A terrible AI mural

[sabotabby]

 I met up with a former colleague for coffee today (delightful) and she is obsessed with this terrible AI mural that I had to see, and now I am obsessed with this terrible AI mural, and now you have to see it. Here's an article. The photo in the article does not do it justice, nor does the description. I was just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, laugh-wheezing. It's so bad. It's fractal bad. Like you look at the entire thing and your brain tries to spare you, papering over the obvious gaps in reality that this thing has generated, except that it can't, and you succumb to its non-Euclidian geometry and travesties of anatomy and perspective. You look closer and there are details that compound the Uncanny Valley effect, squirming into your brainmeats until you succumb to its madness.

Like the question said former colleague had for me was had she told me nothing about it, or even pretended to like it, would I have noticed. The answer is yes, because there's an immediate unsettling aspect to it. It hadn't occurred to me that AI murals were a thing you could do, but I would have immediately clocked that something was wrong. But then you get closer. There are Dia de los Muertos skeletons, each rendered in a different style, some realist, others highly stylized, one a Coraline knockoff. The perspective of the street scene is wonky. The flowers are all rendered in different styles, with different light sources. Usually skulls have teeth, which is a problem because a lot of these just have gums. Bone gums. Hands are a challenge for most artists, including me, but skeletal hands are even harder, and these are not done successfully. The clothing is nonsensical, in one place appearing to melt away, exposing a gaping wound. There's a guitar, unfortunately, because AI does a very bad job with stringed instruments. 

My favourite is a donkey. The donkey occupies the same space as the one-point perspective street, but exists in a different dimension, because it has a huge head and tiny little forelegs, and I couldn't stop straight-up giggling over how bonkers this donkey looked. It's glorious. Holy shit.

The good news is that this is possibly a sufficient outrage to wake Diego Rivera's corpse from its eternal slumber so maybe we'll get some decent art out of that. And also terrible publicity for the restaurant that will serve as a warning to others. Someone has already painted "hire human artists" on it so the community's opinion has been made clear.

Comments

[gingicat]

We actually have a lot of murals that bad in the Boston area going back at least twenty years, so...

[sabotabby]

I've seen some bad murals but never anything like this.

[katuah]

oh wow thats... wow. "fractally bad" is a good way to put it.

a major influence on my artistic leanings has always been a local artist back home, Ellen Elmes, who taught watercolor classes when I was a kid. She went on to become the go-to muralist throughout the region, with murals all over southwest VA. These days it looks like Lacy Hale, of the "No Hate in My Holler" design, is the new go-to regional muralist. Real people doing real murals - public art is important. IMO AI stuff can't be art, it's just decoration, it has no meaning.

[sabotabby]

It's not even decoration, as decoration implies something that you might want to look at. No one wants to look at that.

I love mural art. Like, a good mural is one of my favourite things, and I'm planning one of my own for next summer. It takes so much skill and it brings joy to so many people and is therefore one of the peak forms of art that exist. This is a desecration (but also, funny).

[radiantfracture]

Speak more of this mural plan! Is it with students? Is it on your house? Street art?

The donkey is incredible.

I feel a little bit bad for the people opening the restaurant, who may not be au courant on the conversation about AI because they were busy thinking about opening a restaurant; but jfc.

[sabotabby]

There's a concrete staircase at my house that goes down to the basement. This summer I'm getting it painted white and then I'm going to do some kind of mural?? but I don't know of what. I was thinking dragons but lately I've been thinking whales. Taking suggestions.

I think its one of those cultural appropriation places so I don't feel that bad for them.

[radiantfracture]

Love this. Remind me of the exterior aesthetic of your house otherwise? For envisioning purposes.

[sabotabby]

It's about a century and change old, the middle of a triplex. Red brick, hella cute. The backyard is a semi-paved oasis with a garden on each side, strawberry and raspberry bushes, an apple tree, cedar tree (which I found out later was a bad combination) and lilac bushes.

[frandroid]

FUR WHALES

[sabotabby]

I feel like an attempt to paint that would come out worse than Leto II.

[dissectionist]

Oh man, now I want to see this!

[sabotabby]

You need to. It's so bad.

[greylock]

Someone has already painted "hire human artists" on it so the community's opinion has been made clear.

Also, don't use vinyl wraps. FFS.

[sabotabby]

Vinyl wraps are terrible. Like, even if a human made it, they look absolutely awful, especially in a physical setting where people will see the thing up close.

[greylock]

On cars they can look okay, I suppose.
But on a wall (brick or otherwise) at that scale? They're gonna suck balls.

And AFAIK they're not great for recycling.

[blogcutter]

The one good thing I see about bad vinyl wraps is that presumably they're much easier to remove than would be the case if the art were actually painted on the wall. Is this maybe comparable to when an iconic building is being renovated over a period of several years, and they wrap a painted vinyl replica around the construction/restoration site for the duration?

While I certainly share your misgivings about AI-generated art (not to mention the havoc it can wreak on the incomes of the starving displaced human artists), I will hypocritically admit that it wouldn't necessarily prevent me from dining in that restaurant next time I'm in Toronto!

[sabotabby]

If you come to Toronto I'll bring you to Mexican restaurants that are run by Mexicans.

[rdi]

There was, briefly, a nice little tacqueria near Bloor and Brunswick that sadly didn’t survive much past the summer, that was far better than I expect this mural clad place will ever be.

[blogcutter]

I could go for that! Do any of them do a decent tequila sunrise? Or isn't that actually an authentic Mexican drink?

[sabotabby]

I honestly have no idea. I just did tequila shots when I was in Mexico, no cocktails. Actually mainly beer.

[blogcutter]

Oh. right. I vaguely remember doing this thing with lime, salt, tequila and beer chasers. But that was a long time ago (early or mid-1970s I think) and happened right here in my home town. Our plan to visit Mexico never did materialize!

[rdi]

Yeah, that guitar has wonky strings and too many frets in all the wrong places, and I’m pretty sure the guitarist has at least one extra finger. There also seems to be an extra building behind one of the figures that doesn’t match the perspective

[sabotabby]

The guitar was the clincher. There were no pegs on the headstock.

[rdi]

So there aren’t. How didn’t I fail to notice that? Also string-like things running along the headstock.

[sabotabby]

It was a brainmelting guitar.

[ghostpuppet]

*gigglesnort at the donkey bit* AI is hilarious innit?? Inaccurate at times, sometimes very good, but when I saw the hands, I was like... THAT IS DEFO AI. :P

[sabotabby]

Oh yeah. Like...my fear is that people see shit like this, shrug, and say, "eh good enough." But also it's very funny.

[ghostpuppet]

That's why AI is winning the war against us artistic folk. :(

[frenzy]

THE TEEETH THO

[sabotabby]

I'm right that skeletons usually have teeth, yeah? I'm not going insane?

[frenzy]

yes but NOT like the ones in the picture. Theyre bonkers

[minoanmiss]

EPIC

[sabotabby]

It's so amazing.

[broken_record]

I didn't even know AI could make stuff that's not what Cocteau Twins sound like.

[sabotabby]

Hahaha.