Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

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Please take the following as a form of intellectual sparring, and spoken loud hypotheses about art theory.

"I processed pictures using the Artistic Style Transfer algorithm and then painted them."

Isn't that just effectively painting by numbers? Autotune for visual arts... and it's not interesting once one learns to percieve the effect.

The problem is that one takes a less interesting input domain, and runs it through a filter that makes it more aesthetically interesting. Once one learns to percieve the common transfer function my brain filters it back into the less interesting input domain. Music and visual arts as well.

When digital images became common there was a huge influx of people who ran their images through photoshop filters and called their output "art".

What one likes, one likes, I have no qualm about that.

For me personally, though, that is just tastless, unimaginative and boring. Maybe it's because once people use well known domain transfer tools, my brain learns to discern those domain transfers and robs the output of it's pleasant features induced by the domain transfer.

To provide actual value, the process should make the content somehow more "alive" or "interesting" than just by applying a "trivial" domain transfer, like a well known neural network domain transfer or photoshop filter.

Maybe a person should invent ones own domain transfer system, thus not make it commoditized?

Many ancient master held their work strictly in secret before it was ready. Maybe, they realized that if the process was known people would recognize it simply as consequent application of various domain transfer functions and the magic would be lost.

I get the feeling you didn't read the article rememberinglenny posted about his techniques, or maybe you haven't painted or drawn before.

While he does transfer styles from one domain to another digitally, it doesn't end there. He uses the generated images as a basis for physical paintings. For this to be possible a degree of skill is necessary. For example, try drawing yourself using a mirror and your output will be greatly different despite having a perfect model in front of you.

I don't agree with your last paragraph. That's like saying that because C is a very well documented language, programs made with it are trivial. What we do with the tools we have and the experience gained by practice is what makes something "magical", as well as the message it conveys. This last element, the transmission of the message, is highly dependent on the individual who experiences art. Which means that no piece of art is for everybody.

Finally, I agree with what brudgers said: > Saying "I could have made that" is false in the context of art. If a person could have they would have. If they didn't, they can't. The proof is in the work.

Your last paragraph is right. His only mistake was to publish his creative method. If you just stumbled upon his art in a gallery you would have no idea how those paintings came to be.

Style Transfer is just as much Autotune for the visual arts as Spray Paint is. The process doesn't matter, only the end result and the impact that result has matters.

The means to achieving that impact is an art unto itself divorced from any resultant work; a meta-art, if you will, which is deserving of its own consideration and appreciation.

Honest intellectual sparring over art comes in the form of art. Saying "I could have made that" is false in the context of art. If a person could have they would have. If they didn't, they can't. The proof is in the work.

That's ridiculous. Every artist has to make choices -- they can't pursue every avenue of creative development. Not everyone brings all their potentials to fruition. Opportunity costs.

To say "unless you have already done x, you cannot do x" is a mind-bogglingly wrong perspective to take.

Many people are capable of coming up with, for example, witty, plausible conceptual art ideas. Generally they don't pursue it because only a few famous players can make a living that way. In addition, there are the dynamics of charisma to consider: a successful artist needs to sell themselves, to persuade an audience that their work has value. It generally takes a level of narcissism to achieve that. All of that hype and marketing is peripheral to the ability to actually make the work.

An art idea, however witty is not a work of art. The hard part of art creation is the willingness to evaluate opportunity costs in terms of lost opportunities to make art. Saying "This sunset would make a lovely photograph" is not making a photograph of a sunset. Art is in the artifact.

The professional artists I know aren't famous. They don't persuade people. Sometimes they do what they do. Sometimes they make things they think people will like. Sometimes they make works on commission. They make a living at art, but it is something they were doing before making a living at art and had ordinary day jobs. As professionals artists their day job looks a lot like other day jobs in that they work a lot of hours and have to deal with paperwork and order supplies and collect money from customers.

Since the 1960s, conceptual art has been an uncontroversial thing. An idea _can_ be art. A gesture that leaves no perceptible trace can be art. "A great artist can make art by simply casting a glance." – Robert Smithson.

The reality of the trendy art world (high-profile artists and gallery) is that good PR is the one thing an artist absolutely can't do without. Everything else is optional. Anything can be art. No physical manifestation is required.

I'm sure the artists you mention are serious and professional. There's a distinction that's sometimes drawn between the kind of conceptual/trendy work and supposedly more honest, commercial or traditional art production. It's almost always the more conservative, conventional people who make that distinction -- it's a way of dismissing more conceptual work as pretentious or elitist.

>If a person could have they would have.

This is a very weird belief. Why would I create a piece of art I don't think is interesting?

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