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.
We have enough.
Expressions of Radical Hope: “We Have Enough”
Every week, I listen in to Midjourney Office Hours. I find so much of it fascinating, and I take notes to update my learning collective people to fill them in on changes, new features, and philosophy. There is a channel on the Midjourney Discord for the “daily theme” - you can choose to get notified when this theme changes or not, but it’s people in the same channel making art on the same topic. Often, this daily theme changes to reflect something discussed in office hours - like robot squid. I usually include some of these images with the update to the learning collective. This week it wasn’t really related, and I felt inspired by all the topics of discussion in general and made some abstract painting images. I try to prompt shapes, colors, styles, and materials I actually use.
I also used combinations of these ideas: new computer science, art history, biodiversity, responsibility, exploration, community, infinite compute power, radical hope, a beautiful future, post-scarcity, and monkeys looking for bananas in new places. (😂 It's always a good time!)
After making these images, I also used the /blend feature to really get something I was feeling. I took this image into Photoshop and used the neural filter Super-Zoom to upscale. Next up, I opened the upscaled image in Adobe Fresco to get painting - the live brushes are really lovely. If you’re a traditional artist working with AI, someone who has painted in Photoshop forever, or a new artist starting with AI-generated images and learning to paint digitally, definitely check it out.
I’m loving the tools that Midjourney has for making art, but also the community. So many acknowledgments of systemic issues and how we can have a better future. So much awareness that we have enough, for everyone. If I could see this community as a sea of people, I imagine many of them have these sparks of radical hope glowing within them… (Now there’s another thing for me to go prompt) 🖤✨
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