Computer Generated Art

[Primula Baggins]

When I was a teenager there was a fad for using inexplicable-looking images, like Whistler's above, on the cover of science fiction paperbacks. Of course, those were all traditionally made paintings in those days.

If the style comes back, I know somewhere they can look for art.

[Whistler]

Those are done with a very simple program called Bryce, which sells for under $100. It's hardly more than a toy.

But it's a good toy, and people with no particular artistic talent can still use it to create some very interesting images.

You can use it for animations, too.

[Primula Baggins]

I wonder if tools like this will lead to a different breed of artist—someone who may lack traditional technical training but who has an eye for composition and color could use these tools to create images that are at least striking.

It's an art form that photographers might take to. It's also a tool that complete non-artists like me might have a lot of fun noodling around with.

[Whistler]

Prim, it has already led to a different breed of artist, and those of us from the old school worry about that.

We have a whole generation of artists, now, who can build a city of the future with computers but cannot draw an apple with a pencil. Progress? Yes, in the sense that unimagined possibilities are now within the grasp of every artist.

But disturbing, too. You learn something from old-fashioned drawing and painting that you will never learn from these new tools. And the absence of that something is still very evident to me, and to my older artist friends, when we look at the new art.

I remember the scene in Jurassic Park where the Jeff Goldblum character listens to the park owner detailing his amazing achievements, deeply in love with technology for the sake of itself.

The Goldblum character answers that the man has learned no humility from nature, has never learned to respect it. Instead he simply manipulates it however he pleases, and simply because he can. The Goldblum character perceptively observes: You haven't earned the right to do this.

Indeed he hasn't.

The program I use for my pseudo-portraits has two settings that always fill me with horror: One is "Automatic Impressionism" and the other is "Automatic Van Gogh."

I'm a trained artist from the old school, and I still haven't earned the right to use those settings.

We have created a Frankenstein. Unlike the previous monster, this one is pretty to look at. But he's still a monster, and the damage he may do is impossible to calculate.

[yovargas]

Awww, no automatic Dali?

[Whistler]

No, but there's a melting tool. That should help.

[WampusCat]

Was that used on your sig photo? Those women seem to have melted a bit.

[Whistler]

They're melting because they've been swooning for Whistler. Leaves them all limp.

[Primula Baggins]

I agree in principle, Whistler, that people ought to master the fundamentals before they play with the toys. But I do so with the reservation that there are also people like my son who cannot draw an apple with a pencil, not with all the training and hard work in the world. For that subgroup of people, these tools are a great gift. My son once said about Vue, "I had all these pictures in my head, and I thought they would never get out, and now they can." I don't know if he'll ever accomplish anything professionally with this, but I do know it's often what he does to relax—and that is a great asset for a busy, sometimes tense kid.

My graphic designer friends have griped, justifiably, about all the fonts and layout tools that are available everywhere now, making everyone believe they can do graphic design. So not so.

[Whistler]

Well, Prim, for your son this wonderful stuff is indeed a blessing. Understand that I use all of it myself and don't look down on others for doing whatever they can with it. I don't want to sound like a snob, only like someone who thinks we need to sit back and realize how enormous the changes have been, and the fact that all the rules will need to be rewritten. It's a scary thing, but perhaps ultimately a good thing: The rules haven't been scrapped since the 1870s, and maybe we're overdue.

Ugh! How I know that everybody is an artist these days! As you know, I'm in advertising at a newspaper. Many of our clients "help" us by doing some of the work themselves.

When they help us, it takes twice as long to do the job. If we're lucky.

[Primula Baggins]

You should see the manuscripts I sometimes receive where the author has "helped" by coming up with exciting new ideas for all the design elements. Then I have to either wedge my marks into the tiny artsy type, or spend a significant amount of time removing all the styles and formatting and generating a boring document the compositor can read.

The rules have changed, and if a tool is there, it's human to want to try it out. The problem is that people often don't respect or even see what lies behind the obvious and easily manipulated elements in art or design.

[Whistler]

All right, I have decided to give everyone a big laugh at my expense. This is too good (meaning too bad) to deny it to my friends.

A few years ago, I was approached by a certain hillbilly. This hillbilly had done extensive research into the subject of flying saucers and alien life, having carefully studied every available supermarket tabloid dealing with the subject. Having thereby become a respected authority on these subjects, he decided to do what respected authorities always do: write a book. Having somehow acquired the notion that I am a famous artist, he solicited my help for the cover.

Did I mention that this was a really, really rich hillbilly? I pulled an outrageous figure out of the air, hoping to scare him away. But this was one determined hillbilly, and he wasn't going to let a famous artist slip away from him.

He agreed to my outrageous request. I swallowed my gum and agreed to take the job.

Let's see...I had to create a really atmospheric science fiction cityscape, complete with flying saucers. And a pretty girl. With big breasts. Very important, those big breasts.

In the background, I had to create an alien being who looked a little like the girl, but as an extraterrestrial. Or maybe as an earth girl as she might appear after a million years of evolutionary change. He was rather vague on the significance of this element.

Did I mention that the girl had to have big breasts?

Anyway, I took a pre-existing 3D cyber girl (she cost $60, as I recall) and got busy. This girl, and others like her, is designed especially for use in a particularly weird variety of internet pornography. You can buy everything for her: whips, chains, whatever. She is anatomically correct and infinitely editable.

This was a good thing, because I had to make her breasts really big.

I made another version of the girl, this time with buggy eyes and no hair. If that doesn't look like a supermarket tabloid alien, I'll eat the hat I'd wear if I wore a hat.

I threw the alien city together in about six minutes, dropped in some water (sparkles in water look cool) and added the spaceships, which look slightly better than those in an Ed Wood movie. Then I slapped the whole thing together, collected a huge check and sent the respected authority off to Kinko's...or whatever do-it-yourself print shop he had selected for the publication of his scholarly volume.

And that, boys and girls, is the story of how this famous artist created the most embarrassing work of his career.

I have sent word to the hillbilly that the whole world is clamoring for a sequel.

Another thing: Have you noticed how big those breasts are?

[TheTennisBallKid]

That girl is, uh, out of this world. You might say.



ttbk

[WampusCat]

Whistler, that's just ... just ...

[Whistler]

The breasts, as they currently appear, were reduced from their original size.

He asked me to shrink them (meaning, to shrink them down to the size they are now) because he was afraid that if they were too big, people might not take him seriously.

That was his sole intelligent observation.

[yovargas]

Anyone seen the Simpsons episode where they go to Australia and Homer asks a bartender for "one of those really big beers they're famous for"? This is kinda like that.

[Alatar]

So how much does one of these go for? Hmm?

[Primula Baggins]

Whistler, when I had bad dreams about the cover for my book, this is what they looked like.

Though I suspect it is a much better cover than the book deserved. I'll bet you sold some copies for him, because those breasts are . . . are . . .

[Whistler]

Large.

Nobody has yet commented on the cleverness of the title, which (to me) is the icing on the poisonous cake.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I like the crooked buildings.