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magicofthepiperAfter months of not visiting the studio I frequent due to budget limitations, I was able take a class. The studio favors abstract, but this class would fall into the collage category.
I won't share what I worked on because I will put it into my portfolio collection, but it was actually really nice to be in an artistic environment where the instructor doesn't give a shit about copyright infringement. Even if I did instinctively cringe at a lot of their talking points for how they source their image resource pool.
The online art sphere is so paranoid about how you have to use references in a very limited way, if at all. There's definitely a legal defense to support this, after all Shepard Fairey's infamous portrait of Obama over the word Hope was deemed infringement of an AP freelancer's photograph. At the same time, I don't think I have met anyone who doesn't consider it art.
I really think AI art will change that. On one hand the no references at all crowd will dig their heels in deeper. But as AI normalizes digital collage, I hope more respect will transfer down to actual artists that take time to craft their photomanipulations, be it digital or traditional.
It just seems to me that referential art normally is able to stand on it's own values. If a critic can spot a reference, that's a valid component of their critique, be it a Jojo pose (which it self are often redraws of the work of Antonio Lopez and other fashion illustrations), a character wearing an outfit inspired by Neo-Queen Serenity's dress (itself based on Gianfranco Ferre's haute couture "Il Palladio" dress), or even the extremism of Ross Tran who controversially had tutorials on how he repaints photographs and, more so, Ilya Kuvshinov's portfolio full of traced images of other's illustration.
I am aware of the ethical concerns that comes from referencing. A lot of AI scrapes data from non-consenting artists, or nothing can stop someone from training an AI to mimic a particular artist's portfolio. Like we see happen to Greg Rutkowski and the recently departed Kim Jung Gi.
However, particularly as a traditional artist, there is very much a "human authorship" if I recreate a photo. Also my brain is not very good a recreating an an image, so, even if a photo reference is used, it's going to look very different from my reference.
A simple AI program can translate a photograph into the style of Warhol's Marilyn Diptych in seconds, but it seems like most people would still appreciate the thought process and manual labor of a person who does it by hand, be it a traced vector in Illustrator or another silkscreen.
I do try to use stock images and to pay photographers for non-exclusive commercial-use licenses. However, sometimes the validity that the person who uploaded the image is the photography is difficult to verify. It's nice to know that my art should fall under transformative work, even if it turns out that that uploader uploaded another person's work, unlike those who use it for editorial purposes.
https://www.artstation.com/blogs/obscura29/6w9X/do-famous-artists-use-references
https://www.justcreate.net/2016/11/how-to-use-reference-correctly-when_17.html?m=1
https://dot.la/creative-machines-ai-art-2656764050.html
https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/obama-hope-poster-lawsuit-settlement-good-deal-both-sides-says-kernochan-center-director
I won't share what I worked on because I will put it into my portfolio collection, but it was actually really nice to be in an artistic environment where the instructor doesn't give a shit about copyright infringement. Even if I did instinctively cringe at a lot of their talking points for how they source their image resource pool.
The online art sphere is so paranoid about how you have to use references in a very limited way, if at all. There's definitely a legal defense to support this, after all Shepard Fairey's infamous portrait of Obama over the word Hope was deemed infringement of an AP freelancer's photograph. At the same time, I don't think I have met anyone who doesn't consider it art.
I really think AI art will change that. On one hand the no references at all crowd will dig their heels in deeper. But as AI normalizes digital collage, I hope more respect will transfer down to actual artists that take time to craft their photomanipulations, be it digital or traditional.
It just seems to me that referential art normally is able to stand on it's own values. If a critic can spot a reference, that's a valid component of their critique, be it a Jojo pose (which it self are often redraws of the work of Antonio Lopez and other fashion illustrations), a character wearing an outfit inspired by Neo-Queen Serenity's dress (itself based on Gianfranco Ferre's haute couture "Il Palladio" dress), or even the extremism of Ross Tran who controversially had tutorials on how he repaints photographs and, more so, Ilya Kuvshinov's portfolio full of traced images of other's illustration.
I am aware of the ethical concerns that comes from referencing. A lot of AI scrapes data from non-consenting artists, or nothing can stop someone from training an AI to mimic a particular artist's portfolio. Like we see happen to Greg Rutkowski and the recently departed Kim Jung Gi.
However, particularly as a traditional artist, there is very much a "human authorship" if I recreate a photo. Also my brain is not very good a recreating an an image, so, even if a photo reference is used, it's going to look very different from my reference.
A simple AI program can translate a photograph into the style of Warhol's Marilyn Diptych in seconds, but it seems like most people would still appreciate the thought process and manual labor of a person who does it by hand, be it a traced vector in Illustrator or another silkscreen.
I do try to use stock images and to pay photographers for non-exclusive commercial-use licenses. However, sometimes the validity that the person who uploaded the image is the photography is difficult to verify. It's nice to know that my art should fall under transformative work, even if it turns out that that uploader uploaded another person's work, unlike those who use it for editorial purposes.
https://www.artstation.com/blogs/obscura29/6w9X/do-famous-artists-use-references
https://www.justcreate.net/2016/11/how-to-use-reference-correctly-when_17.html?m=1
https://dot.la/creative-machines-ai-art-2656764050.html
https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/obama-hope-poster-lawsuit-settlement-good-deal-both-sides-says-kernochan-center-director
