JamesYoungArt

Still here, still in education and still working! There's so much that I could/should show, but until I am out the other side of this, the work has to stay with me. Given that I also have to compile a detailed and regularly updated blog, it's little wonder that this one suffers.

But, on the subject of whether or not to share work... I have dropped back into DA to check out what is being said about AI, because wow- what an upset. Together with NFTs, the digital arts scene does feel like a place under siege at present. I wanted to find out what this community of creatives (I know that you're out there) thought about it all.

There's plenty being asked about what the DA moderators are going to do about AI work. Just what are you going to do, people?

And there are blogs, polls, comment pages aplenty wrestling with it. As well as the usual vultures.

Two comments that I have left, edited:

'[...] I've been doing pretty much nothing else this week but trawl opinions on blogs and channels about Midjourney and AI (or[...] generative - strictly speaking they're not AI at all). I think [...] that not knowing what is, or is credited as, AI/generative is going to be the rather ugly space that we are headed towards. The question that I think we should also be asking ourselves is what value will be placed on artists/creators when commercial imagery can be created so easily and effortlessly.'

'[...] What worries me about AI art is that the digital push towards democratization doesn't deliver that at all - it produces homogeneity, even mass mediocrity, controlled by a digital oligarchy comprised of those that wrote the code. The push by the tech giants is to make us all become unpaid content creators for their platforms. [...] If solely human-made art becomes more precious, then, logically, the only way to ensure that it is not sampled, and thus devalued, by generative AIs would be to keep it out of the digital realm altogether. It begs the question - could solely human-made art retreat from the internet entirely? Just as live music is the way for musicians to survive in a world of cheap downloads and sampling, could we be headed for a future of live art?'

... an addition. A reply to my paragraph above made a case for open source AI. My response:

'[...]Thinking about it... it opens up a fresh worry! While open source tools can take the AI tech out of the hands of digital oligarchs (an intriguing conflict-to-come over ownership - piracy of a tech that itself may be reliant on piracy!), that tech will still operate on the content created by others. Open source AI inpainting would mean that any attempts by an artist to protect their work online with signature or watermark can be easily bypassed. Will we get to the point where NFTs that provide digital signatures are the only way to mark digital ownership, and what value (for given value of...) will that NFT have in a digital realm of potentially infinite copies/manipulations? Back to my question of whether 'original' art may just retreat off the internet altogether...?'

Anyone else? What do we think? Are we feeding the machine at the expense of our own survival or are we on the cusp of something brilliant?

This page still exists! It still exists! No, wait - come back. Really.

The reason for the ludicrously long hiatus – I did as I said and went back into education! Yes, I did. Assessments, assignments, essays and presentations – it’s been a while since I did any of it, and it’s added up. It’s only now that I’ve passed all deadlines that I’m coming back to this.

Back in art school, doing an MA. Whodathunkit?

I said that I wanted a fresh challenge, and I’ve had that. My ‘piece’ for this semester evolved into a live video, sound recording, performance art amalgamation – something I totally wasn’t expecting to happen, but it did. Whether any of that ever sees light of day on this page I’m unsure about, as I’ve no idea how to present it outside of ‘real time’. May share some of the imagery.

The really insane thing was that I've had to blog about my progress! When I average out on three blog posts a year on this page, having to come up with something every time I made a bit of progress was so far out of my comfort zone, it was practically in the next galaxy. Plus, I’m now old. Like geriatric. Having a conversation with other students (can’t believe I can say that) we got onto first media memories, and I realised I that I was sitting with people for whom 9/11 is barely within their lifetimes. Which seems totally unreal.

What was mine? ‘Don’t say ‘The Berlin Wall coming down!’’ was the interrupted response, to general hilarity. Berlin Wall, hell. I can remember the Challenger exploding.

Aside from that, still living in an increasingly authoritarian parliamentary dictatorship/police state run by near-fascist imbeciles who seem determined to kill the entire population. Maybe this is the same for you, wherever you are.  Keep creating, don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Hopefully, a plethora of work to show coming soon. I just have to do it…

Hello to everybody. Did we all have a life before this, or was it all some warped hallucination? I’m beginning to doubt its existence. The evidence is all there but somehow it seems unconvincing. Straining to remember when I looked at something else other than four walls.

I’ve even started drawing and painting flowers – that’s how much I’m cracking up.

There has been a project that’s kept me going, which I alluded to in a previous journal. Perspective studies and use of Blender has been giving me some renewed/totally new learning curves, but it appears to have been worth it because the client was very pleased. So much so, that it may become a repeat commission. When they are at the point where they can share with the world, then I shall too. Until then, I’m going to have to be frustratingly enigmatic about it.

The plan for this year – I may just go back into education. This last year has felt like a brake, in so many ways; and while some new learning has been done, I have felt a slightly uncomfortable creative rut setting in. It’s a good rut, even a productive and aesthetically pleasing rut, but the uncomfortable note may be because it’s too comfortable – should such a concept make sense. My work always challenges me, but only really in a way that I’m now become quite familiar with. I need a fresh challenge, one that I actually enjoy. All challenges faced over the last year have just been a massively dispiriting pain, and know I’m not alone in thinking that.

