When I was in high school, I had the bright idea that I could save a screenshot of a Winamp MilkDrop visualizer in progress, and post it to my DeviantArt account as if it were an abstract digital painting I made.
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| Not my "artwork", but a representative sample of MilkDrop's output. Abstract psychedelic colors and patterns. Via Xanthine Complex on Wikipedia. |
It was still early enough days on the internet that I thought someone might find this impressive┈if they thought I made it┈and I figured the odds of anyone recognizing it as MilkDrop were low. I gave it a pretentious title and wrote some bullshit in the description about what "the piece" "meant".
I don't know if anyone saw it, but the only people following me on DeviantArt were a couple of my friends. Not long after I uploaded it, I imagined how it might feel if one of my friends saw it and said something nice about it. I figured I'd feel pretty guilty, and embarrassed, and I'd probably feel compelled to come clean. So, I deleted it before that could happen.
The experience didn't inspire me to become an abstract digital painter for real, but I did eventually find my creative drive and start practicing in earnest. I'm interested in most kinds of art, but games and prose are what I have a bit of talent for, so that's where I've focused my efforts.
The result is that I've made some games, written a few stories, and authored a bunch of essays people have liked. I haven't become rich or famous, but I generally like myself and have a body of work I'm proud of, and mentally that's a pretty good place to be.
It didn't seem significant at the time, but when I think back on my brief career as a MilkDrop plagiarist, I realize I dodged a bullet. If I had allowed myself to believe that taking credit and being rewarded for something I didn't do is okay, I might never have made anything I can take pride in.
(Thanks to Ryan and his recollections of grade school tracing for inspiring this post.)
Oh my, there's a Milkdrop LM for those who.... who is it even for? People who want a specific milkdrop experience without learning how to script it themselves? But in scripting it you would learn more about what you want, and what's possible...
You may have seen the "NO DRAW ONLY ART" meme.
The folks who are impressed with AI might be upset to hear that I trace... the image in my mind's eye. Not helpful advice to people with a weaker mind's eye. You can exercise it thus increasing it some by sketching... whatever is in front of your face. Put a thing infront of you and draw that thing. On cheapest paper.
I need to look up if there's a cloudy fractally screen saver for my weak linux lappy.
I'm totally cool with people tracing for their own personal enjoyment and/or practice! I'm no sketchist, but I bet tracing»drawing from reference»drawing from imagination is a really common skill progression
Back in the 90s, as a teenager, I definitely tried to pass off other people's writing or ideas as my own. I "adapted" art without crediting the original source, and put it on my own website in the hope of attracting praise and status. This was foolish and unethical.
I've never been a great artist in any medium: I'm too much of a jack-of-all-trades to specialise enough to be particularly impressive in any field! But as I've gotten older, I've learned that that's okay. What's more-important than output is motivation.
Nowadays I produce code that helps hundreds of charities; I produce blog posts that once in a blue moon "trend" (whatever that means); and just occasionally I take a photo, or record a podcast, or something that clearly touches somebody. An appreciative audience of one is sufficient. I've stopped chasing fame: nowadays, I'm happy to just "be".
Perhaps part of growing-up is learning self-acceptance? Perhaps those who still pass off AI "art" as original... still have some growing-up to do?
@Dan Q: I think this is true, and I also think the last few decades have seen a rapid devaluation of art in our culture. GenAI definitely accelerated it, but I've seen anti-art attitudes creep into discourse long before that, like people asserting that artists don't deserve to be compensated fairly for their work, that artists should get "real jobs", that art degrees are fake, etc etc. As a creative person I think it led me to devalue myself for a long time, too. It's only in the past few years I've accepted that what I do is valuable whether society acknowledges it or not.