AlasdAIr Gray’s art

16 Jan

Written By Tracy

Cass Hoskins is an established graphic designer and artist starting to experiment with AI art. This is what happened when Cass, Alasdair and AI met in December 2022. This is their MidJourney.

Is AI the end of art?

MidJourney is an app that plugs into the Discord gaming interface, allowing anyone to code AI art through instructions. MidJourney returns four images in response, in sixty seconds. It doesn’t always deliver what you expect.

Computer screen with dark blue background and swirls of random light blue letters that look like a galaxy or an eye with the word Midjourney in the centre and login buttons

Cass says “A couple of artist friends I know have reacted really strongly to AI art, particularly one mural artist. What does this mean for graphic artists? I’m engaging with it because I needed to know what the potential is, how this technology can be used by an artist. It’s like the relationship between photography and fine art at the turn of last century. If the person commissioning you to paint a portrait or a picture of their horse can get a photograph taken instead, what are you going to do? Well, what happens if you’re free not to do that? If you don’t understand it, embrace it, you will get left behind.”

Experiment 1

Cass began by directing Midjourney to one source Alasdair Gray image, the Lanark frontispiece.

Black and white drawing titled Lanark A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray with multiple complex images of people, city scenes and strange hybrid creatures — *Lanark* frontispiece by Alasdair Gray

Cass also used the instructions ‘Alasdair Gray’ and ‘Glasgow’. MidJourney returned these four images.

A geometric abstract city in pencil or pastels: slate blue, rust red, grey ochre and yellow. — Experiment 1 | 1

Abstract landscape with a yellow road leading through a landscape of rust red and grey shapes to a cathedral-like building in the distance. Slate blue mountain shapes beyond. — Experiment 1 | 2

Black and white image of a city, people throng streets, panels of light reach upwards. — Experiment 1 | 3

Abstract landscape with a plain of grey flat land and water. A city of narrow towers in the distance, rust red, slate grey and yellow. Small orange spheres float above. — Experiment 1 | 4

Cass says “I wanted to just put in the artist, without saying anything, to let it do its thing. See how it interacts with the image. What came out feels very much of its era, the style reminds me of my parents’ generation.”

Experiment 2

Cass then directed MidJourney to the Hillhead underground mural (a visualisation of the West End), with ‘Glasgow’ as the instruction.

Tiled mural in an underground station with shaped ceramic tiles fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle of a 3D street map of the area showing roads, buildings and all kind of folk — Alasdair Gray mural, Hillhead Station by John Lord CC BY 2.0

Cass hadn’t specified ‘from above’ so the AI created these street-level images from Alasdair’s more aerial view, probably using contemporary photos of Glasgow.

Black and white image like a lithograph or pencil drawing of a junction of 2 city streets with large building and cars but no people. — Experiment 2 | 1

Black and white image like a lithograph or pencil drawing of a cityscape with a road and large buildings. A figure stands at the crossroads. A bus or tram passes. — Experiment 2 | 2

Black and white image like a block print of a receding city street with large modern and older buildings on either side. — Experiment 2 | 3

Black and white image like a woodblock print looking up a wide street with a bus or tram. Two people crossing. — Experiment 2 | 4

Cass says “I like this whole quartet, it reminds me of a L.S. Lowry painting. It’s like MidJourney has this knowledge or awareness of this time. There’s machine-learning happening every time you interact with it. Millions of instructions, from millions of people, billions of images. But what is it learning? How is it making these choices? It’s fascinating, but it’s not clear.”

Experiment 3

The next two images are produced from two different sets of instructions, but using a photo of Alasdair Gray in his wheelchair in front of one of his murals. MidJourney has chosen to make one a woodblock, the other a charcoal drawing. Incidentally, this is perhaps our first glimpse of DigitAl himself. But where did the forest come from?

Black and white image in the style of a woodblock print of an old, bearded white man with glasses standing in front of picture of bare trees. — Experiment 3 | 1

MidJourBlack and white image in the style of a charcoal drawing of tree trunks some with leaves on either side of a wide path receding into the distance — Experiment 3 | 2

Cass says ‘This process is like Dadaist action painting. Removing the human hand for the art, giving the machine a set of parameters. Paint falling on canvas. It’s a machine to unlock the subconscious. A collectively made subconscious.’

At this point the journey took a darker turn as we contributed some Lanark-specific instructions for Cass to choose from. ‘Unthank, Frontispiece, Mouths, Dragonhide, Face of God, Drowning, Screenprint, The Institute, monumental, Epic, The Clyde, Loch, Acropolis, Mayor of Unthank, Provost’.

Experiment 4

For this set, Cass used Alasdair’s drawing of Faust in his Study.

Complex black and white line drawing by Alasdair Gray. A flayed man, like an anatomist’s dissection, draws himself. Steampunk machinery, skulls, amalgamated creatures and a cityscape weave around each other. — *Faust in his Study* by Alasdair Gray

She input the words ‘Face of God, Glasgow, Clyde, Industrial, black-and-white’. She no longer included the instruction ‘Alasdair Gray’. Notice that the AI is 50/50 on whether God is male or female.

