Radical Hope Blooms
It was at least 2 years ago when I digitized a loose collection of my botanical abstract paintings in all kinds of traditional media, and used them for training an artificial intelligence model in Playform. I’ve worked with these images off and on, never really clear on what their outcome would be. Recently, I selected some generations from Playform and blended them in Midjourney, loved what was happening, and then finished them up.
Radical Hope works this way - a trust that a future goodness will exist, despite not knowing how we get to it. 🖤✨
I selected the options available to print these on with a few things in mind - my favorite papers, the acrylic blocks and prints that I’m obsessed with, and some other prints that are more affordable. If you like this series and want to get a print or a few (they look so so good in a grouping!) let me know if I can help you pick out the best options for you.
REPRESENTATIONS
I’ve been working with AI art tools for a few years now, and while I was met with misunderstanding and fear sometimes, now I’m met with it MOST of the time. Even if people want to understand, now they have to UNLEARN and overcome what the media and misinformed audiences have planted into their brains. To be honest, it surprised me when I was met with fear and apprehension about what I was doing - training an artificial intelligence model on a body of my work, and working with the results - because I was absolutely delighted by it! It was so reflective, it fit right into my practice, bringing my knowledge about art therapy, mindfulness, connection, energy… all together. It felt therapeutic (from actually studying to be an art therapist and counselor, and from being a person with C-PTSD, actually in therapy). How could everyone get it so wrong?
I saw the Terminator films too! But I have also realized that I’m an early adopter, I’m someone who gets excited about ideas, and who is generally interested in changing the world to make it a better place. I also strongly identify with the concept of radical hope! I got really down about people being so hateful this year - if you didn’t know, the internet can be awful…
People fear what they don’t understand.
And this backlash has happened before in art history, with impressionism, dada, pop-art, the camera, the digital camera, photoshop, digital art… and now AI, which is probably the biggest change art historically, that most of us have been alive for.
So I really tried to listen, and what I kept hearing was the fear. Not only were people kind of afraid of AI becoming sentient and taking over the world, but they were also very afraid it would cause artists to lose their jobs, it would take over and kill art and creativity, and it would degrade the value of art. Everyone also seems to think all this creative AI was made up by big tech bros with an evil agenda to make money, and completely misunderstand how any of the technology actually works.
What I’ve heard about problems with AI are really systemic issues and total misunderstanding.
Which is why I chose to do the REPRESENTATIONS collaborative project for Taking. Up. Space. this year. It’s so important that people understand how this stuff works, and how to use it, because it’s here, and it’s happening, and you all need to be part of it! How else can you influence its direction?
This project has its own tab on my website, and will be virtually exhibited during May/June of 2023. Click Here to visit the page and learn more.
/describe
There’s a new feature in Midjourney, called Describe. You upload a photo and give the bot the /describe command. It gives you 4 descriptions the uploaded image. I’d played around with it with some images I had saved while testing the new rating system and voting on images from the new version (version 5). It was pretty cool to get descriptions about the art, especially because it links to any artists it mentions. It’s a neat way to explore styles and come up with new prompt mixes. I uploaded my own art as well, and it didn’t turn up artists I thought it might, and turned up some that haven’t influenced my work, but that I could see visual similarities in.
You can test out these new prompts by clicking the 1, 2, 3, or 4 buttons below, that correlate with the prompts above.
For testing these new features, there are places within the community where you can chat about them, give feedback, etc. Of course, someone uploaded a selfie, and the results were quite funny. It made me wonder… and I ended up quite enjoying results of my own 😂
The results were ephemeral, so they didn’t stay around and I didn’t realize it to get screen shots, but I was excited to see the terms “nerdcore” and “health goth” (I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds appropriate), as well as “apron with hair” and “distinctive nose” …. that’s right, all my Jones nose fam out there, it calls it “distinctive”!
But I wonder what “teethcore” is, and what “in the style of focus on joints/connections” even means?
AI is SO weird, and I love that…
Please enjoy these alternate versions of me, generated with all the weirdness that is a health goth, teethcore, dinopunk, socially minded, genderless, extremely gendered, deconstructive, light hearted, master of ink, cripplepunk, humanistic empathy, smilecore, photo taken with provia, woman with purple hair and a distinctive nose…
And, as for the links to artists:
It’s a super cool feature, because I am a nerd who loves art and art history, and one of the first things I geeked out about with AI text-to-image stuff was how much interest is being created in art history, and making it so accessible to people it wasn’t accessible or interesting for before! EVERYONE LEARN ART THINGS!
I wonder if other traditional artists have tried this out with their own work, and what results they got about artistic influences? If you use Midjourney, have you tried out /describe yet?
