Success AI Stories of DVK the artist, Evelyn and Haze Long
A Weekly AI Collective meets talented AI artists on Twitter. Ep 18, 2023.
Barcelona, Spain — March 1, 2023 — In the eighteenth episode of the Twitter Spaces by A Weekly AI Collective we are meeting DVK the artist, Evelyn and Haze Long, uprising AI artists, who share with us their stories, inspirations, and thoughts on AI in art.
A Weekly AI Collective was founded to educate the community about AI Art, shine a light on AI artists from around the world, and create a historical record of the use of the new medium. A Weekly AI Collective chooses Twitter Spaces as it is an easy and comfortable way to have free live audio conversations and interviews on Twitter by using your phone which is recorded and can be listened to over time.
Find below the introduction to our weekly guests, questions we asked them, some memorable quotes, links to connect, and the gallery of their AI artworks.
Listen to the Twitter Spaces via this link if you wish to discover the complete conversation while reading the article. The duration is 1:50 min. Language: English. The co-hosts are Ben Kanizay, Lily Illo, NZBR, Anna Dart, and Exquisite Workers.
DVK THE ARTIST
DVK the artist, is a multidisciplinary artist and curator from Denmark who has exhibited his art around the globe (in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Rome, Milan, Vienna, Paris, and London). DVK the artist’s creativity and artwork spans from illustration, graphic design, print, a wide knowledge of working with AI and mixed mediums to share his feelings and experiences as well as strong opinions on the world. His work is often inspired by Expressionism, Nordic Noir, Futurism, and architectural styles such as Brutalism. DVK the artist is the founder of the Artificial Intelligence Infused Art, AIIA Collective to indulge in all the knowledge of AI, art and the NFTs. AIIA made their first collective show “AI is Freedom” with the Mecenate Fine Art Museum, Rome.
DVK the artist´s work is available on Foundation, NiftyGateway, KnownOrigin, and Objkt.com.
Link of the artist — https://linktr.ee/dvktheartist.
EVELYN
Evelyn is a digital artist born in Stockholm, Sweden, with a Masters degree in Art History and Literature. Characterized by its expressionistic language, complex textures and use of colour, Evelyn’s abstract or figurative work often depicts emotions or states of the human psyche through an exploration of how tools like AI can be used together with digital painting. Evelyn’s work has been shown in LA, Tokyo, Valencia, at Scope Art Fair, Untitled Art Fair, Art Basel Miami, NFT Paris and at the South Korea NFT Festival. Evelyn is the receiver of Heart You Fund, and member of Futr Collective which unites artists, musicians and technologists seeking to change the trajectory of culture whilst preserving the most valuable aspects: freedom of creative expression, decentralization & digital sovereignty.
Evelyn´s work is available on SuperRare, Foundation, and Objkt.com.
Link of the artist — https://linktr.ee/_evelyn_o_.
HAZE LONG
Haze Long has been an artist for a decade, and has painted over 100 murals. Haze Long performs on stage as a speed painter and completes a painting within a song’s duration. She has a YouTube channel providing free Procreate tutorials, with 120K subscribers. Haze Long creates digital and 3D visuals, then deconstructs them with the help of artificial intelligence in order to explore all range of human emotions and express her vision. Haze Long is an active member of TezGirls, MAIF and AIIA Collectives. In March 2023, the artist releases her new work at the DEEP FAKE exhibition, the largest AI art show in Los Angeles in collaboration with 62 artists and SuperChief NFT Gallery.
Haze Long´s work is available on OpenSea (personal), on OpenSea (Mirage Gallery), Foundation, KnownOrigin, and Objkt.com.
Link of the artist — https://hazelong.eth.co/.
The questions that we asked the guest artists are:
- Tell us about yourself and how you discovered AI. When did this happen and how have you used AI, including the tools and your sources of inspiration.
- What are the deeper themes your work explores and how does your experimentation with AI connect with that greater purpose for your artistic practice?
