The western landscape was changed forever with the expansion of the railroad. Man's ingenuity employed on an industrial scale to conquer the indomitable western landscape. In the art world today there are similar expansions. Artificial intelligences created by humans with the use of computer algorithms are now capable of more than we might have imagined. 

 

With the use of AI has come incredible discovery paired with controversy. If a computer is now capable of making art is it only a matter of time before artists become obsolete? Is AI generated art even art? As an artist and a human I believe there will always be space for the handmade genuine creativity that stems from creative people. I also believe that embracing new technology allows us to progress and discover new frontiers. This collection documents my first tentative steps at finding the connecting point between new technology and pure human creativity.

 

Anyone can generate AI artwork. All you need is a computer and an idea of what you would like to prompt the AI to create. For example typing, “underwater cathedral built out of coral” would be an excellent prompt that would give you some fantastic results. However, for these pieces I wanted to dig deeper than just feeding the computer a jumble of random words. I decided to write my own poetry based on my experiences growing up in the western landscape of Montana and see how the AI created images to match the poems. 

 

Honestly, for me writing the poetry was the most fulfilling part. Probably because it allowed me to connect with my artistic roots. However, seeing each image brought its own sense of satisfaction. Though, to really make things interesting I set a key constraint on myself while using the AI. I had to use the poem exactly as it was written. This means if I wanted to push for alterations in the image I had to change the poem itself rather than typing in new instructions in addition to the poem. This was difficult because I rarely ended up with an image that matched what I was thinking of in my head, but instead it allowed the poem itself to remain the driving creative force in the process. My hope with this series is to inspire creative exploration on several fronts by showing what is possible as you combine human creativity with technological advancements.