Dispelling Misinformation
I started using AI in my art practice a few years ago. I came across an article about Playform, and joined their artist studio. I had no idea how much I would love it, I was moving towards a glimmer of something catching the light, to see what it was. It felt reflective and magical, and it fit right into my work.
My affections towards technology are at least partially genetic. When I look at the familial lineup of mechanics, tinkerers, technology enthusiasts, information lovers, and wonder seekers, I shouldn’t be surprised. Many of the people close to me weren’t afraid of technology or people or ideas. And I mention this because it did surprise me when people reacted with fear and suspicion about my use of artificial intelligence in my art. (this was even before 2022 and the text-to-image cultural phenomenon)
As of now, everyone has pretty much heard SOMETHING about creative AI tools - but what they’ve heard is mostly misinformation and clickbaity opinion pieces aimed at getting a reaction. As a trained professional artist with a master’s degree, and with education in art therapy, art history, everything studio art, fine art, design and photography. Traditional media and new media, analog, digital, philosophy of art, ethics… and decades of experience, I’m absolutely qualified to speak on this.
I feel like I’m shouting facts into the wind sometimes, but then someone listens in and gets it, and it’s AWESOME. Because these tools are full of wonder, they are great for exploration, reflection, and I believe they have an immense capacity for healing and moving us forward.
One of the things I’m shouting - creative AI tools don’t “steal” other artists’ work and implement them into a kind of collage. That’s not how the AI tools work at all.
To explain in a relatable manner how they do work, I want you to imagine an art student, going with their class, to a museum, to study impressionist paintings. They look, they make sketches, they study them to figure out what makes them impressionist paintings, how the paintings were made, what they were made with, when they were made… they learn the concepts of what makes up impressionist paintings. Now, all of those students leave the museum and go to a painting studio, where they’re told to paint something in the style of an impressionist painting. Do they pull out paintings and copy them? Do they look at photographs of paintings and copy them? Or do they draw upon the concepts that they learned in order to make choices about color, composition, materials, etc.? When they reference these concepts, are they infringing upon some artist’s rights, living or deceased? No.
Another example - If you handed a group of people all some crayons and asked them to draw an apple, they could probably do it. Some might be red, some green, some more round, or some with spots, but everyone understands the concept of an apple. No one draws a bird or even another fruit. Those things are not part of the concept of “apple”, and the concept of an apple is so well trained in our minds that we don’t need an apple to be present to draw one.
Training isn’t stealing, and the original pieces of information that were studied are no longer present after training.
REPRESENTATIONS
As part of the @thrivetogethernetwork, and the Taking. Up. Space. global grassroots initiative, #takingupspace2023 I’m seeking submissions for a collaborative project, set to debut in May. This project is called “Representations” and the intent is to educate and encourage womxn to take up space and affect the future at the intersection of art and technology. All of the collective work will be used to train an artificial intelligence model, which will be used to generate a new body of work reflecting the collective. I’ll be sharing the process of creation through live sessions and videos, and the final body of work will be available as free-to-collect NFTs.
Call for art ends: February 26th, 11:59pm EST
A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT ENCOURAGING WOMXN TO TAKE UP SPACE AND AFFECT THE FUTURE AT THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY
As part of the Thrive Together Network and the Taking. Up. Space. global grassroots initiative #takingupspace2023 I’m seeking submissions for a collaborative project, set to debut in May. This project is called “Representations” and the intent is to educate and encourage womxn to take up space and affect the future at the intersection of art and technology. All of the collective work will be used to train an artificial intelligence model, which will be used to generate a new body of work reflecting the collective. I’ll be sharing the creation process through live sessions and videos, and the final body of work will be available as free-to-collect NFTs.
Eligibility: Project participation is open to all women-identifying and non-binary artists. No knowledge of NFTs, Cryptocurrency, or artificial intelligence (AI) is necessary to participate!
Submissions:
Work must be submitted as a JPG or PNG file. One artwork is to be submitted by each participant, please select something that you feel represents your individual perspective or artistic style.
The Savannah Storm Drain Project
Where does the water go to when it goes into the storm drain? It turns out that most people in Savannah didn’t know the answer, so the city (Laura Walker the Water Resources Environmental Manager) started this project to raise awareness and help people make the connection. The city has a website here to learn more about the project and view all of the entries and finished murals: https://waterconnectsusall.com
Above: Some images of me getting started - the color palette is definitely mine!
