The final meetup of this first season of 2024 took us to a brand new grid tor the HG Safari and the tourists were out in force to visit SharingIsCaring grid, and discover some lovely and thought provoking art. The full HG Address is, you guessed it, at the end of the post.
Pat Babii: Welcome to the Gavezdois Virtual Museum.
lifted pixel: Thank you for having us Pat! :D
Pat Babii: My oldest avatar on Opensim is already 11 years and many months old, and in SL, where the surname Babii came from, the avatar has existed for 17 years. The person who gives life to these avatars is Brazilian by birth and Portuguese by adoption, and I spent most of my life in Sintra, Portugal. I don't say much more than this about my RL. This museum, which was once a museum exclusively with exhibitions of classical art, is now set up more like an art gallery than a museum.
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| Pat Babii outside her SharingisCaring gallery |
Pat Babii: What is on display now is a current type of art, composed exclusively of images made by Artificial Intelligence software called Midjourney. To obtain images in this software, the user needs to describe in text what they want to be in the image, which may vary in styles, reference artists, materials, eras, colors, etc. The options are endless and you can obtain the desired image with great precision, sometimes more easily, other times not so much. The images are described in a space intended for textual description, known as "PROMPT". In fact, the writing prompt is the art that the artist creates with this type of software. It's like a literary text, where the author tries to refer the reader to places, environments, situations, introduce characters, etc. The difference is that with this software the text is transformed into images.
Pat Babii: All the images displayed here in the building to my right were made by me and almost all prompts are available to anyone who wants to see them and find out how the images were generated. As you will see, is also possible to ask the software to create prompts from other real images, a technique I also use here.
Pat Babii: The museum is divided into floors, as shown by the black indicators, like this one near me, at the entrances to the floors and on the wooden displays. It is important to note that there are images on both sides of these wooden displays. There are two ways to get to the different parts of the museum: one, obviously, is on foot, climbing the stairs. The other way is through the Telepads that are found at different points.
Pat Babii: On the first floor you will find the first images I took, while still learning how to use Midjourney. On the second floor two specific subjects are imagined, one of them being the central point of everything that is exhibited here, and the exhibition is called The Pain. At the back of the room on the second floor there is a big black box that explains in English and Portuguese the subject covered in this section. There is also a section on this floor that I called other crazy ideas. On the third floor there is a huge tribute to women, which marks the month of March, women's month, with different images exploring this subject. All of this is still a great experiment that I am doing with the possibilities of Midjourney.
Pat Babii: Right at the entrance is an image of an old man and, below it, an explanatory text on how you can obtain the prompts that generated the images, simply by sitting on the small red disc in front of the images. This also has the function of positioning the camera in the best position to view the images.
Pat Babii: On the roof of this large building there is a small exhibition of sculptures, which were collected from different points of the hypergrid, which includes a collection of some sculptures by the artist Cherry Manga, made for another exhibition at Grid Craft World, about violence against women, from which I participated as an exhibitor.
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| A good way to visit this build is to stand still and cam on a roaming Whirli. |
Pat Babii: In addition, there are 3 other small buildings outside with various exhibitions of photos and illustrations from other opensim inhabitants, one by the architect Felix Mafia with photos of his constructions, and another by the illustrator Kate Miller, with images from her imagination. The third building has an exhibition I made commissioned by Chilli Bean, owner of Grid Sharing is Caring, grid where we meet today, about the current attack carried out against the Palestinians.
Pat Babii: There is also one more place, only accessible through telepads, where the construction itself is the work of art, made by the artist Velazquez Bonetto, and which is in the sky, above the main museum building... certainly worth it a visit. In front of the museum there is a small shop where you can purchase most of the images on display. Feel free to explore the museum as you see fit. I hope it is a pleasant and enriching experience for you.
Whirli Placebo: Pat...i love your "The pain of happiness"! that wraparound look is so good :) and the Velazquez Bonetto area! so gorgeous!
Pat Babii [pt→en]: It's beautiful, is not it?. At the back of Velazquez's room, there is a set of photos taken at Midjourney from photos taken here at a party
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| Whirli reaches the Velazquez level of the build |
Thirza Ember: Pat, how did you find out about MidJourney?
Pat Babii: I was looking for AI in general, and images in particular, I found all the options, and chose to use Midjourney and Leonardo.AI
lifted pixel: Is there a fee to generate images?
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Usually yes, I have a monthly subscription to Midjourney
Andron Rae: MidJourney charges after a certain amount, but there are ones you can install on your own machine if your GPU will handle it :) StableDiffusion WebUI is a popular one.
Thirza Ember: how long did it take you to learn how to get a good result with the key words?
