Tag: animation tips

The fear of A.I.

A recent discussion on AI featuring digital artists

” Every artist’s art is their coping mechanism — we make what we make to save ourselves, to stay sane, to find the slender cord of grace between us and the world. ” — Maria Popova

There’s a lot of talk about Artifical Intelligence (A.I.) and art these days. There’s a lot of fear.

When technology arrived, the way of doing things changed. Art, too, changed. But unlike most ways of producing things, the creation of art, like food, continued to retain its methodologies. Drawing, painting, sculpture, acting, and music continued to hold on to most of its tools and techniques. We might use digital tools as an aid or accessory but we’re still fundamentally drawing, strumming the guitar or flipping steaks. The analog way never quite lost its usefulness or appeal. Artists and consumers alike preferred hand made stuff be it paintings or pancakes.

Would you like real or canned soup? Campbell’s Soup Cans courtesy of Andy Warhol.

In animation, however, technology in the form of CGI was one of the first to really alter the ways of the original craft. 3D animation not only offered a decidedly appealing alternative but became almost an existential threat to the entire analog animation industry. Beginning with its initial lower costs (3D movies/games are now far more expensive), the freedom of the digital camera, and the eventual ability to make the photo-real a reality in animation, both the industry and the consumer chose the novel thing. Hand drawn animation, as well as stop motion animation, still remains, but on a much smaller scale. Today, the comparisons in terms of numbers is not even close, with the number of artists using 2D methods almost negligible relative to those who use 3D. The greatest fears of the analog animator was realized.

The success of Sergio Pablo’s 2D film Klaus proves there’s still a deep love and interest in hand animated films. Unfortunately, the larger film/animation industry is still reluctant to embrace its comeback.

Now, with A.I. arriving on the scene, the same fear, perhaps even on a greater scale is confronting the modern artist. This is fourth industrial revolution stuff — technology that may threaten mankind never mind art. Science fiction has forever warned of the danger of A.I. and a future of robots displacing your average human. But unforeseen, and with unexpected fervor, the creators of this new technology went after artists first — hunting down not laborious, dangerous or even boring jobs but creative artistic ones. Applying the modern financialized model of thinking, getting “results” uncanningly fast and cheap has become paramount to the corporate owners and managers of the industry. A.I. may be sold by its specious purveyors as the benevolent democratization of art and a new source of creativity but in truth the motivation for its implementation is obvious: money. Return on investment (ROI) and efficiency currently rule the day.

Is this rotten to the core evil, abject stupidity or just plain bad luck dumped upon your everyday resistence fighting artist? Here’s the thing, this A.I. thing was coming sooner or later. We creatives just happened to be first on the hit list but being targeted first will give us a head start on how to deal with it. When it hits the rest of society, most of whose occupants still have its head in the sand, we’ll have figured a way of adapting and surviving. Although artists might go thru an initial period of real anxiety and suffering, I just don’t think we should be really that scared at all, at least not in the long run.

“Design means thinking on the object.” — Otl Aicher

Why? Because computers, ChatGTP and its successors, are ultimately imitation machines. And imitation is not creation. It’s a fancy tool that can access a larger library and has a fancy mixer. Whatever it spits out, is merely by chance. Its primary advantage is speed. And I truly suspect it won’t be as cost efficient as companies hope, as the technology is immensely energy inefficient. Furthermore, any output that looks or sounds decent is likely infringing upon some sort of copyright. Potential lawsuits maybe what’s currently holding back a larger roll out of its usage. Ultimately though, good art isn’t made by a mixing machine. Making art is not only a physical process but a demanding mental process that challenges the hardest aspect of our consciousness: decision making. Art is all about decisions. Our human heart-minds design, then we make. And you know what else? We learn to design by making and doing the craft. AI’s bravado claim is that it can skip the work, skip the process.

Animation from Disney’s Robin Hood by Milt Kahl. Every frame is magical and life-affirming. Good luck with AI producing anything as beautiful and creative as this!

Creative decisions: what or how many lines or shapes, what color combinations to use, how and where to place an object or action, what changes will give more weight, feeling or appeal? These are the kinds of complicated decisions an artist battles with each moment many times a day in his work. These difficult questions multiply upon each other and magnify in sophistication and complexity in such a way that only a human mind — one highly sensitive and attuned to the art — is able to decipher. Even after much deliberation, often times the best choices an artist makes comes not from his education or knowledge but his heart and soul, a place where truth, love, and meaning reside, a habitat with such depth of mystery and complexity that it’s simply impossible to measure or imitate. Machines are mathematical measuring/calculating devices, its entire existence is dependent on measurement.

“A mind that is caught in measurement can never find truth.” J. Krishnamurti

Furthermore, art is a process, not a product. Hence, the common interpretation of art as a mere commodity is a mistaken notion. Living things can not be mass produced like most industrial products are. Making art is a single and unique act of creation where as the very nature of mass reproduction cannot be that — its product or outcome can never have any sense of originality or genuine existence. Its most distinguished quality will always be consistency of sameness and quantity produced quickly. Like soup out of a can, it’s devoid of the taste of life. In the words of a friend and fellow artist, “AI art is abolutely empty. I look at it and I feel nothing.” The tendency of automatic art to leave a vacuous sensation is not surprising to me since modern industrial technology has always possessed an almost uncanny ability to destroy the purity and sanctity of anything it touches. Every good artist who uses digital technology knows that if he/she doesn’t pour all his heart, intelligence and passion into the thing, tweaking curves and pixels to a point that it’s practically hand-made, the outcomes are crap — weightless, colorless boring crap.

