“Frodo Baggins delivering a pizza through the mines of Moria”
Remember my attempts to get CLIP+BigGAN to generate candy hearts? Here’s what an alternative method, CLIP+FFT, does with the prompt “a candy heart with a message”.
Rather than a single obsessively-scribbled-upon heart, we now have a vast universe of candy hearts, jostling against one another with their messages screaming incomprehensible love at the viewer.
As before, CLIP is the judge, telling another algorithm whether this collection of pixels looks more like “a candy heart with a message” than that collection of pixels. But this time, the algorithm presenting the images to CLIP isn’t steering through BigGAN, which was trained on a set of human photography. Instead, it’s doing something a lot more like the classic Deep Dream images, changing parts of the image to maximize how much it looks like dogs, or whatever the prompt is supposed to be.
And since CLIP was trained on text and images that appeared together on the internet, it can be the judge of just about anything.
Here’s “A stegosaurus flying a spaceship among lasers”.
And it knows how to judge pop culture figures and even the look of TV shows. Here’s “Godzilla and Paul Hollywood in the Bakeoff tent”
Note that it not only correctly has the tent as white and pointy-roofed, it even is trying to do the Union Jack bunting. And it’s really sensitive to the prompt, so if you type “Godzilla and Paul Hollywood taking a selfie in the Bakeoff tent” instead, Paul Hollywood breaks out into a grin and cameras appear. (it seems to be less sure what a grinning Godzilla looks like)
Here’s “Mr Darcy emerges from a lake in a white shirt while his horse looks on”
It does less well to my mind when there are fewer clues about what the background should look like. Tell it just to do “Tyrannosaurus Rex” and things get very abstract and smeary, and it even resorts to trying to write “tyrannosaurus” everywhere.
“A tyrannosaurus wearing a crinoline hoop skirt on a fashion show runway” looks a bit more realistic. Or maybe that’s just my preference. The trees in the background are a nice touch.
Here’s a zoomed-in view of one of the best ones: “a library made of bones and skeletons; a library in the style of catacombs”. It doesn’t seem to resort to word graffiti if the prompt suggests a finely textured background, maybe. (This may have been from a newer version of the CLIP+FFT notebook, so that could explain some of the improved quality.)
You do need a bit of imagination maybe to figure out what the original prompts were, so I wouldn’t exactly say that CLIP+FFT as successful as making images to order as the original CLIP+DALL-E (still not released publicly). But having a neural net that will attempt whatever I ask for (and not turn every human into a horror of many-eyed blobs) is still pretty fun.
“The daleks have filled the tardis with llamas and David Tennant is annoyed”
Read more about CLIP+FFT (built by Vadim Epstein) and try it yourself for free with the colab notebook!
I made a bonus gallery of various characters delivering pizza. Spider-man’s not the only one who’s recognizable with a fresh pie in hand. To see the gallery, and get other bonus content, become an AI Weirdness supporter! Or become a free subscriber to get new AI Weirdness posts in your inbox.
“A La Mort, On Laisse Tout”: At Death, We Leave Everything.
Les Catacombes de Paris are a maze of Ossuaries which contain millions of skeletons. First built in 1774, they were needed because of the overflowing and increasingly unhygienic cemeteries in Paris.
It was largely forgotten until it became a venue for macabre music concerts in the late 19th century (the most famous one being around the barrel shaped thing in the first photo)
The #metgala has me thinking about that time in 2013 that I designed a loungewear collection based on ornately decorated catacomb saints. Inspired by the book “Heavenly Bodies”. I love this theme more than anything. #extravagance #luxe #loungewear #fashionart #throwback #fashion #FIT #fashionillustration #mariekheffernandesign #fbf #flashbackfriday #metheavenlybodies #metgala2018 #skeletons #catacombs #saints #catholic #fashiondesign #inspiration #metropolitanmuseumofart
Just watched again yesterday the movie “Paris” directed by Cédric Klapisch.
I was really impressed to discover that the scene filmed in the catacombs with Fabrice Luchini was a pure historical reenactment put up in a recording studio!
Aboriginal Rock Art - Arnhem Land by Chris Borough Via Flickr: Unbelievable mix of paintings More Arnhem Land images in Album Arnhem Land Without doubt the “Catacombs” at Mount Borradaile in Arnhem Land would be the most memorable place that Australia has to offer. Difficult of access, Davidson’s Lodge at Mount Borradaile has a lease over 700 sq km of wilderness and is only available to a limited number of visitors. The “Catacombs” - located nearby - have been formed in Pre-Cambrian sandstone rocks that have essentially lain unchanged for around 600 million years. The sandstone has been eroded by wind and water creating a massive cave system that is peppered with unbelievable Aboriginal art. Evidence suggests that aboriginal people inhabited these areas 40,000 years ago. The artwork appears to been made after the end of the the last ice age - around 10,000 years ago.
