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AI or not, it's always too early to say that art is dead

USAGAG — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 15:54:00 +0000

In Paris in late 1839, just a few months after an early type of photograph called a daguerreotype was shown to the world, there was a funny picture that warned what this tiny picture meant. In Théodore Maurisset's mind, the daguerreotype would cause a mass hysteria called La Daguerréotypomanie, in which people from all over the world would come to a small photo studio and run it over. Some people in the crowd want pictures of themselves, but, holy cow, others want cameras so they can take their own pictures. Maurisset shows them loading the cameras like contraband onto steamships going to foreign ports, and still others come to look at this newfangled thing and all the crazy things going on around it. The noise is so loud that it causes a mass hallucination in which almost everything else in the area around the studio, such as railroad cars, a clock tower, a basket for a hot air balloon, and anything else that looks even slightly boxy, turns into a camera. As the crowds march to the studio, they pass by half a dozen gallows where artists have hung themselves because of the daguerreotype. People hardly pay attention.

What a commotion! What a mess! Well, why not? Before photography, painters were almost the only ones who could show things artistically. People thought that their craft was the best way to make images. (Printmakers and illustrators had their own ideas about how valuable their pictures were, but most painters thought of them as less important.) But now those stupid photographers would get the job, even though most of them were just beginners or, even worse, dishonest or failed artists. Around 1840, when the French painter Paul Delaroche saw a daguerreotype for the first time, he was said to have yelled, "From today on, painting is dead!" Many of his students soon switched to photography.

The early relationship between painting and photography is not exactly like the problem caused by AI-made art today. Image generators like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion can change a painting in ways that a camera could never do. But compare what Delaroche said to what Jason Allen of Pueblo West, Colorado, said when he won first prize for an AI-made piece of art at the state fair last September. Even though the $300 prize was small, Allen was still proud of himself. "Art is dead, dude," he said afterward. "That's it. AI won. Humans lost." When new tools come out, people often make big claims about how they will change the world. This gives us a chance to think about what the past can teach us about their future.

At least painting didn't die out in the 1800s. Or maybe even catch a cold. Painters didn't lose their jobs, and Delaroche went on to make some of his biggest and most ambitious paintings. I think he wasn't really worried about being replaced, but he and others made it seem that way because it made for good gossip and gave them a chance to complain about how tasteless or just plain rude critics were. It was also good for business.

Still, Maurisset's idea of a large group of people destroying the landscape wasn't completely wrong. There were a lot of different kinds of people who wanted to be in front of the camera or get one for themselves. They were mostly from the middle and working classes and had almost no ability to buy or make pictures before. Most of the people who supported painters were from the upper class. During the same time that reforms were made to give more people the right to vote and slavery was outlawed (first in the UK, then in the US), the camera took on a more democratic feel. Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist and former slave, was so interested in what it could do that, during his life, he had more than 160 different portraits of himself made, which was more than any other American in the 19th century. He did this because he thought that by doing so, he could prove his worth and dignity. The camera could be used by anyone (it wasn't, but that's what sitters like Douglass were told), which hadn't been said much about painting before.

In the beginning, painters and photographers had different markets, and photographers had a hard time getting into the exclusive world of the fine arts, both in terms of training and showing. Even the most skilled and art-minded photographers had to fight against the low status the art establishment gave their work. While studio painting became a standard college course in the 1860s (at least in New England), it took photography another 75 years to get a foothold in higher education. Art museums didn't start buying and showing photographs often until the 1930s.

The first cameras were usually big machines that needed a sturdy tripod and a lot of fiddling with chemicals to make a negative that could be used. They had slow shutters and needed a lot of light. Since the negatives needed to be developed and fixed right away, they almost always needed a darkroom close by. So, they were best for things that didn't move much, like objects around the house, buildings, landscapes, and cityscapes—basically anything that didn't change the focus or exposure. When the first photographers went to the battlefield, they didn't look for the intense action of a battle, but rather the dead bodies they could find afterward. In a strange way, the pictures that came out of it made painters want to paint even more still or frozen subjects, and they helped flip the order of painters' goals from trying to paint complicated stories to painting scenes and objects from everyday life.