I really lucked out with the location I was assigned, Heard Elementary School - a STEAM school! I had some really great moments with the classes that came to visit my worksite - their understanding of why projects like this are important (and the fact that they’re being taught this) - just phenomenal! So much love for the inclusion of art into everything 🖤 I also had the chance to be part of a roundtable discussion with faculty and students at Heard, and Tamara Garvey of on Art(s) on the Air. Listen to the episode (and the rest of the radio show!) here: Art(s) on the Air -It’s also available as a podcast wherever you listen to those ;)
In progress - I didn’t realize until later that my face got quite windburned! The wind really picked up my 2nd day on this project as Hurricane Ian was heading through (Radar screenshot from my phone - yikes!)
Images of my finished storm drain mural!
Rob Hessler wrote an engaging article for the Savannah Morning News about the project, you can read it here: 'They're our waters': Savannah's Storm Drain Art Project involves community in our waterways
It’s been truly lovely to work with every single person I encountered throughout this project, I’m grateful to do this work, and to get to do this work with you all!
ON::VIEW Residency Finale
I’m so grateful for having been able to spend the past month in residence ON::VIEW at Sulfur Studios! Connecting with people, sharing my process, and how I use artificial intelligence in my work has been a great experience. Everyone comes at this with a different perspective, so I’ve gotten a lot of practice talking about the work and bringing people into my process from where they are.
During the residency, I held open studio hours, inviting people in to participate by painting with me. Participants were given the option of learning a little about how waves are physiologically calming, and creating a waveform painting, or doing a meditative prompt about body awareness and creating an intuitive abstract painting. With 30+ paintings in each series, the works were digitized and used to train two separate artificial intelligence models. These models then generate more work, that is a combination of everything it learned from that dataset. I comb through thousands of resulting images, and work with them further to create a final collection of images and video clips.
Here are some of the intuitive abstract results:
Here are some of the waveform series results:
It was cool to see people come back in for the finale reveal that had worked on the project with me, or checked up on its progress over time. I really liked having all the work hung from the walls as it built up, and still on display with the video pieces being shown on screens in the same space. It really gave a sense of the entire project.
The month flew by! I was too engaged in conversation all evening to get photos with people in them, so here’s one last shot of the studio before I moved out.
There is an NFT to collect for free from the project, and I’ll be sharing more from it going forward. You can collect those here: https://jenpalmerart.cent.co
I’ll also be making more prints available from this work, make sure you’re subscribed to get updates when those become available.
Thanks! 🖤
Wallpapers
I was really into this piece and made a background so I wanted to share, go ahead and save your preferred color!
VIDA Open Studio
Scarves, bags, masks, and pillows are available at my VIDA Open Studio. The Eco Repreve mask has been popular, and I still use my VIDA masks with the filters daily. Also, if you’re excited about fall being right around the corner, I think you’ll enjoy the tones of some of my new pieces!
Considering Radical Hope
Radical Hope
Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation
by Jonathan Lear
Jonathan Lear considers the role of Radical Hope in the context of the Crow and the cultural devastation that the white man brought upon them. I read this to better understand how to clearly portray what radical hope is.
While this discusses how Radical Hope enabled the survival of the Crow, there are many parallels to our current existence.
When I say, "Radical Hope is a belief in some goodness we can not yet understand", I feel the need to tack on that it is also not "toxic positivity". Radical Hope does not forego acceptance but embraces it. Lear explains that Crow tribe member and eventual leader, Plenty Coups, understands that the way of life is coming to an end. He does not know what is beyond it but is able to commit to the idea that goodness exists for him and his people, beyond his current understanding. Through accepting the unknown, he is able to come up with creative ways to re-interpret cultural ideals. Lear is clear to note that this commitment on the part of Plenty Coups does not mean that there is divine or historical correctness here.
Lear brings forth the virtue of courage as a means through which one is able to make such a commitment to something they can not yet understand. The points coming from Aristotle:
1) a courageous person has a proper orientation toward what is shameful and what is fearful
2) courage aims towards what is fine
3) a courageous person must grasp the situation he or she is in and, through experience, exercise good judgement
4) courage paradigmatically involves the risk of serious loss and enduring certain pains
This part was particularly helpful to me in explaining why radical hope is NOT toxic positivity. The difference is this definition of courage. There is an awareness present in radical hope, that is willful ignorance in toxic positivity. "Bold acts that derive merely from optimism are not courageous".
To have radical hope, a person must know what is good and aim towards that. They must be able to accept the current circumstance, and act upon sound judgement. They must be able to be vulnerable.
Lear goes on to discuss this dream that Plenty Coups had, and how it was a manifestation of radical hope (thus courage) , and that "radical hope can not just be psychologically advantageous, but a legitimate response even to a world catastrophe". This brings me to think about how, given current world circumstances, we, if nothing else, have this resource of radical hope. We can be the "poets" of our time, using this resource to imagine new ways of being, of processing, of bringing ourselves into the future good.
