My name is Christopher Burman, I'm a designer and artist from London. You can find out a bit more about the projects I've worked on <a href="https://www.burman.work/">here</a>.

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<p>My name is Christopher Burman, I'm a designer and artist from London. You can find out a bit more about the projects I've worked on <a href="https://www.burman.work/">here</a>. </p>

While writing has always been an important personal tool, to date I've haven't made a serious effort to share much, in part due to a wicked and contradictory mix of shyness, perfectionism, laziness - and worse still - an increasing reflexiveness about the value of even producing "<em>content</em>" at all.

<p>While writing has always been an important personal tool, to date I've haven't made a serious effort to share much, in part due to a wicked and contradictory mix of shyness, perfectionism, laziness - and worse still - an increasing reflexiveness about the value of even producing "<em>content</em>" at all.</p>

To escape the clutches of this cycle, I'm aiming to publish more of this writing in a rapid and direct way, under the guise of this, a new project: <a href="http://fulfilment-centre.burman.work">Fulfillment Centre</a>

<p>To escape the clutches of this cycle, I'm aiming to publish more of this writing in a rapid and direct way, under the guise of this, a new project: <a href="http://fulfilment-centre.burman.work">Fulfillment Centre</a></p>

In the broadest strokes, the aim of <em>Fulfilment Centre</em> to think more clearly about experience and meaning of near-future infrastructures and technological systems, especially with respect to sensory perception, machine intelligence and the decarbonisation of cities.

<p>In the broadest strokes, the aim of <em>Fulfilment Centre</em> to think more clearly about experience and meaning of near-future infrastructures and technological systems, especially with respect to sensory perception, machine intelligence and the decarbonisation of cities.</p>

While ostensibly these subjects might appear only loosely connected, I'm increasingly of the view that they are highly interdependent and to reflect on any of them requires taking a pretty wide view encompassing all of them.

<p>While ostensibly these subjects might appear only loosely connected, I'm increasingly of the view that they are highly interdependent and to reflect on any of them requires taking a pretty wide view encompassing all of them. </p>

My default setting is normally to relate to the world by making and design things, usually exploring sensory, spatial and computational systems. However creative agency appears more than ever at the mercy of exactly how rapid and uneven developments in these fields  actually are. The bits of writing that will make up <em><a href="http://fulfilment-centre.burman.work">Fulfilment Centre</a></em> are perhaps best understood as personal fields notes on doing these things, as the philosophical and physical terrain around us shifts so rapidly.

<p>My default setting is normally to relate to the world by making and design things, usually exploring sensory, spatial and computational systems. However creative agency appears more than ever at the mercy of exactly how rapid and uneven developments in these fields  actually are. The bits of writing that will make up <em><a href="http://fulfilment-centre.burman.work">Fulfilment Centre</a></em> are perhaps best understood as personal fields notes on doing these things, as the philosophical and physical terrain around us shifts so rapidly.</p>

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core/heading

<h2>Preamble: Notes On Getting Started</h2>

I've been on the verge of launching a writing project several times over recent years but hesitation has always grabbed the wheel. The mind-killer&nbsp;<em>fear</em>&nbsp;and distraction, teaming up with a furious circulation of subject matter.

<p>I've been on the verge of launching a writing project several times over recent years but hesitation has always grabbed the wheel. The mind-killer&nbsp;<em>fear</em>&nbsp;and distraction, teaming up with a furious circulation of subject matter.</p>

Space emerged over the last 18 months, primarily from both a deliberate retreat from social media and a curious - and at times worrying - lack of in-bound email. With the churning of the world recently on pause, silences both uncomfortable and fulfilling become more expansive.

<p>Space emerged over the last 18 months, primarily from both a deliberate retreat from social media and a curious - and at times worrying - lack of in-bound email. With the churning of the world recently on pause, silences both uncomfortable and fulfilling become more expansive.</p>

One concern in particular, gnawing away for several years previously, became quickly more urgent. Broadly, that the methods and rhythms of absorbing knowledge about the world and it's future, were generally muddying rather than clarifying the picture, despite the urgency of those near future questions. A uncomfortable storm of firm signals gradually distorting into noise, flavour without texture, comprehension without structure.