Not only did cameras change what people saw, but they also made people more aware of the subtleties of how they saw. Especially after hand-held cameras became popular, painters found new ways to look at things that weren't good enough for the canvas before. These included the casual glance, the quick peek, the uncomfortable stare, and, in a more racy vein, the paparazzi glare, the voyeuristic peek, and the secret spying. Beyond that, there's always the chance that a photo will be blurry, out of focus, unintentional, or just a happy accident. It's a given in the history of art that modernist artists used all of these techniques. In fact, it's hard to look at late-19th-century masterpieces like Monet's sun-drenched, blurry haystacks, Renoir's leafy, happy café scenes, or Degas's strangely placed, yawning, stretching, off-kilter ballerinas and not see the influence of photographs.

The influence worked in both directions. To photographers who thought of themselves as artists (as opposed to "operators," who they thought were just commercial hacks), the darkroom was like a painter's studio, and touching and retouching the negative was like studio work. Julia Margaret Cameron, the great Victorian photographer who remade scenes from English literature, often messed up the large glass plate negatives. She got her fingers all over the emulsion, smudged the surface, overexposed and underexposed the print, and awkwardly brought out the parts of the image that weren't in focus or weren't meant to be there. Those were flaws that a commercial photographer would try to avoid. Cameron, who was rich on his own and didn't care much about what other people thought, thought these were things to work on because they were most like the unique choices and hand-crafted manipulations of the genius-painter.

Photographers who cared about public opinion and making money often cropped and edited their negatives, drew on them to darken contours or outline figures, scratched out details that were ugly or annoying, and helped their customers make prints that could be used. In all of these tricks, they used a sense of beauty that was developed by painters. When a portrait or landscape looked like it was painted, it was right. This knowledge was used by Scotland's first photography team. Robert Adamson, who was trained as an engineer and millwright, took the photos and gave the negatives to his partner, David Octavius Hill, who was a painter, to make them look better. For portraiture, trade magazines soon came up with the term "the Rembrandt style" to describe how the photographer should control the lighting and place the subject to get a good picture. And, in a phrase that showed how some photographers wanted to be thought of, the journals often called them "sun painters" who used the light from the sun as a "painterly" tool.

Even so, most people of the time still thought of photography as a technology that cut out the human touch. The sun, the camera, the lens, the shutter, and the silvered surface seemed to do all the work. The operator seemed to do little more than start the process. Sure, you had to know about chemicals, glass, and optics, and you had to be able to handle smelly fumes, but those things weren't seen as important to art. They weren't seen as important to the painter's main and usual concerns with oils and brushes and turning feelings and thoughts into visual expressions. It's not the same as what many artists say about AI-generated pictures today, which is that they don't have any imagination or originality. But you get the point: the new tool is fake and has no color.

From the point of view of 1839, the chance to work together might have seemed like the most unlikely change in the art world. Many of the first people to see a camera thought that the black-and-white image it made was a sign of how new and modern it was, but the demand for color quickly grew the craze. In response, photographers started hiring painters, who added all kinds of colorful details to photographs, often with oil paint but also with water colors, crayons, and even chalk. The practice started early on in Europe and became very popular and well-honed in Japan. In the United States, photographers appealed to people's vanity in a more flamboyant way. A sitter wanted rosier cheeks? You got it! Some blue eyes, maybe? Let's try out some different colors. Or what about a sitter who wanted something she couldn't bring to the studio, like a diamond ring, but didn't have the money to buy it? Done! Over time, sometimes the ways people worked together got more organized. In the treaty ports of China, for example, some business owners set up shops with separate departments for photography and painting and sold both to customers.

No matter what Delaroche and Maurisset said, or what Jason Allen says now, it's always too soon to say that painting or painters are dead. Painting will always be a fine art because a large part of the high-end gallery scene depends on and promotes it. And for many people, putting brush to canvas is a personal and joyful way to express themselves that can't be done any other way. But if the dance between painting and photography in the 19th century is any indication, there will be a time when artist and machine will influence each other, give and take, and maybe even work together. Degas once said to a painter friend who didn't want to do anything new, "You need the natural life. I, the man-made."

Lessons about the dangers of luxury from the Roman Empire

USAGAG — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 08:11:00 +0000

Philippa wants to stop using social media. She's worried about how addicting it is and thinks it's doing her no good at all. But then she won't know how to talk to her aunt in South Africa. What will become of all her pictures? How is she going to plan that party?

