Author: James Chiang

Finding Focus

Contrary to most commonly misunderstood notions, Jackson Pollock’s painting technique requires immense focus.

It’s a wonderful thing to live with focus. Our heroes, whether historical or fictional, have all possessed it and there’s perhaps nothing as important, pertinent and critical to the survival of our humanity. Without it, our minds wander and our actions bear neither intent nor structure. In other words, our lives become little more than one big old mess (or a series of messes). In the absence of focus, we become absent of order and flow; we become lost.

“A confused mind always leads to confused action.” — J. Krishnamurti

What is it to be focused? Firstly, it means direction, a priority as to where to place our attention and energy. This is crucial for the artist who’s always dealing with complexity, both inwardly and outwardly. If he/she cannot know or see where to go, confusion and chaos will lead to all manner of troubles ahead. We all know this to be true; our temperment and our art bear evidence of this. If we focus on bad things, bad things come into view. An anxious, petty or frustrated mind delivers anxious, petty and frustrated results. We can not deliver anything other than what we are the time that we do.

“As a man is, so he sees.” — Willam Blake

Secondly, to find a focus implies seeing clearly. I’m referring of course to clarity of vision. Doing good art requires always a grounding of the self, a time and space for quiet listening and reflection. It’s taking that deep breathe needed to settle all the nerves and align the body before driving forwards towards any sort of action or goal. To arrive at an aligned space mentally requires not only silence but also a submission to the deeper self but not the ego. It’s a surrender to our intuitive urges amidst a crazy and noisy world, where thought will always try to interfere. When we awaken our sensibilities outside distraction’s subside, and we can hear the whispers of the heart. Then, taking that crucial first step — approached with a true beginner’s mind — becomes that much easier.

“A thousand mile journey begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu

Thirdly, focus is a journey that demands courage — a kind of fearlessness. The courage to be authentic yet watchful; always aware of our environment, paying deep attention to things. We need to see the big picture and mind the details, possessing both floodlight and spotlight focus abilities. As such, it means that we need to be strong, possess solid skills, and commit wholly to our craft. We cannot give in to external demands or any saboteurs. Then we can make art that’s worth connecting with. And we must be uncompromising about it because getting and staying focused is for us and on us — we, alone, are responsible.

“Our talents have to be nourished everyday through observation, analysis, discussion, application and doing.” — Eric Larson

So in summary, work with focus. Live with focus. And when that is not possible, don’t proceed. Rest, reflect and reassess. Reset and re-organize. Re-align yourself with priorities. And most importantly, recognize that you’re human and it’s okay that you’re not always “on.” Work only when you’re focused and be focused when you work.

The fear of A.I.

A recent discussion on AI featuring digital artists

” Every artist’s art is their coping mechanism — we make what we make to save ourselves, to stay sane, to find the slender cord of grace between us and the world. ” — Maria Popova

There’s a lot of talk about Artifical Intelligence (A.I.) and art these days. There’s a lot of fear.

When technology arrived, the way of doing things changed. Art, too, changed. But unlike most ways of producing things, the creation of art, like food, continued to retain its methodologies. Drawing, painting, sculpture, acting, and music continued to hold on to most of its tools and techniques. We might use digital tools as an aid or accessory but we’re still fundamentally drawing, strumming the guitar or flipping steaks. The analog way never quite lost its usefulness or appeal. Artists and consumers alike preferred hand made stuff be it paintings or pancakes.

Would you like real or canned soup? Campbell’s Soup Cans courtesy of Andy Warhol.

In animation, however, technology in the form of CGI was one of the first to really alter the ways of the original craft. 3D animation not only offered a decidedly appealing alternative but became almost an existential threat to the entire analog animation industry. Beginning with its initial lower costs (3D movies/games are now far more expensive), the freedom of the digital camera, and the eventual ability to make the photo-real a reality in animation, both the industry and the consumer chose the novel thing. Hand drawn animation, as well as stop motion animation, still remains, but on a much smaller scale. Today, the comparisons in terms of numbers is not even close, with the number of artists using 2D methods almost negligible relative to those who use 3D. The greatest fears of the analog animator was realized.

The success of Sergio Pablo’s 2D film Klaus proves there’s still a deep love and interest in hand animated films. Unfortunately, the larger film/animation industry is still reluctant to embrace its comeback.

Now, with A.I. arriving on the scene, the same fear, perhaps even on a greater scale is confronting the modern artist. This is fourth industrial revolution stuff — technology that may threaten mankind never mind art. Science fiction has forever warned of the danger of A.I. and a future of robots displacing your average human. But unforeseen, and with unexpected fervor, the creators of this new technology went after artists first — hunting down not laborious, dangerous or even boring jobs but creative artistic ones. Applying the modern financialized model of thinking, getting “results” uncanningly fast and cheap has become paramount to the corporate owners and managers of the industry. A.I. may be sold by its specious purveyors as the benevolent democratization of art and a new source of creativity but in truth the motivation for its implementation is obvious: money. Return on investment (ROI) and efficiency currently rule the day.