Pat Babii [pt→en]: I'm still in this learning process :) But I've been working on this for a year and a half. I do this a lot
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| The central area of the gallery gives lights and space to the exhibition, as Nara Nook admires the art. |
James Atlloud: Pat I really appreciate how open the museum is - it is very easy to move around and/or cam around to see everything.
Pat Babii [pt→en]: The building was made by me for a game made in Unity
Lavia Lavine: Well this smacks of violence...
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| Lavia Lavine takes it all in |
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Pain, it is different
Alexey Kazarovic: A thin line shines through that connects madness, pain and fear.
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| Alexey Kazarovic |
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Read the text in the black box at the bottom of the second floor and everything is said there
Ary Ravenshire: This is really beautiful
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| SC grid owner, Chilli Bean |
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Welcome, dear Chilli
Thirza Ember: your themes are very interesting, of course very personal. do you feel like you will break into new themes as time goes by? or are these the ideas that you will continue to explore?
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Yes, I already have many new themes portrayed. However, the configuration of this building limits me to demonstrating. I'm working on a new building configuration that gives me more freedom to add topics
Thirza Ember: can you tell us a little bit about how you found sharingiscaring grid?
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| Edison Rex |
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Through a party at The Dome, which got me interested in OSW. It was a show by the magnificent Edison Rex. I never stopped going there and made friends with the gang. Then my stroke came and I disappeared, when I came back I was welcomed back to SC.
lifted pixel: the internet moves fast, so it's great they kept your seat warm
Edison Rex: we don't forget
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Fortunately!
Chilli Bean: we were so very happy to see pat return
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| Tina Bey admires the wildlife |
Unadecal Arado: I see a few pictures upstairs titled "The pain of a woman's madness" ... But to me they look more like orgasms. What do I know about art...
Pat Babii: That's the strength of the image. It can have different meanings depending on the eyes
Lavia Lavine: OMG LOL Una!
Unadecal Arado: what can I say...
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| Neo Nook and Unadecal Arado. You literally can't take them anywhere. |
Neo Nook Maybe there is a reason why orgasm in french is called petit mort...
Ernest Moncrieff: interesting observation Neo
Thirza Ember: it's a little bit of a personality test obviously Una's made his thoughts clear...
Pat Babii: Yes yes, I also notice this. In the new museum I have statistics on visits to know what interests people
Thirza Ember: another big advantage of opensim on SL - imagine how much to import all these pictures!
Pat Babii [pt→en]: It would be impossible... And the building, and everything
Ernest Moncrieff: Patinha, how do you go about using a real life image to help prompt a new AI image?
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| Pat Babii demonstrates how the real gets a virtual upgrade. |
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Look here. This sculpture was made by my youngest son. It's a real photo. I sent the photo to Midjourney and asked him to suggest other prompts, and got these images on the side. Here is a real photo of my living room next to a variation made by Midjourney
Ernest Moncrieff: so ai is augmenting your ideas sculpted in RL, maybe like a sculptor might get a foundry to pour the bronze
Pat Babii [pt→en]: These other images are all real photos all taken in Portugal. Most in Budah Parke in the center of the country
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| Kelso Uxlay admiring the variety of images in the gallery |
Thirza Ember: I think it's one of the most meaningful collections of AI art I have ever seen
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Maybe because of the prior knowledge of art that the History course gave me
Forest Azure: maybe we should have a group discussion some time if AI can be art
Pat Babii [pt→en]: I would really like to participate in a discussion like this, Forest. I started making films too
Forest Azure: maybe we really should organize something like that
Ernest Moncrieff: I'd be interested in such a discussion
lifted pixel: you've really honed your craft quickly!
Thirza Ember: this has been an amazing first visit of the Safari to SC grid! thank you so much for letting us come and test your servers
Edison Rex: the server doesn't mind... seems happy to see you
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Did we pass the test?
lifted pixel: this grid is very stable... nice work!
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| Star Ravenhurst |
Star Ravenhurst: Thank you for the visit. This was all fantastic to see.
James Atlloud: this is simply lovely Pat - thank you for inviting us. I did not sit anywhere because it did not seem appropriate. So much meaning everywhere!
Lavia Lavine: It was, indeed, most interesting. Lavia Lavine: Thank you for this wonderful tour and for having us.I found some works I really liked.
Pat Babii [pt→en]: I am the one who appreciates your visit
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| Pat Babii and her SC gang, in the entrance to the gallery |
Chilli Bean: ty everyone for visiting us its been lovely having u here
Edison Rex: always a pleasure
Thirza Ember: it's been a real treat
Pat Babii [pt→en]: Thanks to the gang for the support
HG Address hop://sharingiscaring.family:8002/Gavezdois/109/100/21
I think that's all said about this lovely visit. Thank you very much for everything and I hope you come back again!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this visit a lot and I'll say again, I like how open the build is for camming and seeing the imagery. So very thought-provoking - I love it.
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