Trevor wants to go to a different country. He doesn't trust the government or the people, and he doesn't like the weather. But he does get good care for his health. And he likes watching TV. Even the roads aren't too bad.

Philippa and Trevor are two examples of how luxury, technology, and easy-living can ensnare us or box us in. In many ways, it’s a modern and relatable phenomenon, but it goes back at least to the Roman writer, Tacitus. It’s the idea that the trappings of civilization enslave us. How is it that, without even knowing it, those things we thought were helpful and time-saving became indispensable essentials?

The hidden danger of luxury

The Roman army was one of the strongest and most successful in world history. On open land, it was almost impossible to beat their armies. But the Roman Empire wasn't just made up of smart soldiers and quick-cutting short swords. People may have been beaten by the legions, but that didn't mean they were put to sleep. What made that happen was a love of ease and comfort.

Tacitus said that the British were slaves, not because of chains, but because they wanted good wine and fancy dinner parties. In fact, Agricola, the governor of Britain, tried to calm down this group of warriors by giving them "delightful distractions" like warm baths, togas, and schooling. Tacitus wrote, "The stupid Britons called these things "civilization," but they were just part of how they were kept as slaves."

Painted, yelling warriors had changed into calm, polite civilians because of comfort and convenience. (It should be said that Tacitus probably made all of this up. In the Roman Empire, Britain was never as obedient as France or Spain.

People have always tried to win over a group of people by giving them nice things.

Faced with a trade deficit with China, the British Empire sent cheap opium from India to China in large quantities. The British traded their opium for porcelain, tea, and silk when it turned out to be more than just a luxury drug.

Mikhail Gorbachev enjoying the American way of life.

Credit: Bob Galbraith / Public domain via Wikipedia

The Cold War was also won by giving people nice things. When cheap American TVs and refrigerators made their way into the USSR, the Soviets couldn't hope to match this level of luxury. The bloc came to think that these "luxury" goods could not be made anywhere else but in the USA.

But the example that most of us can relate to right now is how we deal with Big Tech. Slowly but surely, companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google are tying our lives to their algorithms and platforms. Social media are made and set up to be addicting on purpose. Services that save time or money, like cloud storage, are becoming so common that it will soon be impossible to go back. We let our phones or apps create and store passwords for us more and more often, so we don't even have to remember them.

You can’t leave the machine

At first, a new technology or service is a luxury. But as time goes on, it becomes so common and important that we can't go back to a time before it existed. Things that were once "wants" become "needs."

"The Machine Stops," a short story by E.M. Forster, is about a world where "the machine" takes care of everything. There are buttons that let you "call for food, music, clothes, hot baths, books, and, of course, talk to your friends." How accurate has this proved to be? We now have Uber, Skype, Hello Fresh, and Amazon Prime. The machine is also connected to our friends and family.

Can I get out of here?

We think of technology as freeing, but it also limits us. If we believe Tacitus, the things we used to think of as luxury are now making us slaves. Philosophy's job is to see these chains for what they really are. And as we look at our lives, we can decide whether to keep wearing them or start the long, hard process of getting rid of them.

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Kanye West wears 'White Lives Matter' sweater at YZY fashion show in Paris

USAGAG — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 08:19:00 +0000

West was seen wearing the “White Lives Matter” sweater at his YZY season 9 presentation in Paris, France, on Monday, according to a report by Complex.

The rapper was not the only one wearing the phrase on his shirt, as other models in the presentation were reportedly wearing “variations of the same design, the report adds.

kanye west in a white lives matter shirt pic.twitter.com/GxfwsDYVDD

— ARKANGEL (@itsarkangel) October 3, 2022

Conservative firebrand Candace Owens was also seen at the event, wearing a t-shirt with the same verbiage on it.

pic.twitter.com/e8nlOFBg06

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) October 3, 2022

West reportedly told the crowd that some news outlets had put a lot of attention on the fact that his previous events had started late. He said that this was because he was trying to "present the best idea."

West said last month that he ended the contract between his company Yeezy and Gap Inc. because "they have a lot of commitments to China" and he wanted to "bring industry back to America."

Also last month, the rapper said that "Hollywood is a giant brothel" and "pornography destroyed my family." He also said that he wants to stay in his kids' lives.

West said earlier this year that Kim Kardashian put their daughter North West on TikTok without his permission. He asked the Internet for advice on how to get his daughter off the Chinese-owned social media site.

