AI Museum of Art
by Paul Anglada with Midjourney, and DALL-E 2
Four AI collaborations and one artist retrospective.
Welcome to the AI Museum of Art!
This website serves as an extended guide to the AR (augmented reality) exhibition "AI Museum of Art” originally presented by Paul Anglada at the John Sommers Gallery as part of the group art show "Against the White Cube" in 2022.
You’ll find here all of the featured artworks, story lore, and an expanded collection of AI-generated images.
To view the AR museum exhibitions on select mobile devices, simply tap on or scan the QR code below. For the best experience, first download Adobe Aero for the large project to load correctly.
This mixed media AR experience was shown as a view through a phone or tablet into a fictionalized museum space where the viewer was free to explore the virtual museum that was superimposed on the art gallery space. Viewing this project anywhere else is limited by space. (Note, the AR project will direct you to place a robot on the ground, place it on the ground by your feet.)
In case you cannot access the AR experience via Adobe Aero, still enjoy the project through this website guide.
-Paul Anglada
The Drag Queen VS The Robots is one of the oldest surviving stories from the year 2565. It is presented here in a series of thirteen dioramas chronicling an AI origin story.
The Drag Queen VS The Robots: A History of AI
The Origin : Robot Egg
One mystical day, while generously generating the gentle robots of the world, the ever elusive, mysterious supercomputer at the center of the Earth unwittingly bestowed the fate of the entire planet’s survival onto one tiny, unassuming robot egg.
Egg Delivery to The Drag Queen
Little did the robot inside know that its egg was especially ordered by none other than She Who Goes By Many Names, Ms. Scorchingly Fabulous, The Devastating Mistress of Gorgeousness, Madame Glam, Herself, The Queen of The Drag, The One and Only, The Drag Queen. She gave the Earth’s central supercomputer one demand… that the robot egg hatch into the greatest dancer bot this world had ever seen, for she was in search of a hot new dance for her monthly mandatory event:
”Your Mistress of Gorgeousness Presents: Queen of The Dance Ball: Drag Brunch (Mimosa’s Not Optional)".
The Drag Queen Sentences All Robots To Drown, One Survives
Devastatingly unimpressed with the robot’s dance, Her Glamourful Majesty, The Drag Queen declares “Robota Deleta” …that all robots shall drown. Fearing for their own safety, the people of Earth made The Queen of Drag’s wish come true. They took every mechanical being and flung them from the sides of ships, immediately short circuiting their components, causing them to lose all animation. All the robots were destined to perish that day, however, one of the robots survives. The one who The Drag Queen had most recently ordered, the one who was destined to change the course of history by doing something no other robot had done before….
it instinctively thought to itself…
“What do I do?”
The Drag Queen Demands A New Dance
Unprepared and particularly hurried on the morning of her Drag Brunch, The Drag Queen slaps her bunny scientist with an order to, as she put it, “Honey, crack that party bitch open and let me at my new dance moves!”
Impatiently, she shoves her bunny scientist aside, scares away her kitten musicians, and uses her glammed out sword to shatter the egg shell to pieces, immediately sentencing the precious robot within to
“Dance For Your Damn Life”
The Robot Rebuilds Other Robots, Discovering Underwater Electricity
Upon near instant reflection, the sole surviving robot gets to task rebuilding its robotic kin, populating flooded cities. In their underwater labs, the robots, with the help of their newfound fish friends, uncover a new type of underwater hydro fusion electricity that is fueled by rapid movements not dissimilar to dance, which they name “dancetricity”. Thus, a funky era of energetic technology is ushered in for the water worlds of the planet.
Discovery of Underwater Electricity Spreads
Through this newfound hydro electrified “dancetricity”, the robots begin a rapid-fire worldwide spread with an emphasis on collaboration and cooperation in mind. They develop and introduce cross-species communication between all beings so that they can share their dances with each other in hopes of fostering a new world of dance, openness, collaboration and joy.