A black and white image of a marshy estuary with broken ship. A huge screaming face in a burst of light, surrounded by swirling bodies. Might be a tenement-end mural or the face of god. — Experiment 4 | 1

A black and white drawing. A river bank with crane and warehouse. A mural on tenement end with a chaotic confusion of humans, a large gender-neutral face, which may be laughing. — Experiment 4 | 2

A black and white image of a chaotic industrial landscape with water. A female face screams from a sunburst in the sky. — Experiment 4 | 3

Experiment 4 | 4

Experiment 5

This set also used Faust in his Study but the instructions were ‘Mayor of Unthank, The Clyde, drowning, mouths, screen print’. The ‘screen print’ instruction probably informed the images on the left, where paintings are held up by AI human hands. (The top two could be Rima and Lanark’s different readings of the Oracle.)

A black and white image of a waterway cuts through buildings. A woman submerged to her shoulders yells at the sky. In the foreground a child wrestles in the water with a half-human creature. — Experiment 5 | 1

A black and white image of a man standing waist deep in a river. Buildings line the bank. In the sky there are giant female faces, showing sorrow or fear. Something like a handkerchief takes flight. — Experiment 5 | 2

A black and white poster is held by human-looking hands. The poster has a drawing of bearded man. He is shouting. There is a drawn river below him and a line of old tenement buildings. — Experiment 5 | 3

A black and white image of poster held in front of someone in a photo-real riverscape. On the poster a man in a shirt and tie stands in a drawing of water, a skeletal head rises out of the water beside him. — Experiment 5 | 3

Experiment 6

Then the exact same search terms produced this. Had the AI learned from the last time?

A black and white image like a woodcut of a river between factory buildings. A mans head above the water gazes skywards. Two figures are in the water behind him, distorted faces in the foreground. — Experiment 6 | 1

Black and white image like a shaded drawing with a meaningless title. An industrial landscape and water. A man’s face in an arched niche like a mirror. In the water slug-like creature with a mouth floats. — Experiment 6 | 2

A drawing like a woodcut. A waterway cuts through buildings. A man up to his shoulders in the water gazes skywards, speaking. In the foreground float a woman’s face and the belly of an unknown creature. — Experiment 6 | 3

Black and white image of a river between factory buildings. The face of a man in a shirt and tie gazes sadly at the viewer. In the water slug-like creature with a snarling toothed mouth writhes. — Experiment 6 | 4

Cass says “What is going on? I mean fuck! What is GOING ON? Where did this come from. What is that THING in the bottom-left image?”

Experiment 7

Cass used the same image and search terms one last time.

Bold black and white image of industrial riverscape, factory towers. Dramatic exaggerated perspective and futurist styling. — Experiment 7 | 1

Black and white image of an industrial landscape, silver river heading to the distance. Forbidding black sky with moon and clouds in abstract designs. Roads curl like snakes. Creatures watch. — Experiment 7 | 2

Black and white image of an industrial riverscape factory towers. Exaggerated perspective and futurist styling. Clouds in abstract designs. In the foreground a part-human metamorphic creature watches the scene. — Experiment 7 | 3

Black and white image of a huge factory glowering over a river, part architecture part ship, part creature. Abstract clouds slash through the scene. A gigantic moon behind. — Experiment 7 | 4

Cass says “I couldn’t have imagined or painted something like this, and certainly not in 60 seconds! MidJourney is like taking the helicopter to the top of the mountain. There’s no effort in it. If I’d have drawn it I’d have a relationship with every detail in it, all the decisions, all the steps would be part of the image. It doesn’t feel like my art. It feels like a collaboration. Or like… I’ve commissioned the AI.

Doing this gallery got me excited about the potential for using MidJourney: using it as an inspiration, using it to generate ideas that would then become physical paintings. So using MidJourney as a tool, not an end result. Maybe that’s the answer?

I think Alasdair Gray would have been fascinated by MidJourney, agog at the randomness.”

Maybe we can imagine Alasdair Gray looking over Cass’s shoulder in horrified fascination. Telling her what instructions to try next as he reimagines cities past and future, reimagines art itself. And all the time the AI learns from his art and his instructions.

Explore more…

Who is Alasdair Gray?

Personal insights into a genius Uncle.

Alasdair Gray drawing of bearded monkey-like man with blinking eyes and glasses, squatting and typing on laptop connected to a mouse and printer.

Alasdair Gray is Digit Al

Alasdair Gray is generally seen as an inherently analogue creator but is that really the whole story?

Interpreting our Gray DNA

How does the AI behind ChatGPT and Midjourney interpret our Gray DNA?

External links…

You can find out more about Cass Hoskins on Instagram.

To play with MidJourney, visit the site (there is a subscription fee). To see what other people have been doing with the AI view their Community Showcase or there are groups on Facebook and Instagram.

Interested in experimenting with your own Alasdair Gray AI Gallery? We’d love to see what happens! Tag us in your work on Instagram or send us your images.

Get in touch

Tracy

AlasdAIr Gray’s art

Is AI the end of art?

Experiment 1

Experiment 2

Experiment 3

Experiment 4

Experiment 5

Experiment 6

Experiment 7

Explore more…

Who is Alasdair Gray?

Alasdair Gray is Digit Al

Interpreting our Gray DNA

Alasdair Gray is Digit Al

Courageous conversations