I have more tattoos on my private parts than anyone else in the world. It hurts, but I'm brave

USAGAG — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 07:04:00 +0000

A British OnlyFans star says that her labia are the most heavily tattooed in the world, and that it took an artist five separate sessions to tattoo them.

Becky Holt, who is 34 years old, has spent more than $42,000 on a "bodysuit" of tattoos that cover her whole body, from her face to her feet.

The blonde made sure not to forget about her private parts, and she recently got a tattoo in that sensitive area, even though it hurt a lot.

“I was in an incredible amount of pain,” Holt told Ark Media of the fifth and final ink session that she underwent on July 5.

“It’s quite embarrassing having a tattoo artist between your legs but it needed to be finished as I want my body suit to be fully complete,” the mom-of-one added.

British blonde Becky Holt, 34, had her labia inked, with a tattoo artist taking five separate sessions to complete the daring design in the highly sensitive area.

Holt didn’t divulge what design she chose to have permanently plastered onto her labia, but shared photos of her trip to the tattoo parlor.

Becky Holt via ARK Media

‘I’m not sure how many people in the world have this tattoo — but I imagine I’m one of very few.’
Becky Holt, 34

Almost a month on, Holt’s vagina is still “swollen” and she isn’t able to have sex with her partner, Ben.

“We won’t be able to be intimate until it’s finished healing which will be difficult for both of us as we have a very active sex life,” Holt divulged. “Foreplay for him only currently!”

Despite the sex drought, Holt’s beau has managed to find some humor in the situation.

“When I showed him how swollen it was he joked and showed me a picture of a ‘Monsters In.’ character saying my fanny looked like them,” the tattoo lover revealed.

The blonde was seen wincing in pain as she sat on a chair with her legs spread while the artist needled away.

Becky Holt via ARK Media

“It’s quite embarrassing having a tattoo artist between your legs,” Holt admitted.

Becky Holt via ARK Media

A social media photo shows Holt and her boyfriend, Ben.

She bragged, "People can't believe how brave I am to have my labia tattooed." "I don't know how many people in the world have this tattoo, but I'm guessing it's not that many."

Holt believes she’s one of the only women in the world to have her vaginal folds inked, and says admirers have praised her for enduring the painful process.

Becky Holt via ARK Media

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Becky Holt (@becky_holt_bolt)

'Billionaire Summer Camp' in Sun Valley shows that money can't buy style

USAGAG — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 08:28:00 +0000

These people are probably some of the worst dressed people we know, even worse than Lena Dunham. Can you imagine? Gone are the days when fabulous Gloria Vanderbilt lived in her Gilded Age townhouse, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis walked the streets of Manhattan with her sister Lee Radziwell, and Jerry Hall stripped down to his underwear at Studio 54 while wearing Yves Saint Laurent.

For many of us who know a lot about fashion, we often feel like we miss times we never lived through. There's a reason for this: our current fashion outlook is bad, our elite are ugly, and, to put it bluntly, our culture stinks.

Family portrait of the Coopers as they play on a sofa in their home, Southampton, Long Island, New York, March 30, 1972. (Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Lee Radziwill and Jackie Onassis during Sighting After Leaving Performance at Alvin Theatre – May 11, 1970 at Alvin Theatre in New York City, New York, United States. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)

Model Jerry Hall posing seductively at Groucho’s bar in London, October 23rd 1985. (Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

The Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference that happened last week at the Sun Valley Resort is the best example of this. The conference, called "billionaire summer camp," brings together the best people in the country.

Even though they have money, the way they looked at the conference shows that money can't buy style—or sunglasses, for that matter.

Exhibit A is Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, and Tim Cook, the four richest men at the conference. Does it matter if you have billions of dollars if you look like this? Fashion isn't about how much money you have (some of my favorite pieces are secondhand), but it does make it easier to find things to wear.

In this case, it's clear that the person doesn't care about how they look. Whether people like it or not, the way you look really does show who you are as a person and is the first thing people notice about you.

Gates seems to wear the same sweater, pants, and black leather slip-on shoes every day. I like uniforms. The only problem with his is that it looks bad. The sweaters don't fit, the colors are boring, and his pockets are so full that his pants pull in all directions.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and Chair of the Gates Foundation, walks to a morning session during the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 08, 2022 in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)