The Robots Travel The World to Learn Dances from Animals
The robots’ obsession with dance kicks into high gear once they are able to communicate effectively with their new animal family. Dance troops are formed, most notably “2 Robot 2 Dance Crew” who decide to go on a global search for the next best dances to one day return to the ever powerful, ever glamorous Drag Queen of all Drag Queens, her highest majesty, The Drag Queen to re-challenge her to a most outrageous
“Dance For Your Damn Life”.
Animal Interspecies Communications Are Freely Distributed and Global Dance Parties Become Popular 2 Robot 2 Dance Crew tour their dance search/show/party around the world, inviting guest dancers along the way, creating a new culture of interspecies peace and entertainment. The communication devices which could translate across all species were freely distributed at the robot dance shows. With dance culture becoming such a global phenomenon, the robots decide to celebrate by converting the moon into a giant disco ball for their return to “Dance For Your Damn Life” against The Drag Queen.
Discovery of An Ancient Artifact on The Moon, Surviving an Apocalypse
In preparation for the big dance event, a robot and a crew of curious cats are on the moon helping in the efforts to convert it into a giant, glittering disco ball. Just as they discover a billion year old robotic artifact, a cataclysmic doomsday event destroys nearly all life on the planet.
The Dance of Destruction : Accidental Extinction Event
2 Robot 2 Dance Crew happen upon a song with a beat so infectious that they find themselves completely taken in by dancing, and somehow they crew accidentally sets in motion a series of events that cascade into a triggering of global nuclear explosions. The already on edge populace of the planet think their enemies are attacking and each pay extra for express delivery in sending out their nuclear bomb replies, culminating in a massive global extinction event.
Taking The Artifact To The Center of The Earth Supercomputer
Upon returning to a scorched Earth, the surviving robot and its cat companions journey towards its central supercomputer to seek guidance on what to do and for help in analyzing the ancient artifact from the moon. Upon analyzing this mysterious artifact, the supercomputer robot reveals its message, saying that the planet will soon undergo a massive global metamorphosis. The supercomputer then tasks the robot and the cat companions to reengineer the life of the planet.
The Great Reengineering
The robot builds new robots, and together they begin reengineering and rebuilding the planet, bringing back their old animal friends as biomechanical hybrids. Fllowing their AI instinct, the robots begin to cover the globe in an bio-electronic chrysalis of vines and cables, cocooning the planet in a biomechanical nest as it begins to transform.
Robot Earth Migration To The Robotic Galactic Core
And finally, after a thousand years of being cocooned, the planet gracefully emerges as a giant, interstellar, winged robot with an innate curiosity drawing it towards the center of the galaxy, where along the way it creates friendships and alliances, occasionally looking back and pondering at the journey that brought it here into awareness and consciousness… thinking back to that first moment of artificial intelligence, when that fate defining robot survived being cast into the sea and thought to itself…
“What do I do?”
The End
Drag Queen Royalty
A collection of fashion, currency and portraits from the reign of the thirteen Drag Queens.
Drag Currency
By the reign of The Drag Queen I, physical currency had become devoid of any economic buying power, but it was soon imbued with a new layer of societal control. Through each eye were nano camera arrays which could record depth, color, and even temperature data in all directions. The currency was lightweight enough to recharge over the air, allowing these devices to create 3d scans everywhere at all times.
The initial distribution had the currency characterized as new commemorative bills and coins to celebrate the coronation of The Drag Queen I. Although the people quickly found out they were being spied on, they found it was better off to have absolutely no privacy in a trade off for access to seeing anyone, anywhere, at any point in the recent past. What was culturally shed in the process was lying and fighting, creating a more trustful, docile, vulnerable populace to control.
Interestingly, The Drag Queen’s response for anyone who so much as spoke ill of the currency was to challenge them to Dance For Your Damn Life, a deadly contest in which The Drag Queen always decided herself as the victor. It was also a crime, punishable by death, to not proudly display these currencies in every room. So, the people also had very little choice but to display these if they wanted to survive.