<p>One concern in particular, gnawing away for several years previously, became quickly more urgent. Broadly, that the methods and rhythms of absorbing knowledge about the world and it's future, were generally muddying rather than clarifying the picture, despite the urgency of those near future questions. A uncomfortable storm of firm signals gradually distorting into noise, flavour without texture, comprehension without structure.</p>

Perhaps the effect perhaps of too long spent drinking straight from the firehose but online life sometimes has quality of a factory line churning out '<em>actually quite meaningful</em>' things, unable to sustain longer term value in the face of over saturation and over stimulation. Threads that are as vital, brutal and succinct as they are tangential to everyday lived experience. Like a pig hunting for truffles in the forest though, perhaps nothing is ultimately unsatisfying or nutritionally irrelevant as actually finding them.

<p>Perhaps the effect perhaps of too long spent drinking straight from the firehose but online life sometimes has quality of a factory line churning out '<em>actually quite meaningful</em>' things, unable to sustain longer term value in the face of over saturation and over stimulation. Threads that are as vital, brutal and succinct as they are tangential to everyday lived experience. Like a pig hunting for truffles in the forest though, perhaps nothing is ultimately unsatisfying or nutritionally irrelevant as actually finding them.</p>

In one spiritual or intellectual way, this maybe have always been the case but it's still worth acknowledge the strangeness of living at a time that demands brandishing a Swiss army knife of cognitive techniques simply to manage the deluge. Exerting whatever guidance you have over your own conscious attention now seems like a primary life skill, and certainly not one I have mastered. This is not a lament about the perils of the internet age however. It is still very much possible to access forms of knowledge that previously lay hidden or protected, most of all through social media itself. Alongside rampant mania, paranoia and polarisation is serious expertise, research and the hot gas that ignites the irresistible red hot glow of the media ecosystem as a whole.

<p>In one spiritual or intellectual way, this maybe have always been the case but it's still worth acknowledge the strangeness of living at a time that demands brandishing a Swiss army knife of cognitive techniques simply to manage the deluge. Exerting whatever guidance you have over your own conscious attention now seems like a primary life skill, and certainly not one I have mastered. This is not a lament about the perils of the internet age however. It is still very much possible to access forms of knowledge that previously lay hidden or protected, most of all through social media itself. Alongside rampant mania, paranoia and polarisation is serious expertise, research and the hot gas that ignites the irresistible red hot glow of the media ecosystem as a whole.</p>

What I currently sense however is that any attempt to contend with these forces is more than ever a social exercise, requiring active participation. Most helpful of all is to acknowledge such deep confusion, not least the absurdity of information overload itself being motivation for yet more online content.

<p>What I currently sense however is that any attempt to contend with these forces is more than ever a social exercise, requiring active participation. Most helpful of all is to acknowledge such deep confusion, not least the absurdity of information overload itself being motivation for yet more online content.</p>

Alongside this another motivation also lingers. One reasonable definition of fully reaching adulthood is the passing of enough time and distance to recognise in people you once knew, significant and definitive change in their world view. In part because it also illustrates that you, yourself have can and have likely changed too, but also that the mental models we all use to process the world are fungible and at times structurally unsound. Realising that our own perceptions and the proverbial 'grip' on reality is perhaps only temporary is of course a force for both humility, and for me a powerful motivation to act in the moment, to produce, to work.

<p>Alongside this another motivation also lingers. One reasonable definition of fully reaching adulthood is the passing of enough time and distance to recognise in people you once knew, significant and definitive change in their world view. In part because it also illustrates that you, yourself have can and have likely changed too, but also that the mental models we all use to process the world are fungible and at times structurally unsound. Realising that our own perceptions and the proverbial 'grip' on reality is perhaps only temporary is of course a force for both humility, and for me a powerful motivation to act in the moment, to produce, to work.</p>

In fact it seems that the speed at which such internal models can be melted down and reformed is accelerating. People who we once knew, and might have presumed to be more firmly tethered to one particular version of reality, are able to jump more quickly between ships. At once our social circles are appear alive with political and social reconsideration swirling alongside a sudden embrace of darkly unstable paranoia.

<p>In fact it seems that the speed at which such internal models can be melted down and reformed is accelerating. People who we once knew, and might have presumed to be more firmly tethered to one particular version of reality, are able to jump more quickly between ships. At once our social circles are appear alive with political and social reconsideration swirling alongside a sudden embrace of darkly unstable paranoia.</p>

We may also simply be more aware of these rapid fluctuations of course - in the past they would have been largely invisible outside of interactions bounded by much smaller communities but I tend to think that performance of our online lives is proving to be self-reinforcing.