Hopefully, it’ll also give me fresh ammunition for the future. The UK is still, just, one of the best places to get an arts education in, but for how long that remains and what future prospects will be, that remains to be seen. ‘It’s cold and it’s mean spirited and I don’t like it here anymore.’ For me, that feeling has not gone away.

The next pictures in progress are of some lovely sunlight trees, taken from references I collected towards the end of October. I’m get them up as soon as they are finished. It was a pleasantly frustrating time getting the references – trying to time walks out to the spot to coincide with autumn colours and magic hour light. I kept getting there, and the sun would disappear behind a cloud at that very moment, and all the colours would go. And with every day that passed, more trees shed their leaves, and those colours would go. Better luck next time.

Just wait ‘til next year. As Charlie Brown so succinctly put it.

Damn, I really am cracking up.

I said that I would upload some of my portrait and figure work and never got around to it. Next task!

All the best to you, wherever you are.

Oh dear God. How do you begin to write about the last six months? Aside from the usual admonishment to myself that I really should write these entries more regularly, I’ve got to admit that I’m kind of stumped. That speaks volumes in itself. 'Because what have you been doing? Precisely - you've had nothing to write about. "Dear World, woke up, marvelled at the futility of existence, despaired at the actions of incompetents and charlatans, fell asleep."' Scintillating.

We’re in a second national lockdown here in the UK, and is it being observed as closely as the first? Is it hell. Everybody’s sick to death of this shit. Reminders that it’s better than being literally sick to death from Covid are falling on somewhat deaf or deadened ears. And Winter Is Coming. In so many ways.

Some parts of the world seem to work. A friend made it to New Zealand a few years ago in a superb piece of timing, and Is Not Coming Back. Miss her, but such the right decision.

I have close friends that I haven’t seen in months. It’s enough to make even an expect-the-worst curmudgeon like me feel somewhat bombarded.

Positive things ('Yes, let’s talk about positive things!') – the shared studio space is going pretty well. Although we’ve not been able to offer the public space aspect of it as well we had hoped, we’ve been able to bounce ideas of each other and take work in new directions. I’ve had a go at some portrait work and am in the middle of some figure paintings, something that’s been a bit lacking in my portfolio up until now. While I fill sketchbooks with figure drawings, usually sneakily done while waiting around on train platforms (like some crazed art stalker…) the results rarely get into my finished work. I’ll upload my efforts – a couple of portraits and some magazine page studies – some time soon.

One of our artists is an admirer of Giorgio Morandi, a position that struck me as rather strange as I regard Morandi as being quite stultifying boring (and bourgeois. ‘Bring it down! Bring it all down!’) and suggested that we set up some still-lifes and have a go at them. Again, not something that I’ve done in a while, but good to work on. Amusingly (it amused me, at any rate) the still-life was set up with a bright lamp really close to, negating all of the Morandi dead beiges and casting Caravaggio shadows everywhere instead. That’s more like it, I thought, and happily got on with it. To be uploaded soon.

Got to find your amusements somewhere…

A couple of commissions, including one where I’ve had to relearn perspective to a degree previously untested. I’ve a feeling that I’ve screwed up the scale and am currently messing around with my rudimentary Blender skills building a model of my ‘set’ to see where I’ve gone wrong. Not as wrong as I feared, I’ve been pleased to note, but not all is well. To be continued.

Other work has been done. My Animals folder is now starting to fill up, and I’m seeing some more progression with other sea and tree picture that have snuck into my gallery over the past few months. I think that I’m going to have another ruthless prune of previous work soon.

I do have a plan for next year, but I’m keeping it to myself for now. Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans. Difficult, of course. How do you keep secrets from him?

On that theological conundrum.

All the best to everybody out there. May things get better for you, wherever you are.

How are we all? Bleakly hilarious reading back my previous blog entry from all of four months ago and looking at how much the world has changed since. What I said of positive steps forward right at the moment of crisis – well, where do you start? Where will it end?

The new studio space that was going so well is now on a strict rota; so, while I am getting some work done in self-isolation, the entire point of being able to bounce ideas off other people has gone completely out of the window. I’m glad I’ve got somewhere. I know of some people who have lost any means to do any art work at all. Why do we create? Because we are compelled to do so. Being unable to do that must be awful.

I’ll throw a bunch of stuff onto the DA gallery sometime soon. I’ve been quite productive as there’s little else to do – just can’t sell any work at present because I can’t get it printed to the quality I’d like, and I sure can’t sell direct to people because all events are cancelled. I know I’m far from the only one where that’s concerned. Selling online always remains, but with just a file you can’t rigidly authenticate it or limit the editions, so I’m feeling kind of stymied.

As for what else is going on… meh. And may that be the worst of my problems. Seems crass to complain about much else when the world’s facing what it is.

Work coming up. Share the love. Stay safe, everybody. Take care of yourselves.