Storytelling Campfire on the Edge of Yesterday and Tomorrow (Still/Video)
AI-Assisted Transformative Art and Media experiment exploring potential new paradigms in storytelling
The following is a lived inquiry reflection on my foray into the integration of various kinds of AI art creation technologies for a creative inquiry into potentially new emergent paradigms in storytelling.
Introduction
As we enter the new year I have been feeling like I have been living in a time in-between. In-between yesterday and tomorrow. This trans-temporal state has been helped along by a flare up of deep brain fog from one of my ongoing health challenges. In this altered state I felt called to deepen an inquiry I have been working on for a few years now…my hunt for New Paradigms in Storytelling.
This research was inspired by all the new paradigm movements around the world seeking for a better path for humanity as we face what appears to be a civilization-wide paradigm shift. Many believe this shift is partially being driven by the emergence of new exponential technologies like AI and disruptions in every domain of human experience. More on this later. For now, I am starting with a basic question:
How does the new AI art creation technologies affect how we create and experience stories in the visual arts?
So to explore this question I took the narrative frame of the search for new paradigms in storytelling as humanity faces this major multi-domain paradigm shift, and to see how this narrative might unfold using both still and moving image AI tools.
Version 1: Text-to-Image Co-Generation
First I started with a basic text-to-image AI art tool called NightCafe.
I used a simple one-sentence Text-to-Image Prompt: Storytellers around a campfire on a surreal path between a dystopian past and utopian future
I tried several different prompts and different art styles until I found one that touched me in some way.
While the above image did resonate on some level with the story in my head it was not fully resonant for me. I could imagine several “stories” around this image, and while one of those stories is the one I was trying to explore, this was not a clear match for me. Of course, with practice I imagine I can get much closer.
I noticed as I tried different prompts it felt like I was learning a new creative language. I could almost feel the new neural pathways sprouting in my brain.
Version 2: Image-to-Image Co-Generation
Next I took the Text-to-Image Version 1 above and processed it through the AI art transformation tool Oilist.
Here I translated the original version into the style I have developed over the past year, which I call the Van Gogh Cosmic Swirl.
Image-to-Image Prompt: Image file from Text-to-Image Version 1 (above)
While this next version is still not a precise 1:1 translation of the story in my head to the story in the frame, it does capture for me the essence or symbolic and metaphoric energy of the story. When I look at this image I can see it as a visual marker for the story. It matches what I call the story energy field.
This second version added a deeper felt-sense for me and a feeling of it having more of a sense of it being created by an individual human consciousness than the first version…which feels to me more like a technology generated version using the well of collective human creative consciousness. This is potentially due to the fact that with the Oilist image-to-image technology my conscious choices are more active throughout the co-generative creative process.
Versions 3 and 4: Image-to-Video Co-Generations
Version 3: Version 1 translated into Video using Runway AI Video app.
Version 4: Version 2 translated into Video using Runway AI Video app.
Next I went back to the original Text-to-Image and the Image-to-Image Versions (above) and used them as image prompts to turn them into videos.
These video versions have the strongest sense of an unfolding story to them for me. Of course, the movement through time naturally captures the narrative quality of human experience. While the still images capture a moment extracted from a narrative flow, having an actual flow penetrated me more deeply. Still, these video versions do not fully realize the narrative for me as well…but they gave me a strange felt-sense of the birthing of a potential story forming in my consciousness.
Image-to-Video Prompts: Image files from Text-to-Image and Image-to-Image Versions (above)
AI Art Tool: Runway
What I Learned
As I played with each AI creative tool I noticed that I had to develop different approaches to translate the narrative framing in my head into a manifested form.
I noticed that each of these outputs gave me a different narrative experience and stimulated new narratives in my mind.
My sense is that with more retraining my brain to think in terms of text-to-image, image-to-image and image-to-video prompting I could get closer and closer to my inner visions.
The integration of all three of these creative tools and approaches produced a new form of creative inquiry for me, producing a rich and multidimensional transformative process to study new ways of channeling inner narrative visions into form and stimulating new narrative frames as well.
This creative inquiry process was also very healing for me. During this process I was having a lot of pain and brain fog from my ongoing health challenges and doing this creative inquiry process helped me transcend both the pain and fog while I was deep in the inquiry process.
This process was especially transformative for me personally as someone whose “first” language in many ways is the art of visual expression. Having been a stutterer at an early age I turned to both the still and moving image arts as a way to speak to the world. I studied all the technologies and processes to translate what I had in my head into the still frame or moving image stream. I deeply explored the unique ways the different mediums use to tell a story, and I am discovering that these new AI art tools appear to have their own unique ways as well.
In the end, it feels to me like these AI art tools can not only help us create art but can potentially help us more deeply understand the creative expression process itself…and potentially help us give birth to new forms of storytelling.
Thank you for reading these words and taking the time to explore this work. I hope it has made sense as I speak through the fog in my brain and I hope it touched you in some way.
My deep gratitude to all my subscribers for supporting me and my work through your subscription and your likes, shares and comments.
Special thanks to my paid subscribers and those who made a direct donation for helping me keep the lights on and continue this work. I cannot begin to put into words how much your contributions have meant to me.
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Thank you for this fascinating reflection into our individual and collective creative journey. I continue to be inspired by your reach for human potential. Much resonance to ponder here! Sending you waves of healing love and gratitude.