<p>We may also simply be more aware of these rapid fluctuations of course - in the past they would have been largely invisible outside of interactions bounded by much smaller communities but I tend to think that performance of our online lives is proving to be self-reinforcing.</p>

My tendency is always towards optimism, after all better to have a plastic mind, capable of continuously adapting that one that slowly rusts into inflexibility as cognitive scientists might previously have believed. How we adapt to the era mass connectivity is perhaps just the next stage of the human project. It's pertinent though to recall Kurt Vonnegut's, evergreen line - '<em>We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be</em>'. Now as equally true of what we pretend to read, to know, to watch.

<p>My tendency is always towards optimism, after all better to have a plastic mind, capable of continuously adapting that one that slowly rusts into inflexibility as cognitive scientists might previously have believed. How we adapt to the era mass connectivity is perhaps just the next stage of the human project. It's pertinent though to recall Kurt Vonnegut's, evergreen line - '<em>We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be</em>'. Now as equally true of what we pretend to read, to know, to watch.</p>

Ultimately though, while you can probably pretend to think, you can't really pretend to publish writing. Which takes us to the paradoxical conclusion - output is the only way through, even or perhaps especially, at a time of maximal noise. It is in this spirit that I wanted to give more time and space to writing, specifically on the subject I am most confused about, but more importantly to share directly with friends, including those I have perhaps yet to met. My initial strategy is simply not to be boring. Feel free to point out (politely) if I do not meet this standard.

<p>Ultimately though, while you can probably pretend to think, you can't really pretend to publish writing. Which takes us to the paradoxical conclusion - output is the only way through, even or perhaps especially, at a time of maximal noise. It is in this spirit that I wanted to give more time and space to writing, specifically on the subject I am most confused about, but more importantly to share directly with friends, including those I have perhaps yet to met. My initial strategy is simply not to be boring. Feel free to point out (politely) if I do not meet this standard.</p>


<p>My name is Christopher Burman, I&#8217;m a designer and artist from London. You can find out a bit more about the projects I&#8217;ve worked on <a href="https://www.burman.work/">here</a>. </p>



<p>While writing has always been an important personal tool, to date I&#8217;ve haven&#8217;t made a serious effort to share much, in part due to a wicked and contradictory mix of shyness, perfectionism, laziness &#8211; and worse still &#8211; an increasing reflexiveness about the value of even producing &#8220;<em>content</em>&#8221; at all.</p>



<p>To escape the clutches of this cycle, I&#8217;m aiming to publish more of this writing in a rapid and direct way, under the guise of this, a new project: <a href="http://fulfilment-centre.burman.work">Fulfillment Centre</a></p>



<p>In the broadest strokes, the aim of <em>Fulfilment Centre</em> to think more clearly about experience and meaning of near-future infrastructures and technological systems, especially with respect to sensory perception, machine intelligence and the decarbonisation of cities.</p>



<p>While ostensibly these subjects might appear only loosely connected, I&#8217;m increasingly of the view that they are highly interdependent and to reflect on any of them requires taking a pretty wide view encompassing all of them. </p>



<p>My default setting is normally to relate to the world by making and design things, usually exploring sensory, spatial and computational systems. However creative agency appears more than ever at the mercy of exactly how rapid and uneven developments in these fields  actually are. The bits of writing that will make up <em><a href="http://fulfilment-centre.burman.work">Fulfilment Centre</a></em> are perhaps best understood as personal fields notes on doing these things, as the philosophical and physical terrain around us shifts so rapidly.</p>



<p></p>



<p></p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="1024" src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-1024x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-66" srcset="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-300x300.png 300w, https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-150x150.png 150w, https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-768x768.png 768w, https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-1536x1536.png 1536w, https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2-1568x1569.png 1568w, https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image-2.png 1701w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



<h2>Preamble: Notes On Getting Started</h2>



<p>I&#8217;ve been on the verge of launching a writing project several times over recent years but hesitation has always grabbed the wheel. The mind-killer&nbsp;<em>fear</em>&nbsp;and distraction, teaming up with a furious circulation of subject matter.</p>



<p>Space emerged over the last 18 months, primarily from both a deliberate retreat from social media and a curious &#8211; and at times worrying &#8211; lack of in-bound email. With the churning of the world recently on pause, silences both uncomfortable and fulfilling become more expansive.</p>



<p>One concern in particular, gnawing away for several years previously, became quickly more urgent. Broadly, that the methods and rhythms of absorbing knowledge about the world and it&#8217;s future, were generally muddying rather than clarifying the picture, despite the urgency of those near future questions. A uncomfortable storm of firm signals gradually distorting into noise, flavour without texture, comprehension without structure.</p>



