Success AI Stories of June XenoCat, BAGIRA and New In Town
A Weekly AI Collective meets talented AI artists on Twitter at Ep 20, 2023 and closes the season.
Barcelona, Spain — March 23, 2023 — In the twentieth and the closing Twitter Space in this season, A Weekly AI Collective is meeting June XenoCat, Bagira and New In Town, uprising AI creators, who share with us their stories, inspirations, and observations around the use of AI.
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 last Twitter Space via this link if you wish to discover the complete conversation while reading the article. The duration is 2:01 min. Language: English.
JUNE XENOCAT
June XenoCat is a multidisciplinary artist currently pursuing a Masters degree in Cologne Academy of Media Arts. Her creative output includes installations, objects and videos, which frequently merge physical and digital elements by blending traditional mediums with AI artifacts and augmented reality layers. June XenoCat’s NFT practice explores the intersection of classical art and painting with mass-cultural phenomena and technological perspectives.
June XenoCat´s work is available on Foundation and Objkt.com.
Link of the artist — https://twitter.com/xenocat_art.
BAGIRA
BAGIRA is a 27-year-old self-taught artist, painter, designer, muralist, AI artist and mom. She discovered her talent for art at 21 and has been living from her art since quitting her job as a sales agent. BAGIRA has lived in several countries due to her Algerian father and Hungarian mother, and has been independent since 15. She recently participated in the FAIC AI FASHIONWEEK 2023 and opened her studio in Curaçao, a Dutch Caribbean island, where she sells her paintings and displays AI and NFTs.
BAGIRA´s work is available on Objkt.com.
Link of the artist — https://twitter.com/bagiratheartist.
NEW IN TOWN
Elsa, also known as New In Town, is an experimental artist from Portugal who is a mother, wife, and software engineer. She started exploring visual art around two years ago, around the same time she entered the NFT space. Initially, Elsa started as a collector in some ETH and Cardano projects, but she soon discovered Tezos and the popular Hic et Nunc (HEN) platform, which drew her in. She started as a collector but realized she also wanted to participate in this strange new world as an artist. Given her specialization in AI as a software engineer, Elsa naturally turned to the emerging AI medium to experiment with her artistic sensibility and find her artistic voice. As generative art began to gain traction, she felt that her professional background could help her there and she also join the creative coding movement.
New In Town´s work is available on Foundation, Fxhash.xyz, Exchange.art, and Objkt.com.
Link of the artist — https://lynkfire.com/NewInTown.
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.
- Are you doing any art or creating outside of AI, either digital or physicalI?
- What are your thoughts and experiences on collaborations with other artists?
- Tell about your inspirations, perhaps related to a specific collection or piece.
- Would you give us some short answers about your favorite color, food, music genre, last book you read, last movie you watched.
June XenoCat´s quotes:
“I am a full-time artist with a fine-art background, including painting and curation. Art education was not my first choice, as I had previously graduated from university as a software developer. However, even back then, I had an intuitive feeling that one day the fields of art and technology would merge. My current focus is on media and research-based art, and I combine the old and contemporary in mass-cultural contexts for my NFTs. My inspiration for the XenoCat character comes from the hybrid creature related to the semi-human and semi-animal in the field of animal studies and Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”. My approach to this creation involves a logical examination of the past of art through the lens of Renaissance and Rococo styles. For me, AI-based NFT practice is an attempt to look back at this archive through the eyes of AI. AI is trained on a vast visual archive, and it is like looking back through virtual reality glasses, which are magical.”
“For me, magic is an integral part of the process of creating art through AI, as we mix various components without fully imagining the end result or how it will work. Xenocat is itself a hybrid and a product of the same alchemical experiment.”
“One of my projects in 2019 involved the use of AI to create voice messages that predicted the future. The project took the form of voice messages emanating from the voice assistant Alexa. I trained the AI text model with the help of friends and mixed the resulting output with documentation of computer software and everyday magic spells and rituals of housewives from a mysterious book. The hybrid spells were broadcasted by Alexa and placed in a physical installation resembling a techno-shamanic tree for secret practices. The conclusion I made from the first project of the text-generation was that any sufficiently sophisticated technology is indeed no longer distinguishable from magic. This is the quote from Arthur C. Clarke, the idea that inspires me deeply.”
“When I first started using Midjourney, I felt like the picture was not made by me. With time, I learned how to deal with it and made more or less what I wanted to see. When I minted my first piece of the XenoCat character, it sold out pretty quickly. It was a self-portrait, and there is a part of me in her. Recently, I have minted the piece “The Birth of XenoCat,” which references art history and the renowned piece “The Birth of Venus.”
“Lately, I have been reading articles on topics that interest me, such as the decolonial agenda. I also enjoy reading science fiction novels. I attend exhibitions and art openings regularly. I love listening to jazz music on vinyl. Additionally, I try to practice yoga every day and enjoy cooking healthy meals with my husband, usually vegetable dishes and seafood. I am particularly fond of oysters.”
