorling Kindersley travel books, which are chock full of photos, maps, diagrams and illustrations. Thanks to the internet there’s really not much point carting around a reference-style guidebook like Lonely Planet—TripAdvisor etc will always be more comprehensive and up-to-date. This makes guidebooks more important for general inspiration and browsing.
[... 75 words]2009
Panic’s lost 1982 artwork. Found. Jaw-droppingly beautiful re-imagination of Panic’s software line-up as Atari console products, complete with box art and 80’s watercolour illustrated posters.
2008
Beware the time-eater: Cambridge University’s monstrous new clock. Beware the Chronophage, my son.
2007
On Space Art in Sebastopol... Awesome. Our giant mosaic space invaders are going to show up on Google Earth!
2006
Peter Callesen’s papercut art. I incorrectly attributed these to an anonymous Vietnamese artist.
Utterly brilliant Vietnamese cut-out art. The more you look at them the cleverer they are.
2004
Art, licenses and freedom (via) Jono Bacon on LugRadio’s CC license.