<p>Perhaps the effect perhaps of too long spent drinking straight from the firehose but online life sometimes has quality of a factory line churning out &#8216;<em>actually quite meaningful</em>&#8216; things, unable to sustain longer term value in the face of over saturation and over stimulation. Threads that are as vital, brutal and succinct as they are tangential to everyday lived experience. Like a pig hunting for truffles in the forest though, perhaps nothing is ultimately unsatisfying or nutritionally irrelevant as actually finding them.</p>



<p>In one spiritual or intellectual way, this maybe have always been the case but it&#8217;s still worth acknowledge the strangeness of living at a time that demands brandishing a Swiss army knife of cognitive techniques simply to manage the deluge. Exerting whatever guidance you have over your own conscious attention now seems like a primary life skill, and certainly not one I have mastered. This is not a lament about the perils of the internet age however. It is still very much possible to access forms of knowledge that previously lay hidden or protected, most of all through social media itself. Alongside rampant mania, paranoia and polarisation is serious expertise, research and the hot gas that ignites the irresistible red hot glow of the media ecosystem as a whole.</p>



<p>What I currently sense however is that any attempt to contend with these forces is more than ever a social exercise, requiring active participation. Most helpful of all is to acknowledge such deep confusion, not least the absurdity of information overload itself being motivation for yet more online content.</p>



<p>Alongside this another motivation also lingers. One reasonable definition of fully reaching adulthood is the passing of enough time and distance to recognise in people you once knew, significant and definitive change in their world view. In part because it also illustrates that you, yourself have can and have likely changed too, but also that the mental models we all use to process the world are fungible and at times structurally unsound. Realising that our own perceptions and the proverbial &#8216;grip&#8217; on reality is perhaps only temporary is of course a force for both humility, and for me a powerful motivation to act in the moment, to produce, to work.</p>



<p>In fact it seems that the speed at which such internal models can be melted down and reformed is accelerating. People who we once knew, and might have presumed to be more firmly tethered to one particular version of reality, are able to jump more quickly between ships. At once our social circles are appear alive with political and social reconsideration swirling alongside a sudden embrace of darkly unstable paranoia.</p>



<p>We may also simply be more aware of these rapid fluctuations of course &#8211; in the past they would have been largely invisible outside of interactions bounded by much smaller communities but I tend to think that performance of our online lives is proving to be self-reinforcing.</p>



<p>My tendency is always towards optimism, after all better to have a plastic mind, capable of continuously adapting that one that slowly rusts into inflexibility as cognitive scientists might previously have believed. How we adapt to the era mass connectivity is perhaps just the next stage of the human project. It&#8217;s pertinent though to recall Kurt Vonnegut&#8217;s, evergreen line &#8211; &#8216;<em>We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be</em>&#8216;. Now as equally true of what we pretend to read, to know, to watch.</p>



<p>Ultimately though, while you can probably pretend to think, you can&#8217;t really pretend to publish writing. Which takes us to the paradoxical conclusion &#8211; output is the only way through, even or perhaps especially, at a time of maximal noise. It is in this spirit that I wanted to give more time and space to writing, specifically on the subject I am most confused about, but more importantly to share directly with friends, including those I have perhaps yet to met. My initial strategy is simply not to be boring. Feel free to point out (politely) if I do not meet this standard.</p>


0001 – Orange Moscow (Notes on a City Changing Colour)

0000 – Introducing… Fulfilment Centre

Over the summer, a new state-of-the-art AI image generator,  <a href="https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-public-release">Stable Diffusion</a> was released. Unlike its competitors which remain largely paywalled, it was made freely downloadable, smashing open a piñata of hype, panic and potential. Influential researcher (and former Director of AI at Tesla) Andrej Karpathy described it as ‘<a href="https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/1561818955966058500">a day of historic proportion for human creativity</a>'.

<p>Over the summer, a new state-of-the-art AI image generator,  <a href="https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-public-release">Stable Diffusion</a> was released. Unlike its competitors which remain largely paywalled, it was made freely downloadable, smashing open a piñata of hype, panic and potential. Influential researcher (and former Director of AI at Tesla) Andrej Karpathy described it as ‘<a href="https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/1561818955966058500">a day of historic proportion for human creativity</a>'.</p>

With <a href="https://thesequence.substack.com/p/generative-ai-fundraising-momentum" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">investment dollars pouring in</a>, including a $101m for Stability.AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, the field of "Generative AI" has quickly become this seasons venture capital unicorn ranch and nothing will ever be the same again, again.

