{"id":6352,"date":"2026-03-21T12:36:45","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=6352"},"modified":"2026-03-21T12:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:36:45","slug":"the-madness-of-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=6352","title":{"rendered":"The Madness of Machines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Graphical AI has some similarities with fractals: imagery no human mind could have conceived.<\/em>  That’s what I like about graphical AI; the bizarre, the visual meat grinder, the nuances of industrial accident.  That kind of art.  Mechanical creativity; not the creativity of artists but the madness of machines.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Horses and Centaurs in the Old West<\/em> by Ronald Fitch on Flickr 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Like the commenters on the Flickr page, I also like the “abnormalities”. I find this one has a strange surreal lighting to it. And the sky has a Dali-esque appearance. The wheels upon wheels in a senseless assembly with no matching wheels on the other side (didn’t notice that?) except for a “disembodied” wheel that has truncated the right horse’s back leg (the one with the torn off human leg still dangling off it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s another version from “The Art Gallery of Dr. Moreau:<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Horses and Centaurs in the Old West2<\/em> by Ronald Fitch in Flickr 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Spot any changes? The rider on the middle horse has changed his hair color. He’s the one with the horse’s head. I guess I should have said his mane has changed color. There’s a few more legs in the mix in there and an extra head as well as a second horse’s body growing out of the one on the right but missing some legs. AI birth defect? Nobody does details like AI –or cancerous growth. I don’t like the sky as much as in the first one. But, like everything else, it’s been done very carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The better AI gets the less interesting I think it will be. Or maybe its interest will depend on how artists use it? Like this iconic image from the Wikipedia page which despite numerous little errors in the harnesses and hands is still one of my all time favorites. I guess the right prompting words is what it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Astronaut Riding a Horse<\/em> (2024) from the Computational Creativity Wikipedia page.https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Computational_creativity#<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Here’s a few notes from the Wikimedia image page for the image:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

VulcanSphere<\/a> – Generated in Meta AI with Llama (https:\/\/www.meta.ai\/<\/a>), archived at https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/vulcansphere-ai-art-raw<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A synthograph of an astronaut riding a horse created in Meta AI with Llama. Prompt is a photograph of an astronaut riding a horse on moon. This artwork was created with text-to-image (txt2img) process.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graphical AI has some similarities with fractals: imagery no human mind could have conceived.  That’s what I like about graphical AI; the bizarre, the visual meat grinder, the nuances of industrial accident.  That kind of art.  Mechanical creativity; not the creativity of artists but the madness of machines. Like the commenters on the Flickr page, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Horses-and-Centaurs-in-the-Old-West-by-Ronald-Fitch-in-Flickr-2023.jpg?fit=600%2C338","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1346,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1346","url_meta":{"origin":6352,"position":0},"title":"7Up: The Un-Cola","author":"Tim","date":"28 June, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What exactly does it mean to be un-Cola? \u00a0Cola drinks, like Coca-Cola, are dark-colored and contain caffeine. \u00a0The opposite would be light-colored without caffeine? \u00a0But both of them are sugary, carbonated drinks sold on the same shelf and dropping out of the same vending machine, or at least side by\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/60s-scream.jpg?fit=500%2C500&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1802,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1802","url_meta":{"origin":6352,"position":1},"title":"My Oort Cloud Vacation","author":"Tim","date":"29 October, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"~ Click on images to view full-size on original site ~ In defense of Valerie, tohu777's image fooled me too.\u00a0 I thought it was an art installation out in some desert somewhere. Even now I'm not so sure it's not a real photograph.\u00a0 But of course, what difference does it\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1802#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/5088765512_07a3864b1f_b-by-tohu777.jpg?fit=600%2C272&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/5088765512_07a3864b1f_b-by-tohu777.jpg?fit=600%2C272&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/5088765512_07a3864b1f_b-by-tohu777.jpg?fit=600%2C272&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2863,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2863","url_meta":{"origin":6352,"position":2},"title":"Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 4","author":"Tim","date":"11 August, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Pixel Art vs. Parameter Art In my preceding three parts I have dealt with what I see are the limitations of fractals for making artwork.\u00a0 To put it simply, the geometric imagery called \"fractals\" has a natural bent towards the decorative and design type of art work.\u00a0 Artists who attempt\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2863#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=256","url_meta":{"origin":6352,"position":3},"title":"Desert Roads and Mountain Lakes","author":"Tim","date":"14 December, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Desert RoadsBack several month ago, I posted about a program called Fyre. As is often the case with new programs and new forms of algorithmic art, I quickly reached what I thought were its creative limits.A recent comment on my blog asking for information on how the images from Fyre\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5844,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5844","url_meta":{"origin":6352,"position":4},"title":"The Nature of Creativity in Fractal Art, Part 4: A Separate Artistry","author":"Tim","date":"14 August, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"There's something different about fractal art. Something that sets it apart from the art of artists working with their hands to form paintings out of paint and sculptures out of clay. Artists working with their hands do a lot of things you don't see in fractal art.","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5844#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/castaneda-cover.jpeg?fit=354%2C426&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5871,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5871","url_meta":{"origin":6352,"position":5},"title":"The Nature of Creativity in Fractal Art, Part 5: Artist or Symbiont?","author":"Tim","date":"21 August, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Executive summary The user does what the machine can't do and the machine does what the user can't do and together they make something. Automatism explains how fractal imagery works and mutation explains how a fractal user works but only symbiosis explains how fractal \"art\" works. Automatism works at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/uf-screen.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6352"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6367,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6352\/revisions\/6367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}