Is this rotten to the core evil, abject stupidity or just plain bad luck dumped upon your everyday resistence fighting artist? Here’s the thing, this A.I. thing was coming sooner or later. We creatives just happened to be first on the hit list but being targeted first will give us a head start on how to deal with it. When it hits the rest of society, most of whose occupants still have its head in the sand, we’ll have figured a way of adapting and surviving. Although artists might go thru an initial period of real anxiety and suffering, I just don’t think we should be really that scared at all, at least not in the long run.

“Design means thinking on the object.” — Otl Aicher

Why? Because computers, ChatGTP and its successors, are ultimately imitation machines. And imitation is not creation. It’s a fancy tool that can access a larger library and has a fancy mixer. Whatever it spits out, is merely by chance. Its primary advantage is speed. And I truly suspect it won’t be as cost efficient as companies hope, as the technology is immensely energy inefficient. Furthermore, any output that looks or sounds decent is likely infringing upon some sort of copyright. Potential lawsuits maybe what’s currently holding back a larger roll out of its usage. Ultimately though, good art isn’t made by a mixing machine. Making art is not only a physical process but a demanding mental process that challenges the hardest aspect of our consciousness: decision making. Art is all about decisions. Our human heart-minds design, then we make. And you know what else? We learn to design by making and doing the craft. AI’s bravado claim is that it can skip the work, skip the process.

Animation from Disney’s Robin Hood by Milt Kahl. Every frame is magical and life-affirming. Good luck with AI producing anything as beautiful and creative as this!

Creative decisions: what or how many lines or shapes, what color combinations to use, how and where to place an object or action, what changes will give more weight, feeling or appeal? These are the kinds of complicated decisions an artist battles with each moment many times a day in his work. These difficult questions multiply upon each other and magnify in sophistication and complexity in such a way that only a human mind — one highly sensitive and attuned to the art — is able to decipher. Even after much deliberation, often times the best choices an artist makes comes not from his education or knowledge but his heart and soul, a place where truth, love, and meaning reside, a habitat with such depth of mystery and complexity that it’s simply impossible to measure or imitate. Machines are mathematical measuring/calculating devices, its entire existence is dependent on measurement.

“A mind that is caught in measurement can never find truth.” J. Krishnamurti

Furthermore, art is a process, not a product. Hence, the common interpretation of art as a mere commodity is a mistaken notion. Living things can not be mass produced like most industrial products are. Making art is a single and unique act of creation where as the very nature of mass reproduction cannot be that — its product or outcome can never have any sense of originality or genuine existence. Its most distinguished quality will always be consistency of sameness and quantity produced quickly. Like soup out of a can, it’s devoid of the taste of life. In the words of a friend and fellow artist, “AI art is abolutely empty. I look at it and I feel nothing.” The tendency of automatic art to leave a vacuous sensation is not surprising to me since modern industrial technology has always possessed an almost uncanny ability to destroy the purity and sanctity of anything it touches. Every good artist who uses digital technology knows that if he/she doesn’t pour all his heart, intelligence and passion into the thing, tweaking curves and pixels to a point that it’s practically hand-made, the outcomes are crap — weightless, colorless boring crap.

“No, painting was not invented to decorate houses. It is an instrument of war for attack and defence against the enemy.” — Picasso.

Computer technology is also particularly good at dating itself. Dig up your old phone or put in an old movie with CGI effects and you’ll know what I mean. Try watching the early 3D animated films or look back at some of your old favourite science-fiction films. Ask yourself, why do the three original Star Wars movies (Episodes 4,5,6 ) look and feel so much better than its successors made decades later?

Nothing ages as poorly as digital technology. I loved the original Toy Story but try watching it again and it’s almost unwatchable (graphically speaking.)

So, what I’m saying is don’t be scared of A.I. It’s gonna be the best imitator/duplicator ever but that’s all it’ll ever be (if it does become more than that, we’ll have far bigger problems than losing our art.) If you’re a real artist you have nothing to worry about. If you have real skill and understanding of your craft and know what it is to create real weight and feeling in your work you can relax. And, if you’re not content with merely copying your (video/photo) reference frame by frame or duplicating the same stories, designs and concepts already made by others, you’ll remain secure in the fact that you’ll continue to have fun and find meaning in your work; you actually like to learn new things and love the challenge of creation. But if you’re just a mere imitator of art working on autopilot, that is, you’re content with just mailing it in, doing things as fast as possible and just get paid (although not for long), you have genuine reason to be scared; your fears will be realized. A.I. is already hot on your tail and you will soon be economically obsolete. No one can out-machine a machine.

“Art is not a thing — it is a way.” — Elbert Hubbard