<p>With <a href="https://thesequence.substack.com/p/generative-ai-fundraising-momentum" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">investment dollars pouring in</a>, including a $101m for Stability.AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, the field of "Generative AI" has quickly become this seasons venture capital unicorn ranch and nothing will ever be the same again, again.</p>

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I've been experimenting with Stable Diffusion since its release – see the numbered images in this post – and while contending with such intense buzz requires caution - also TLDR;  I don’t think I’ve ever used a piece of code or software that has left such an intense impression so quickly.

<p>I've been experimenting with Stable Diffusion since its release – see the numbered images in this post – and while contending with such intense buzz requires caution - also TLDR;  I don’t think I’ve ever used a piece of code or software that has left such an intense impression so quickly.</p>

Stable Diffusion doesn't appear to be hugely more capable than its competitors MidJourney or Dall-E although the outputs it generates are generally more <em>fascinating</em>, especially in the terrain beyond style-transfer. Its primary advantage is that it's downloadable and free to operate on your own PC, providing space to both fine-tune it's process and to some extent reverse engineer its logic. As someone who spends a significant amount of time making and thinking about images - inputting my own images and drawings into Stable Diffusion has thrown up some knotty questions.

<p>Stable Diffusion doesn't appear to be hugely more capable than its competitors MidJourney or Dall-E although the outputs it generates are generally more <em>fascinating</em>, especially in the terrain beyond style-transfer. Its primary advantage is that it's downloadable and free to operate on your own PC, providing space to both fine-tune it's process and to some extent reverse engineer its logic. As someone who spends a significant amount of time making and thinking about images - inputting my own images and drawings into Stable Diffusion has thrown up some knotty questions. </p>

Before getting into these, the quickest shortcut through the hype might be just to try it for yourself and experience both its weirdness and limitations. There are many <a href="https://medium.com/geekculture/run-stable-diffusion-in-your-local-computer-heres-a-step-by-step-guide-af128397d424" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">guides</a>, <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/830179/how-to-run-stable-diffusion-on-your-pc-to-generate-ai-images/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tutorials</a> and easy to use interfaces such as <a href="https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui">webui</a>, which is perhaps the most active and <a href="https://github.com/cmdr2/stable-diffusion-ui" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stable-diffusion-ui</a>, which is possibly marginally easier to install. It can be used directly online at <a href="https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">huggingface</a> or dozens of other hosted version that have sprung up, although tinkering with a local installation provides the most flexibility.

<p>Before getting into these, the quickest shortcut through the hype might be just to try it for yourself and experience both its weirdness and limitations. There are many <a href="https://medium.com/geekculture/run-stable-diffusion-in-your-local-computer-heres-a-step-by-step-guide-af128397d424" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">guides</a>, <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/830179/how-to-run-stable-diffusion-on-your-pc-to-generate-ai-images/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tutorials</a> and easy to use interfaces such as <a href="https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui">webui</a>, which is perhaps the most active and <a href="https://github.com/cmdr2/stable-diffusion-ui" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stable-diffusion-ui</a>, which is possibly marginally easier to install. It can be used directly online at <a href="https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">huggingface</a> or dozens of other hosted version that have sprung up, although tinkering with a local installation provides the most flexibility.</p>

Sidestepping the tangled definitions of intelligence, we can at least recognise that such models are capable of extraordinary feats of translation, allowing us to skirt across vast dimensions of latent space and metaphorical image analysis that 150,000 hours of top grade GPU training time affords. We may not yet have sufficient metaphors to describe these interactions, landing somewhere between co-creation and augmented visual research made possible by ingesting 5.8 billion images. As a tool of self-evaluation it's remarkably useful to be able to supply it images and essentially ask '<em>what is this?</em>' and then '<em>what it would be like as something slightly, or significantly, or entirely different?'</em>. It's a process that feels conversational, and stranger still, one where the other party is adamantly attempting to convince you that images are not what you thought they were.