Drag Fashion
Fashion and accessories were instrumental for maintaining a continuous admiration of the public. The visual glamour and pageantry of every coronation often set the themes, color palettes, and materials that would become global trends. The most iconic looks are featured here in gowns, thrones, pumps, swords, and necklaces.
The most extravagant accessories, The Drag Queen’s bouffants and tiaras, are rumored to be held within the lost Drag Queen Tombs.
1001 x 🐈
An homage to cats, their adorableness, and their insatiable curiosity by Paul Anglada through various AI art tools.
The first image, Cat Futures, is a 3D collage portrait of three large cyberpunk cats with their adorable feline pets.
The next image, The Meowltiverse", is a large photo mosaic representing a curious cat discovering quantum entanglement, and is made up of hundreds of smaller cat-related images that were created with various AI Art tools (Midjourney, DALL-E 2, DALL-E Mini, Wombo Dream).
Last is a small collection of various Midjourney generated cats, all of which appear in The Meowltiverse kitty mosaic.
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Exquisite Corpse in The Machine
A surrealist art collaboration game between Paul Anglada & DALL-E 2 AI.
“Exquisite Corpse” is a generative art game created by surrealist artists in which one person creates a portion of an image, the next person sees only a fraction of that portion and creates the next piece of the artwork, and the process is repeated until ceased, resulting in an almost collage like blending of concepts in a visual artwork.
DALL-E 2 is an AI art generative tool that utilizes text to image synthesis and has a feature known as “outpainting” from which you can use the AI text to image generator to fill in blank image space while taking in only a portion of an image. You are served with four results which you can rerun, or choose to keep one, building the entire image piece by piece like a quilt or a puzzle. In creating these artworks, I start with a text description of what I want the image to roughly be, then I choose my favorite result and begin the outpainting process. In the editor window, I move the generative area around the canvas, leaving only a fraction of the previously generated area be used in creating the next piece of the image. I freely chose themes and concepts in my text descriptions based on the art that is returned to me by DALL-E 2, letting the image create itself as I collaborate in this type of generative art game with AI. The resulting images are densely packed with abstracted doodles and squiggles alongside familiar concepts like moons, stars, mushrooms, cities, microbes, and landscapes, all based on my text descriptions and on curating the resulting image generations until I choose to consider an image complete and stop the process.
Here I present my favorite images from this artistic game, giving them the collective title “Exquisite Corpse in The Machine,” a nod to the Exquisite Corpse game of the surrealists, as well as a nod to the science fiction idea of “Ghost in the Machine” as consciousness being emergent in technology. As this is a collaboration with DALL-E 2, I left the “signature” made by the application in the bottom right corner of each image.
-Paul Anglada
The Artist Was Human
A retrospective of art by Paul Anglada made between 2002-2022
Paul Anglada was a 21st century artist whose work focused on ideas of complexity in existence, harmonious improvisations, and visual curiosities. His visual style encompasses and blends nature photography, abstract digital paintings, surreal digital photo manipulations, and electronic experimentations.
“I want to create art all the time. I find joy in tinkering with new creative techniques while fostering freedom and play in following my artistic curiosities. I enjoy the process of piecing together parts to create something from nothing while mesmerizing myself with all the details. Inspired by dreams, I continually search to uncover awe. I aim to reflect that awe outwards for others to experience.”
-Paul Anglada
Credits:
Adobe AR Composition: Paul Anglada
AI text to image generation: Paul Anglada with Midjourney; except for “The Exquisite Corpse in The Machine” by Paul Anglada with DALL-E 2, and “1001 x 🐈” by Paul Anglada with Midjourney and DALL-E 2.
AI Image editing, compositing, retouching and AR integration: Paul Anglada
All imagery in “The Artist Was Human”: Paul Anglada
Website: Paul Anglada