Does this have anything to do with the dawn of the new year? Absolutely not. That’s just coincidently when it happened, so I decided to include it in the title, because I think it sounds better. Art.

So. I wrote a poem.

Not a big shock. I do it occasionally. Not particularly often these days, but still. Every now and then I get an idea or a image in my head that I feel should be conveyed, so I jot down a verse or two. It’s been a long while since I wrote anything epic in length, don’t judge me. Poetry is purely expressive for me, I usually write only when I’ve got some idea or picture in mind that I wish to illustrate, and often I find a short verse or two does the trick.

They grow and they creep, 
In the soil of your heart, 
Evil thoughts, like weeds. 

There you have it. Nothing ground breaking (No pun intended, it took me two days to notice). I was thinking about how bad habits, addictions, and evil thoughts remind me of invasive weeds in a garden. And unless you keep on top of them, and keep ripping them out, they just keep coming back. They grow and they grow and they get everywhere, overtaking other things. Cheery isn’t it?

Anyway. That was it. Just that. Done.

But wait, the title says something about an experiment doesn’t it?

Alright. Fair enough. Though ‘experiment’ might be too rich of a word to use.

One of the things I have been enraptured by recently, is AI art. The AI art generator that I currently use is mage.space and I find it so much fun. I can waste hours and hours tweaking keywords and generating images. So I thought, what would the AI make of my poem?

And this is something I’ve been wondering about for a while. So I decided to try it with this poem. (Don’t judge me, it was this or washing the dishes). Off I went, I plugged in my poem, the whole thing, it wasn’t very long, and I got this…

And once I readjusted the scale to make it landscape, because I always forget to do that the first time, this came out.

And this.

And this.

These are all very different. Though they do have similarities.

This is one of the reasons I love AI art so much.

Yes you can do some cool things with keywords to try and get the results you want, but still, you never quite know what’s going to turn up (which can also be incredibly frustrating if you want something specific, like normal ordinary hands, or the right number of legs). To me, just typing something in and seeing what comes out is really exciting! It feels a bit like treasure hunting.

After this I got curious, what other results could I get with different styles? So I fiddled around a bit.

Prepare the slideshow!

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I started off with Fantasy art, because it’s one of my favorite types of art.

Sci-fi art was also fun.

Horror art wasn’t as horrific as I was expecting, but I suppose the others were pretty horrific already.

Painting art. Don’t judge my keywords. Each to their own.

I’m liking the ‘evil fairy in her garden of skulls’ thing they have going on, but these were all very similar. Most likely because I did these one after the other, so the AI kept the same vague concept. I tried a few others with the same prompts and this happened.

Fantasy v2.

Sci-fi v2.

Horror v2.

Then I moved away to different styles of art, and we got more variations.

Watercolour. This one I found to be a pleasant surprise. Which I’m not sure suits the theme here…

Photographic. A mild disappointment. But fair.

Impressionist. Is this some strange version of a Monet painting?

Surreal. Similar kind of concept to the others. Fairy skull garden strikes again. Not as surreal as I was hoping.

Still life art, which was pleasantly disturbing.

Ink. Not what I had expected, but also pleasantly disturbing. Disturbing with flowers. Though I’m not sure if those are flowers, or brains, or cauliflower…

Abstract. It did what it said on the tin.

Now, I could keep doing this literally all day, but that probably wouldn’t be healthy. It is interesting though to see what the collective internet on which the AI program is based makes of my poem. And I’m pretty happy with the results.

I don’t write poems usually to get a very specific image across, more a feeling or a vague idea of an image, but I am pleased with just about all of these. Some of them are more interesting than others, but most of them are more or less what I had in mind.

But then I got an idea. Which was purely for my entertainment.

Movie posters.

Lots of movie posters.

Not sure if these even count as movie posters, but that was the prompt that I was using. I then tried to mix it up and specify movie genres, just for fun.

Action movies.

Fantasy movies.

Romantic movies.

This last one in particular I was quite proud of. We’ve got the words and everything! I think I might watch that movie. It looks like a nice movie. Assuming that isn’t some fairy’s garden of skulls.

Well, that was fun. Half of those look like they belong to some foreign art film. But I suppose it works.

I think that’s probably enough.

The fantasy and sci-fi ones are probably still my favorites, but that’s just preference.

I have more poems, and I had fun. So I might do this again some time. Maybe break out the books and try it with some real poets.

Which of these do you like best? AI art is fascinating, and weirdly addictive.

Now, that’s enough from me. Now, go and write some poetry or play with AI art generators. Or if that doesn’t suit your fancy, just go wash some dishes.

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