<p>Sidestepping the tangled definitions of intelligence, we can at least recognise that such models are capable of extraordinary feats of translation, allowing us to skirt across vast dimensions of latent space and metaphorical image analysis that 150,000 hours of top grade GPU training time affords. We may not yet have sufficient metaphors to describe these interactions, landing somewhere between co-creation and augmented visual research made possible by ingesting 5.8 billion images. As a tool of self-evaluation it's remarkably useful to be able to supply it images and essentially ask '<em>what is this?</em>' and then '<em>what it would be like as something slightly, or significantly, or entirely different?'</em>. It's a process that feels conversational, and stranger still, one where the other party is adamantly attempting to convince you that images are not what you thought they were.</p>

The term-of-art to describe the process of fine-tuning the inputs is known as ‘<a href="https://github.com/sw-yx/prompt-eng/blob/main/README.md">Prompt Engineering</a>’, although we may quickly need a more expansive term, that is less suggestive of a short, written starting points and more considerate of different potential input methods. How we feed such models is now encompassing all forms digital media - see emerging techniques for speech2video or text-to-3D aka <a href="https://dreamfusion3d.github.io">Dreamfusion</a>. Naturally some are already <a href="https://medium.com/mlearning-ai/using-an-ai-writer-to-generate-the-text-prompt-for-an-ai-image-generator-b331a6b94cdb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">using one AI</a> to work out what to ask another.

<p>The term-of-art to describe the process of fine-tuning the inputs is known as ‘<a href="https://github.com/sw-yx/prompt-eng/blob/main/README.md">Prompt Engineering</a>’, although we may quickly need a more expansive term, that is less suggestive of a short, written starting points and more considerate of different potential input methods. How we feed such models is now encompassing all forms digital media - see emerging techniques for speech2video or text-to-3D aka <a href="https://dreamfusion3d.github.io">Dreamfusion</a>. Naturally some are already <a href="https://medium.com/mlearning-ai/using-an-ai-writer-to-generate-the-text-prompt-for-an-ai-image-generator-b331a6b94cdb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">using one AI</a> to work out what to ask another.</p>

In a talk around a decade ago, I remember the artist <a href="https://markleckey.com">Mark Leckey</a> comparing image search engines to alchemy, since they could, if used effectively, conjure images from our imagination into being. In the era of “Big Data”, search could be considered be a productive, creative act.

<p>In a talk around a decade ago, I remember the artist <a href="https://markleckey.com">Mark Leckey</a> comparing image search engines to alchemy, since they could, if used effectively, conjure images from our imagination into being. In the era of “Big Data”, search could be considered be a productive, creative act. </p>

It was also an acknowledgement that, in a world where images are no longer scarce or hidden, how we work with them and what they mean might need to be fundamentally reconsidered.  As with many technologies, there is a window between our first interactions initial it and it’s maturity.  This same process feels like it’s happening with AI image generation, albeit slightly faster. I remember using Google Image Search not long after it was originally launched, it was both revelatory and yet also strangely limited. Before long it 'got good', and what once felt slightly unreliable, quickly cemented itself as an essential component of how we think about images.

<p>It was also an acknowledgement that, in a world where images are no longer scarce or hidden, how we work with them and what they mean might need to be fundamentally reconsidered.  As with many technologies, there is a window between our first interactions initial it and it’s maturity.  This same process feels like it’s happening with AI image generation, albeit slightly faster. I remember using Google Image Search not long after it was originally launched, it was both revelatory and yet also strangely limited. Before long it 'got good', and what once felt slightly unreliable, quickly cemented itself as an essential component of how we think about images. </p>

Emad Mostaque, CEO of&nbsp;<a href="http://stability.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stability.ai</a>&nbsp;describes using his model as&nbsp;‘<em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snn4Pq5DBIo">generative search</a></em>’ – perhaps he was also in attendance at Leckeys lecture. He also predicts bombastically that<em><a href="https://twitter.com/EMostaque/status/1581669854720888832"> "image will be solved within a year</a></em>". Siri - set a reminder, <em>17th October, 2023.</em> Hype train aside - it does seem likely that the underlying capacity of such technologies is going to keep growing in the near future. From the perspective of what they can already do, things are only going to get <em>weirder</em>.

<p>Emad Mostaque, CEO of&nbsp;<a href="http://stability.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stability.ai</a>&nbsp;describes using his model as&nbsp;‘<em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snn4Pq5DBIo">generative search</a></em>’ – perhaps he was also in attendance at Leckeys lecture. He also predicts bombastically that<em><a href="https://twitter.com/EMostaque/status/1581669854720888832"> "image will be solved within a year</a></em>". Siri - set a reminder, <em>17th October, 2023.</em> Hype train aside - it does seem likely that the underlying capacity of such technologies is going to keep growing in the near future. From the perspective of what they can already do, things are only going to get <em>weirder</em>.</p>

The crescendo of excitement surrounding Stable Diffusion is partly thanks to its public release. While the main competitor <a href="https://www.midjourney.com/home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Midjourney</a> currently has <em>3 million</em> members on its discord, that's primarily because chatting with a bot is the primary way to use use it. By decoupling the model from the service offering, Stability.AI has been propelled skyward by a community eager to to build things on top of the technology. This community is growing wildly fast and releasing a stream of visual tools and genre-bending proof-of-concepts, with new <a href="https://github.com/cobanov/awesome-diffusion">resources</a> available almost daily.