BAGIRA´s quotes:
“I am from a Dutch island Curaçao. I discovered AI and NFTs in December 2022. I have been a full-time artist over the last 7 years. I discovered that I can paint at the age of 21. I have been living from it since I ever started. Now using the AI medium is life-changing. I use it a lot in my work, for painting, for mural projects, and for graphic design. I discovered AI through a friend EVO who taught me about it. The entire January 2023, I was creating by using AI. It completely changed the way I see things and the colors. This gave me another dimension, especially after participating in the AI Fashion Week. Now I am looking to create my fashion line.”
“After the first painting I did, I quit my job. I decided that I needed to go for it. 2 weeks later I posted on Facebook that I am offering a special 20% discount if you order a Christmas portrait. I got 30 orders within a few days. I have not stopped ever since. I have painted around 1K people in Curaçao. I started to give lessons and people recognize me at the grocery store.”
“When using Midjourney, I started with creating the outputs of the architectural designs. I wanted to be an architect when I was young. I made this come true with AI and I made about 300 artworks of architecture that I never really shared. After that, I went back to my comfort zone and decided to create very realistic photography of people from different ethnicities. Then I digitally draw over them. When you look at them, you see these bright colors as lines over them. The collection is released and available on Objkt.com.”
“I love painting and I do it because I can live from it as I built a successful business. Last December, I had a burn-out. My artworks are around 3–4K dollars. When you have several clients waiting and if I do not do this on time, the person will not the Christmas gift and the client will be disappointed. In AI I found a hobby and passion and freedom of creation with no pressure.”
New In Town´s quotes:
“I live in Portugal and I am a software engineer. I am celebrating 50 this year. 2 years ago my husband said that we shall buy crypto coins and try to understand this world. I read about NFTs and started out as a collector at the ETH and Cardano blockchains. I began watching this strange new world appearing. I tried to bring artists-friends to the space, but the technology scared them. I continued in Tezos. I also wanted to be on the other side of the artists minting NFTs. Not having the artistic background, I experimented with fractals. I was active on Twitter and was seeing many things happening. By then, I used the Deep Deam generator, Artbreeder, Google Notebooks and experienced with training models and doing the music reactive videos. I was experimenting to be an artist. I am new to this world of expressing myself visually and I am still searching for my voice.”
“I do not remember any specific memory of the first minted piece with AI. It was in July 2021. But I remember very well when I minted the first piece on Tezos. I started by exploring some fractals. At some point, I had an image I was pleased with. I thought it was okay for me to be my first piece. I had to go and pick up my daughter but I had time to mint it and listed it for 5 Tezos. When I came back in 30 minutes, it was sold. It was a really amazing experience. When I started to use the Midjourney it was a revolutionary experience. The images are very neat nowadays with the advancement of the technology and I am not used to that. I like artifacts. Sometimes I want to bring the chaos to these outputs.”
“Although I am young as an artist, I believe I have a long way to go before finding my own unique and recognizable style. In the meantime, I continue to experiment with various mediums to express her voice, heart, and soul while learning how her artistic vision resonates with others. I draw inspiration from nature, everyday life, and human emotions, particularly how the web3 world is impacting people’s feelings.”
“My favorite color is blue. Sushi is my go-to food choice as I appreciate nice flavors and cultural diversity. When it comes to music, I am drawn to the music that evokes emotions and tells stories. My favorite book is “Not All Whales Can Fly” by Afonso Cruz, a work that speaks to my imaginative and contemplative nature. As for movies, I am captivated by the documentary “Ennio Morricone,” as I appreciate the art of sound and music.”
Thanks so much to everyone who made the AWAIC Ep 20 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 2:01 min. Language: English. The co-hosts are Ben Kanizay, Anna Dart, and Peg Moore.
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). 🔥
A Weekly AI Collective is saying “Hasta luego”
As our 20 weeks of the weekly Twitter Spaces come to an end, we bid you a fond “Hasta luego” for this first Season. It has been a pleasure to share our passion for AI and creativity with all of you weekly, and we appreciate your support and engagement along the way.
Although we are saying goodbye to our weekly Twitter Spaces, Exquisite Workers will continue to deliver the latest and greatest AI articles straight to your inbox. We remain committed to exploring the endless possibilities of AI Surrealism and pushing the boundaries of creativity and technology.
We invite you to join us on this exciting new chapter and look forward to sharing more with you soon. Thank you for being a part of our community, and we can’t wait to see where this journey takes us next.
So whether you're a lover of all things surreal, a tech enthusiast, or simply a curious soul, join us on this journey of exploration and discovery. Let's embrace the limitless possibilities of AI and create a world that is as strange and wondrous as our wildest dreams.
Exquisite Workers invites you to explore the AI articles which we will keep delivering to your inbox and the future Twitter Spaces by Exquisite Workers dedicated to AI Surrealism.