Aboriginal Rock Art - Western Arnhem Land by Chris Borough Via Flickr: Bandicoot More Arnhem Land images in Album Arnhem Land Without doubt the “Catacombs” at Mount Borradaile in Arnhem Land would be the most memorable place that Australia has to offer. Difficult of access, Davidson’s Lodge at Mount Borradaile has a lease over 700 sq km of wilderness and is only available to a limited number of visitors. The “Catacombs” - located nearby - have been formed in Pre-Cambrian sandstone rocks that have essentially lain unchanged for around 600 million years. The sandstone has been eroded by wind and water creating a massive cave system that is peppered with unbelievable Aboriginal art. Evidence suggests that aboriginal people inhabited these areas 40,000 years ago. The artwork appears to been made after the end of the the last ice age - around 10,000 years ago.
Aboriginal Art - Western Arnhem Land Rainbow Serpent head by Chris Borough Via Flickr: Rainbow Serpent head The following has been sourced from www.barry.warmkessel.com/AUSTR1-3.html The Rainbow Serpent Shelter is an enormous painting of a Serpent. It has a length of 6.1 metres (20 feet), the longest serpent drawing in Australia. Its big head resembles that of a dragon, with rows of fearsome teeth in the jaws. The distance between the tips of the distended jaws is almost a metre. The spine and rib structure of the beast are carefully indicated. The whole composition is beautifully painted, with fine lines of red ochre on a white background. The serpent plays an important role in all major religions, but also in the myths of the region. To Aborigines, they are among the most potent and profound of all rock paintings. In its various guises, the Rainbow Serpents of western Arnhem Land originated from the sea. The scholar Mr. G. Chaloupka believes this Serpent is called ‘Aburga’ painted within the last 1,500 years by the now extinct Amurdak-speaking Malakiri clan. Authors Roberts and Parker write in their book “Ancient Ochres, the Aboriginal Paintings of Mount Borradaile”: “This is a dry, accessible shelter with no signs of habitation, indicating that it was strictly a ceremonial site. There are various habitation shelters in the immediate vicinity. In this particular shelter there is very little art other than the main image, and there have been no images superimposed over any part of it. Clearly, this is testimony to the importance of this painting.” More Arnhem Land images in Album Arnhem Land Without doubt the “Catacombs” at Mount Borradaile in Arnhem Land would be the most memorable place that Australia has to offer. Difficult of access, Davidson’s Lodge at Mount Borradaile has a lease over 700 sq km of wilderness and is only available to a limited number of visitors. The “Catacombs” - located nearby - have been formed in Pre-Cambrian sandstone rocks that have essentially lain unchanged for around 600 million years. The sandstone has been eroded by wind and water creating a massive cave system that is peppered with unbelievable Aboriginal art. Evidence suggests that aboriginal people inhabited these areas 40,000 years ago. The artwork appears to been made after the end of the the last ice age - around 10,000 years ago.
ring of fire join at CatacombFamily.com figure @ffffawns . white garment @blckbts . #darkphotography #catacombs #macabre #gothaesthetic #occult #deathscience (at Ransom, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB34PIipo5W/?igshid=a2c6zyg7od7f
Years ago, ABC Family aired a special on The Catacombs (below), which focused on a camcorder discovered deep within.
Allegedly, in the early 90’s, a man decided to explore The Catacombs on his own. He never resurfaced, although his camcorder and cassette were found.
As the video progresses, the man appears to become more panicked as he tries to find his way back out.
In the video, you’ll see the man at 288 feet below (street level) catch a glimpse of something. Eventually he drops the camera, leaving it rolling as his footsteps disappear off into the darkness, never to be heard from again.
Kinda has ‘The Blaire Witch Project’ feel to it. It’s creepy in it’s own way, but we never really see the main creature (as we never saw the Blaire Witch), and we never really know how it ends - both the movie and that film ending with the camera being dropped.
From Heavenly Bodies~ Jeweled Sacred Skeletons of the 16th Century. Part of the Lecture Series at The Last Tuesday Society.
“Dr. Paul Koudounaris (author of the goth cult classic Empire of Death, the first study of bone-decorated religious sanctuaries) presents a talk with slide show on his new volume, Heavenly Bodies, the story of skeletons discovered in the Roman Catacombs in the late sixteenth century. Largely anonymous, they were nevertheless held to be the remains of Early Christian martyrs, and treated as sacred. Sent to Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe to replace holy relics that had been destroyed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the skeletons were carefully reassembled and richly adorned in jewels and precious costumes by teams of nuns. Intended as flamboyant devotional items, they also turned out to be the finest works of art ever created in human bone. Once part of the spiritual life of many people, as time passed the faith in these sumptuously decorated skeletons wavered, and they were cast out during the Enlightenment as remnants of a superstitious and embarrassing Catholic past. Largely forgotten in the annals of religious history, Dr. Koudounaris gained unprecedented access to religious institutions where the surviving decorated skeletons are held. His photographs are the first that were ever taken of many of them, and the images which will accompany his lecture are bizarre, moving, and beautiful.”