<p>The crescendo of excitement surrounding Stable Diffusion is partly thanks to its public release. While the main competitor <a href="https://www.midjourney.com/home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Midjourney</a> currently has <em>3 million</em> members on its discord, that's primarily because chatting with a bot is the primary way to use use it. By decoupling the model from the service offering, Stability.AI has been propelled skyward by a community eager to to build things on top of the technology. This community is growing wildly fast and releasing a stream of visual tools and genre-bending proof-of-concepts, with new <a href="https://github.com/cobanov/awesome-diffusion">resources</a> available almost daily. </p>

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/image-1024x729.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3315"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Graph comparing 'stars' on GitHub of the Stable Diffusion repo vs several other popular open source libraries (it's the vertical blue line on the right) via <a href="https://twitter.com/EMostaque">@EMostaque</a></figcaption></figure>

Nowhere is this more evidence that the rapid-fire demoscene of interfacial experiments, such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkOF3_MIDOs">VR &amp; 360 Demos</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/scottiefoxttv">ScottieFox</a>, and live AR demos by <a href="https://twitter.com/stspanho/status/1581707753747537920">Stijn </a><a href="https://twitter.com/stspanho/status/1581707753747537920" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spanhove</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/sergeyglkn/status/1580167837770870784">Sergie Galkin</a>. Daniel Eckler has also compiled <a href="https://twitter.com/daniel_eckler/status/1572210382944538624" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a fantastic thread</a>. For a general state of play, a good place to start is reddit: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/">r/StableDiffusion</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/sdforall/">r/sdforall</a> or the <a href="https://discord.gg/stablediffusion">discord</a>. This outpouring of activity is the result to Stability.Ai's gamble to embrace an an alternative business model, helpfully summarised by swyx's "<a href="https://lspace.swyx.io/p/open-source-ai">How Open Source is eating A</a>I".

<p>Nowhere is this more evidence that the rapid-fire demoscene of interfacial experiments, such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkOF3_MIDOs">VR &amp; 360 Demos</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/scottiefoxttv">ScottieFox</a>, and live AR demos by <a href="https://twitter.com/stspanho/status/1581707753747537920">Stijn </a><a href="https://twitter.com/stspanho/status/1581707753747537920" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spanhove</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/sergeyglkn/status/1580167837770870784">Sergie Galkin</a>. Daniel Eckler has also compiled <a href="https://twitter.com/daniel_eckler/status/1572210382944538624" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a fantastic thread</a>. For a general state of play, a good place to start is reddit: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/">r/StableDiffusion</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/sdforall/">r/sdforall</a> or the <a href="https://discord.gg/stablediffusion">discord</a>. This outpouring of activity is the result to Stability.Ai's gamble to embrace an an alternative business model, helpfully summarised by swyx's "<a href="https://lspace.swyx.io/p/open-source-ai">How Open Source is eating A</a>I".</p>

It's tempting humanise these tools, thinking of the model as somehow intuitive since its outputs can sometimes feel so unexpected, complex or perhaps even baffling. For now at least the very opposite is true, part of what makes it so interesting is that the latent space from which it pulls images is fully explorable - we can export an image for every step of the way or restart the process where we left off.

<p>It's tempting humanise these tools, thinking of the model as somehow intuitive since its outputs can sometimes feel so unexpected, complex or perhaps even baffling. For now at least the very opposite is true, part of what makes it so interesting is that the latent space from which it pulls images is fully explorable - we can export an image for every step of the way or restart the process where we left off.  </p>

To such models, every image resembles a Monet painting or '<a href="https://mashable.com/article/werid-dall-e-images" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A bottle of ranch testifying in court</a>', to some extent - it's just that most of the time it's 0.000%.  To this end we can consider essentially all images, generated or otherwise as a bundle of definitions within Stable Diffusions <a href="https://jalammar.github.io/illustrated-stable-diffusion/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hyper-dimensional latent space</a>. To generate an image is to chart a logical (or absurd) route through the model, sampling the states of confusion and intrigue along the way, jiggling images  from 0.041% of <em>this</em> to 0.98% of <em>that</em>.

