co-authorship with a neural network using the example of a sense of humor

Hello, my name is Alina and I am a neuroartist. In the TG channel “Parallel editions“I post my works generated in a neural network. IN last article I talked about the controlled part of the work of a neuroartist, when to create images you use proven promts – text descriptions, on the basis of which the neural network creates illustrations. In this article I will show that part of the work of a neuroartist is to produce random and unpredictable images. What to do with them? One option is to joke.

In the comments below previous article a debate broke out about whether a person who draws in a neural network can even be called a neuroartist, or whether the name “neural network operator” would be better. I believe that these are two different professions. A neural network operator, who is also an industrial engineer, knows how to get exactly what he wants from a neural network, for example: “the ship should be only a third of the frame and not symmetrically”, “a girl in the image of an ancient Greek empress in a draped robe stands in the background painted antique walls, left arm bent at the elbow.” This is a line-by-line translation of human thoughts into images.

The profession of an artist presupposes that there is an abyss between what is in the head and what comes out on paper. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “For a great artist it is very important, even absolutely necessary, to somehow come to terms with the fact that he can’t do everything on a canvas, and to be able to find his own means of expression. It seems to me that we are attracted to serious painting by that defect that can be called “personality”, or even “pain.”

For myself, I have come up with several types of creativity in which I play with random images from a neural network.

Comics

I experimented with the generation of different materials in the Mijorni neural network, and from these experiments the comic book series “Material World” was born.

So, for example, I accidentally ended up with porcelain chess sets playing chess – this resulted in a comic book about a chess cooperative.

-> read the entire comic “Porcelain queen“

Experiments with knitted figures did not work out; they turned out unnatural, unknitted and generally hung in the air. No problem, I made a comic out of this too.

-> read the entire comic “Knitted Western»

Series

For the images that turned out too well, I came up with a series format. By “too good” I mean that the community in Mijorni has already trained the neural network for some kind of promt, and the perfect images shoot out instantly, as soon as I take my hands off the keyboard. I have no interest in such work, but sometimes I want to generate them and play with them somehow.

A year and a half ago, Mijorni users trained promt about the inhabitants of a flea market – I don’t know where it started and how it ended – but I decided to make an “HBO series” out of such images.

-> scroll through all the images of the series “Missing at the flea market»

Games

Another option to beat famous characters is to create them based on their games. So, for example, I made a “children’s room” game for adults based on the movie “Alien”.

Or here children's coloring pages based on cult films.

Stories without words

Unlike famous movie sagas, it can be difficult to repeat the image of the same character in all pictures. Then I just pretend that this is what I intended and create a post from a set of pictures united by a common theme: but even in this case, when the characters are different from picture to picture, you can trace the story. For example, about how the Phoenix bird reborn after vacation.

Or a blockbuster “Only the couriers will survive”.

Popular science comics

Sometimes I draw popular science comics, and for them it doesn’t really matter what kind of image I get: I just need to illustrate a complex idea. However, often the resulting image suggests itself as a joke.

For example, I listed the types of GMOs and in order to dilute a complex topic with humor, I came up with influence of GMOs on fictional worlds.

Or tried to learn names of neuron parts.

Books and magazines

Another way to avoid achieving the beauty of an image is to pretend that it was intended that way by superimposing it on a backing in the form of a book or magazine.

For example, excerpt from the fictional book “Domostroy” for IT specialists, made on aged paper:

A magazine “Knight's Messenger” literally falling apart before our eyes.

Conclusion

I use images from neural networks not on their own, but in my own forms of creativity. There is a gap between what I originally intended and what comes out, but I have learned to play around with this discrepancy, including with the help of a sense of humor.