“No, painting was not invented to decorate houses. It is an instrument of war for attack and defence against the enemy.” — Picasso.

Computer technology is also particularly good at dating itself. Dig up your old phone or put in an old movie with CGI effects and you’ll know what I mean. Try watching the early 3D animated films or look back at some of your old favourite science-fiction films. Ask yourself, why do the three original Star Wars movies (Episodes 4,5,6 ) look and feel so much better than its successors made decades later?

Nothing ages as poorly as digital technology. I loved the original Toy Story but try watching it again and it’s almost unwatchable (graphically speaking.)

So, what I’m saying is don’t be scared of A.I. It’s gonna be the best imitator/duplicator ever but that’s all it’ll ever be (if it does become more than that, we’ll have far bigger problems than losing our art.) If you’re a real artist you have nothing to worry about. If you have real skill and understanding of your craft and know what it is to create real weight and feeling in your work you can relax. And, if you’re not content with merely copying your (video/photo) reference frame by frame or duplicating the same stories, designs and concepts already made by others, you’ll remain secure in the fact that you’ll continue to have fun and find meaning in your work; you actually like to learn new things and love the challenge of creation. But if you’re just a mere imitator of art working on autopilot, that is, you’re content with just mailing it in, doing things as fast as possible and just get paid (although not for long), you have genuine reason to be scared; your fears will be realized. A.I. is already hot on your tail and you will soon be economically obsolete. No one can out-machine a machine.

“Art is not a thing — it is a way.” — Elbert Hubbard

The Line

The lines of Egon Schiele are both enigmatic and erotic. This makes his work both direct and immensely interesting.

“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” — Paul Klee

Lines. They don’t exist in physical reality but they’re almost always the first thing we see.

The line marks the beginning of things. It forms meaning and translates ideas. Enclosed, it makes a shape. The earliest markings made and interpreted by our caveman ancestors were lines. It’s likely the very first symbol ever created, beginning as image and then later, as written language. The importance of line to an artist is gargantuan and its value and influence over mankind has been equally immeasurable.

8000 year old origins of the Chinese language, from pictograms to words.

Let’s look at what lines do and what they can mean more specifically:

Line as a Demarcation:

A line marks the edge of things. It’s the outline which separates foreground from background. It aids the sillouette. It says this is over here, the other thing is over there. In that sense, it defines a spatial relationship between that which lies on either side of the line.

Separating sea from sky, heaven and earth, the timeless quality of Hiroshi Sugimoto‘s photography is almost entirely dependent on the power of the line.

Line is Movement:

Lines indicate action. The flow of the line is something remarkably active and interesting. Our eyes naturally travel along a line, whether it be a painted stripe on a roadway or the body of a snake, we can’t help but be led along from one end to the other.

Gustav Klimt was a master of line. His work uses line to create flowing movement, texture and form — all to the delight or our eyes.

Lines give Direction:

The movement of the line can also indicate an aimed direction or thrust. The line of action in the spine of a body or the turn of forces in the torso or limbs — like those seen in a Michelangelo fresco — dictate where our eyes go. Lines indicate the direction(s) of force(s) felt but unseen. The poses made by the very best animators always demonstrate this phenomena.

Rough blocking by animation legend Bill Tytla. Here lies sophisticated action descibed soley thru the use of line. Changes of direction, strong lines of action and descriptive animated form are all evident here in this beautiful exploration of forces.

Line can describe Texture:

The use or absence of line can indicate the qualities of a surface. It can also be used to distinguish spatial distance. A line in open space gives a very different feeling compared to a confluence of organized (or disorganized) collection of lines. Smooth lines magnify the feeling of flow while erractic lines suggest disruption and more tactility. Lines can describe and decorate; used in open or closed form, they design a composition.

The magificant art of Illustrator Sergio Toppi is always a masterclass in design. Here, line is texture, form, unity and visual decoration. His use of open space versus concentrated detail is second to none.

Lines can Unify:

When used in conjunction with other lines, the line may unify. Whenever we look at circular forms or any forms that are repeated, they give a sense of unity by tying things together. Like the muscles in body, they work together like a rubber band system simultaneously pushing and pulling. It’s one of the reasons why 2D animation drawings often have so much appeal because unity and repetition brings about harmony, both in movement and form.

There’s perhaps no living animator whose work so defines movement, weight and power more than Glen Keane. His drawings signal a unifed collection of forces, both gravitational and emotional.

Lines have Weight:

Altering the quality of the line can give weight to it. The illusion of gravity and substance begins to form whenever there’s a change in the thickness of the line. Thus a line can feel, or give the feeling of, heaviness or delicateness, power or elegance. The line itself can have character or be its own character and carry its own uniquely defining message.

A beam of light or a connection to the higher universe? Barnet Newman‘s famous use of line indicates so much in its sublime simplicity.

Lines are Personal:

Yes, lines can possess or present the personal qualities of the artist. Composed in the right way, a single line (or a group of lines) can deliver feelings of strength, grace, sensuality and even spirit. There’s a reason why handwritten signatures have been used for centuries as a means to authenticate works of art or legal commitments. The way we use line can be, and often is, a very personal statement.

In my own work, I’ll often let the line guide me so as to arrive at somewhere unexpected and maybe, if I’m lucky, express what cannot be easily described by words alone.  (Art by James W. Chiang)

Ultimately, making a line is akin to drawing a line in the sand. It says this is how far I will go and this where I say yes and where I say no. For the artist, to express himself in line is to make a decision — that is, it’s proof of his action and evidence of his existence — and there is nothing more important than that. So, it is this reason why the visual artist must draw; it’s simply the most direct and practical way to learn how to see the line and how to use it.