In being a psychological resource, radical hope creates the capacity to respond well to reality. If we lack this resource, if we fall into despair, or toxic positivity/ wishful optimism. If we lack this capacity, we lack the flexibility required to travel through devastation.
Lear considers the cultural ego-ideal, which informs the way one strives to live a rewarding life. Without this ideal, it is hard to understand what one lives for. Loss of this ego-ideal is devastation in itself. Radical hope holds a space in which this ego-ideal can be in flux. What the Crow tribe went through did not allow them to pass on traditional ideals, which is why it became a necessary resource to hold the ideal of being in flux. This allowed the Crow to "endure a loss of concepts".
When one does not know how to live a good life, despair seems inevitable. The concepts for what should equal happiness are gone, so how would one even continue to strive for that or experience that state of being?
Our lives are full of changes, not so constantly large as total cultural devastation, but how might the idea of radical hope enable us to adapt to those changes? How might it give us necessary resources to address current cultural failings and envision new ways of being that are infinitely more "fine"? How can we be vulnerable to allow this process? How must we embrace our sense of yearning for the good, so that we are clear-eyed and mindful of the current reality?
I believe that ideas like defunding the police, effective climate crisis action, and giving land back to native peoples come from the space held by radical hope. These ideas are courageous, mindful, aware, and strive to create a new culturally informed ego-ideal.
When I ask how some people can see, and some people can't, I largely end up back on the fact that some people can not accept - the history, the truth of current circumstance, the shift of ego-ideal. They are still living in magical optimism space, where something Jesus-like (or Trump-like) will come and save them (their way of living and believing). There are alternately those who have chosen despair. They are also unable to see, because the space they exist in is another sort of extreme, where nothing matters. It is interesting to me that they create these spaces too, unwittingly, and how important mindfulness is to the concept of radical hope.
I’m going to continue my reading and writing about this concept, and I would love to hear your thoughts too.
Punk is forever.
Recent research has shown that the music you listen to as a teen and young adult will shape you - forever. Think about what you were listening to then. How do you think it affected you? I certainly know not all of us were listening to songs about unity, freeing political prisoners, and human rights in general. Since I grew up in pre-internet times in rural PA, I didn’t have a lot of access to anything beyond. I was hungry for art and music and community. One of the main things my friends and I connected over was music - we cherished our traded mixtapes, CDs, and eventually digital playlists. We went to shows, to gather, to meet other people who felt like us, to feel accepted. Pittsburgh has its own breed of punk rock, too. It’s deeply planted in our local history as part of the rust belt and worker’s rights. I think about the determination of a bunch of kids, to get to a freezing cold fire hall in the middle of a snowstorm in Johnstown (before we even had GPS), just to sing along to a few of our favorite songs, and how that determination has shown itself in the years since - to challenge the systems, to refuse to accept the damages of our society, to talk to each other, to organize, to act.
This year has been especially challenging. I reflect on who we are, as individuals of this community, and how we’re doing in 2020. We are making art and music. We are spreading knowledge and supporting each other. We are raising money for others. We are feeding others. We are making masks and donating them to people who need them. We are setting up testing stations. We are marching in the streets. We are speaking out, making calls, organizing to educate voters. We are trying to keep our families and workplaces safe. We are demanding better wages. We are calling for justice. For healthcare. For education, For freedom from debt and capitalism. We are (virtually) holding each other’s hands, reminding each other to rest.
I have known that this group of people is bright and passionate, but this year, the way everyone has responded, makes me love them all the more.
Hold on.
I read somewhere that today’s date is Blursday the somethingith? That seems correct?! How are we all doing out there?
How am I? I am frustrated, angry, sad, furious, heartfelt and full of love, shut down, wound up, choked up, exhausted, strong, defiant, silent, screaming, full of hope and rage.
(But like, more so than normal)
I have been hanging onto words and paint and music. (Again, more so than normal) Aaaaaand Animal Crossing. That game is an absolute delight full of art, music, and silliness.
Also, the universe is sending me clear messages this week, and it’s weird in contrast, because everything else feels so foggy. There have been so many synchronicities happening that I’m starting to laugh out loud about it.
One of those messages I’ve received being, “It’s time for me to dig in.” So I’ve been thinking about the meaning of that, because my nature is typically to do exactly that. But it was presented to me in a way that meant maybe I’m not… Maybe I have this “skill” of being able to dig in, but maybe I’m not applying it correctly? Hmm. This feels as true as today being Blursday.
This feels like a call to a “this is it” moment of self-commitment and truth, all else be damned. What a weird moment of frightening clarity in this space at this time. I’m just going to hold on.
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