- What is the most challenging, and perhaps the most liberating part of using AI from your perspective?
- As pioneers in AI art, how do you imagine the evolution of your artistic path over the coming years — how will you evolve your practice further using AI?
- What would you recommend to those who are about to start their journey as AI artists in 2023?
DVK´s quotes:
“I come from an artist family. My dad is an architect. I have two brothers, one is an architect, and another one is a traditional artist. I have been a graphic designer for more than ten years. In my work, I often found missing the artistic side. During the corona time, I started going into the art myself again, that is where I found AI.”
“I burned all of the first AI art pieces as I was not satisfied with them. The only piece that survived the purge would be “Return of Nature”, the edition of three on Objkt.com.”
“My favorite AI art piece “Overcharged” was a part of the show that I arranged with many amazing artists in the AIIA Collective in a Mecenate Fine Art Museum. It was the first NFT-related show in Rome. People were very interested as they do not know quite much yet about how NFT and AI work. The collection was sold-out the day one. I think we need more exhibitions of this kind. On Objkt.com now you can go with a credit card, and it is much easier to be onboarded as a collector.”
“AI work requires a lot of curation. Before I start, I already have an image in my mind and a story to tell. Sometimes I would create thousands of images and would not use any of them. For a better understanding, I create a few pieces at a time. I am looking if any of them feel what I want to do. And if it does not, I am creating more. I am discarding images in the process immediately. Sometimes I work on pieces created for weeks, months, a year before I can finish the collection.”
Evelyn´s quotes:
“I am Swedish, and my mother is Japanese. I spent half of my childhood in Japan. I never felt completely Japanese or Swedish and did not really fit anywhere. I grew up looking for the outside, that is what this space might be about”.
“I am a man but wanted to come into the space as “they”. I chose the name Evelyn as it’s both a man or female name, as in Evelyn Waugh the author, or Jane Austin’s character Evelyn. It is a boy’s or a girl’s name. But it did not work out, because everybody thinks I am a girl.”
“I am an autodidact as an artist since I am 11. I have worked in advertising using Photoshop. Then I went to the University to study art and literature. So then, I started to curate shows. In 2012, I bought Bitcoins. It was very complicated to use wallets. I did not know how to do it and I just left it. Then in 2021, I checked my computer and found my old Bitcoins and went to Twitter to learn more about them. I found the artists who were in space, and I got amazed about the art that I did not know anything about. I bought some work and started to talk with some artists. I started to paint myself. The first AI work I saw was by Jenni Pasanen or Claire Silver. I instantly realized this must be a very powerful tool. It has a weird freshness. I also got a lot of hate from people which made me feel it had to be important. Something was very right with AI and so I needed to get into it. Then some easier ways to make it came along. I use Stable Diffusion, Dream Studio, Midjourney, Dall-e 2, Photoshop, Procreate, and Photomush. I also use the upscalers. I minted my first “Vanitas” piece on Objkt.com.”
“AI moves so quickly. It is impossible to keep the style. It is always a constant move. I think Claire Silver does something few AI artist does, and that is she can move between styles and there is still this feel or energy that is unmistakably Clair Silver. Can’t put my finger on it, it is her inner atoms put into the piece, and that is art. And this I am looking for in my art, maybe it just comes along when one creates.”
“In the fall of 2022, people started to send me private messages and ask how I got my style. I did not know I had a style. It was so much testing and you get lost in it. In that search when you do things, the “you” seeds through in the artwork. What I think links my art together is that there is usually tension, often depicted in the movement of paint, both in the background and the depicted figure… maybe similar to expressionists like Munch and Van Gogh. And think it’s important to look at the texture. Using the artifacts creates conflict. I don’t like clean. Using SD 1.4 and 1.5 the AI is not so good at blending color, and put bodies together, and I keep that, not cleaning it up too much and try using these mistakes or shortcomings in my favor.”
“AI´s mistakes make it almost human.”
