#Psychaidelic Art – A New Genre

A New Genre: #Psychaidelic Art

TRY IT! You can generate #psychaidelic art with my Psychaidelic Art GPT

#Psychaidelic [Adjective]

Pertaining to or characterized by a blend of magical realism and advanced artificial intelligence creativity. This term describes artistic or conceptual works that combine realistic elements with fantastical, dream-like features, often resulting in visually striking, otherworldly compositions.

Relating to or denoting a style or approach in art and design where AI algorithms are used to create or influence imagery that fuses realistic details with surreal and imaginative elements, often featuring vivid colors, intricate patterns, and ethereal theme

#Psychaidelic art is a unique genre that blends magical realism with advanced AI creativity. It encompasses artistic works that combine realistic elements with fantastical, dream-like features, resulting in visually striking, otherworldly compositions. This style fuses realistic details with surreal and imaginative elements, featuring vivid colors, intricate patterns, and ethereal themes, all with a psychedelic quality.

In #Psychaidelic art, there’s a strong emphasis on vibrant visual expressions, often characterized by a mix of the following elements:

  • Realistic imagery intertwined with surreal, dreamlike aspects.
  • Vivid, often psychedelic color palettes.
  • Complex, often intricate patterns and designs.
  • Themes that evoke a sense of wonder, mystery, or otherworldliness.
  • Imaginative and often abstract representations of objects, beings, and landscapes. (Note when referring to this genre in public forums use the hashtag version #psychaidelic so that others can find your work — at least speaking for myself I really want to see what you come up with!)

NOTE: this genre does not imply or require the use of mind-altering substances – although such substances might help people learn to see this way. But you can see this way yourself, after looking at artworks that illustrate it – or by looking closely at nature, or dreams. This is a WAY OF SEEING that can be learned and taught by example, because it reflects something about the way reality is actually structured.

ABOUT THE GPT

The GPT (linked above) implements my process for generating #psychaidelic art. There are a few main commands (ART, RND, EVO, and POE) that operate with 100 parameters to generate the artworks in different ways. The parameters were chosen by me because they are characteristics of the genre of images I like to create.

To learn how to use these commands just go into the GPT and type “help” to get the manual. For more specifics doubt a command you can ask “help POE” for example. Or you can say “example EVO” to see an example.

Command Summary:

  • ART generates an artwork with specific parameters you choose
  • RND generates an artwork with randomly chosen parameter values from the set of parameters that characterize the genre. “RND 10 still life peaches apples and walnuts french countryside table” will interpret this with 10 random parameters.
  • EVO will generate an artwork that uses a set number of parameters to evoke the essence of whatever you type as the topic or story – for example “EVO 9 a frog experiencing enlightenment as it looks out at a lake from a Lillypad.” This will use 9 semantically relevant parameters (out of the the 100 available) to generate an artwork that evokes this description.
  • POE will generate an artwork from a poem. You can name the poem, or the poet, or add your own, or it will find one if you don’t specify one and ask it to choose one for you. For example, “POE Shakespeare sonnet from A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will interpret a sonnet from the play as an image.

Is AI Generated Art Legitimate Art?

There are some critics who might claim that AI generated art is not really art. I disagree, with some conditions. I don’t think the fact that AI was used as a tool to make digital art is really different from using some other tools and mediums – like paintbrushes and oil paint and canvas – to make an artwork.

Art is in the eye of the creator and the beholder – not the tools or medium itself. But that said, I do believe there are relative levels of artistic talent and artistic depth to a given artwork, depending on how much skill and thought went into it.

There are digital artists with great artistic talent, skill and vision, just like physical artists – and their artistic process is as much a part of the artwork as the end product. But with AI generated art the question is how do we redefine and differentiate talent, skill, vision and process?

I still have higher respect for human generated art created with human hands – but I do believe there are and will be digital artists who use AI that are comparable to physical artists in talent, skill, vision and process.

In the case of the works I share here – my process was first to try generating the works using individual prompts – and after hundreds of experiments – I learned enough to create my own AI system on top of Dall-E, to generate what I want to express more effectively.

I built a system of prompts that use 100 parameters that characterize the genre – and by combining them in various ways, with an idea I want to express as an artwork, they generate surprisingly good results.

In practice, I usually make many versions – trying and tweaking an idea or concept until I generate an image that really expresses what I want to convey. The process is like “creative directing”.

I would not claim to have great artistic talent, skill, vision or process – relative to other artists who have really spent decades focused solely on developing their work in some medium. I’m not a “professional artist” by any means.

On the other hand, the works I make do really speak from my perspective – and they do reflect decades of seeing the world in a particular way, and developing that personally – so I wouldn’t simply dismiss it as “AI drawn.”

Although AI is used as a tool, what I am expressing is not random – and my case, while my talent might be slight, the skills and process I apply to build the AI to make the art are more developed, and as for my artistic vision – well I really cannot quantify that, nor do I feel the need to, because that’s really subjective.

Anyway, my belief is that something is “art” if it is “a process of meaningful artistic communication” – which always has a sender and a receiver, and some meaning that is communicated, in the process.

Hopefully what I communicate speaks in a meaningful artistic way to you.

Thanks for looking!

TRY IT! You can generate #psychaidelic art with my Psychaidelic Art GPT