“I like the early AI artists. They did not want to look too good. They wanted to use the medium and show the medium. That is what I want to look into. It is also with the “Artist´s hand” piece I did which depicts a lot of fingers. Nobody in art history painted a hand with more than 5 fingers. You just did not have this perspective. AI has given us a different perspective.”
“Midjourney now is very clean and nice but it lacks some weirdness in it.”
“Generally, people find their little brush and they stick to it. I do not have a specific prompt that I use.”
“It is not sustainable to be off Twitter. It is where you have all your friends and all your collectors. I meditate a lot as being on Twitter might be draining.”
“If you put a lot of monetary expectations in NFTs, it will become more stressful. Try to see this as “It will be nice if someone buys something”. If you have this kind of mentality, things can be a lot easier. When it comes to the monetary things, it is when it gets more complicated with feelings and stuff.”
Haze Long´s quotes:
“It is my dream to have my own collection. When the NFT boom happened, I decided to go into this NFT space. I created a bunch of NFTs using WOMBO. I used to code and was good at that. I made an account on Twitter. It was hard to be heard and ETH was so competitive. Finally, I found the place where I belong, which is the Tezos blockchain. From WOMBO I move on to Midjourney. At that time, I did a lot of construction with AI generated art mashed with my 3D renders until one day AI artist Petra invited me to the Tezgirls group and asked me to submit the pieces the same night for the upcoming drop. I wanted to create something which would be done in a few hours. I put something together in 3D, and I sent my 3D renders into the AI for it to be deconstructed. It is a sort of reverse workflow. That was my breakthrough when it comes to my workflow. I enjoy the process a lot.”
“In the hands of an artist, AI can be the ultimate time-traveling tool, allowing us to create masterpieces not just faster, but in ways, we never thought possible.”
“When someone starts in the space, it is insanely difficult to leave the ego behind. Here the lines between friends, competitors, collectors, and artists are blurred. It is the same pool of people and it shows how difficult the space is. It always seems like we are “almost there”, just push one more minute and you will get there, and then one more submission, one more competition, just try, again and again. And then you understand you have been doing it the whole day and nothing else. And then it keeps repeating. One little success can motivate you to be perpetually trying to achieve this “almost there”, and this causes an addiction to the space.”
“The best pro of using AI is the speed of generating artworks and concepts. Some artists like to keep the artifacts, with AI I want to keep the strong narrative.”
“I had a big drop “Synthetic Heartbeats” of 150 pieces with a Mirage gallery which sold out. When I could not title the piece, I could not describe it, I thought it is not going to be in. Curation means that in the entire collection of the drop I am going to release, I will have the unifying color palette. I found an AI tool to do it, to transfer the colors from one image to another with the app Dust Free Solutions.”
Thanks so much to everyone who made the AWAIC Ep 18 possible. And thanks to you for reading. If you find this article useful, please consider sharing with your favorite AI friends and fellow AI communities. They will love it!
Listen to the Twitter Spaces via this link. The duration is 1:50 min. Language: English. The co-hosts are Ben Kanizay, Lily Illo, NZBR, Anna Dart, and Exquisite Workers.
Want to tune in to the upcoming A Weekly AI Collective Twitter Spaces?
It is easy! Next Monday we are having an exciting chat about AI art. Drop by, ask your questions, share your experience, and get inspired. This is the link to find us on Twitter Communities.
Do you have any questions?
If you have any questions or if you want to work with us, feel free to contact us. For business inquiries or very personal reasons, you can send us an email via hello[at]exquisiteworkers.com (Replace [at] with @, this tactic is to avoid spam). We are always available and happy to help artists and AI art collectors like you!
Would like to try the AI tools and do not know where to start?
No problem! We invite you to explore the AI tool Box by Time Traveller AI, AWAIC communite memeber. It is a great thread on Twitter which covers the major AI tools such as DALL-E 2, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion (with prompts and examples of outcomes). 🔥
You are also welcome to discover our previous articles.