<p>To such models, every image resembles a Monet painting or '<a href="https://mashable.com/article/werid-dall-e-images" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A bottle of ranch testifying in court</a>', to some extent - it's just that most of the time it's 0.000%.  To this end we can consider essentially all images, generated or otherwise as a bundle of definitions within Stable Diffusions <a href="https://jalammar.github.io/illustrated-stable-diffusion/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hyper-dimensional latent space</a>. To generate an image is to chart a logical (or absurd) route through the model, sampling the states of confusion and intrigue along the way, jiggling images  from 0.041% of <em>this</em> to 0.98% of <em>that</em>.</p>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/diffusion-example-1024x757.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3217"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&nbsp;An example of training a diffusion model for modeling a 2D swiss roll data. (Image source:&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.03585" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sohl-Dickstein et al., 2015</a>). - via <em>What are Diffusion Models?</em> by Lilian Weng </figcaption></figure></div>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>Curiously the underlying technical <a href="https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2021-07-11-diffusion-models/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">architectures of diffusion models</a>, i.e Stable <em>Diffusion</em>, have their origins in thermodynamics. Authors on one of the early papers on the topic summarise it as: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.03585">"The essential idea, inspired by non-equilibrium statistical physics, is to systematically and slowly destroy structure in a data distribution through an iterative forward diffusion process."</a> </p><p>It turns out to be deliriously effective to train a neural network by adding and removing noise from an image in tiny iterations. We might even think of Stable Diffusion as essentially hyper-specialised noise reduction repeated dozens of times over. Generally the individual gradual steps along this path are nearly imperceptible to the human eye - in aggregate however the model can travel on what appears to be a wild ride of imagination.</p><p>That doesn't mean we can directly parse it's reasoning. For instance the outputs can dramatically change form when it's underling parameters, such as 'de-noising' are only marginally adjusted, from say 0.875 to 0.9 as if crossing a threshold beyond which the model can no longer contain itself.</p></div>

<div class="wp-block-columns alignwide"><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/diffusion-example-1024x757.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3217"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&nbsp;An example of training a diffusion model for modeling a 2D swiss roll data. (Image source:&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.03585" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sohl-Dickstein et al., 2015</a>). - via <em>What are Diffusion Models?</em> by Lilian Weng </figcaption></figure></div><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>Curiously the underlying technical <a href="https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2021-07-11-diffusion-models/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">architectures of diffusion models</a>, i.e Stable <em>Diffusion</em>, have their origins in thermodynamics. Authors on one of the early papers on the topic summarise it as: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.03585">"The essential idea, inspired by non-equilibrium statistical physics, is to systematically and slowly destroy structure in a data distribution through an iterative forward diffusion process."</a> </p><p>It turns out to be deliriously effective to train a neural network by adding and removing noise from an image in tiny iterations. We might even think of Stable Diffusion as essentially hyper-specialised noise reduction repeated dozens of times over. Generally the individual gradual steps along this path are nearly imperceptible to the human eye - in aggregate however the model can travel on what appears to be a wild ride of imagination.</p><p>That doesn't mean we can directly parse it's reasoning. For instance the outputs can dramatically change form when it's underling parameters, such as 'de-noising' are only marginally adjusted, from say 0.875 to 0.9 as if crossing a threshold beyond which the model can no longer contain itself.</p></div></div>

Stable Diffusion works because it is trained on 5.8 billion images but it's also appears fundamentally scarred by the process. It is common for images it generates to feature a hallucinated stock image watermark or 'garbled Getty images' banner. In her essay <em><a href="https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68260/the-spam-of-the-earth-withdrawal-from-representation/">'The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation'</a></em> Hito Steyl reminds us that we have inadvertently flooded actual deep space with spam, <em>"Image spam is our message to the future."</em>.  Now we’re filling our artificial brains with spam and stock image offcuts as well.

<p>Stable Diffusion works because it is trained on 5.8 billion images but it's also appears fundamentally scarred by the process. It is common for images it generates to feature a hallucinated stock image watermark or 'garbled Getty images' banner. In her essay <em><a href="https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68260/the-spam-of-the-earth-withdrawal-from-representation/">'The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation'</a></em> Hito Steyl reminds us that we have inadvertently flooded actual deep space with spam, <em>"Image spam is our message to the future."</em>.  Now we’re filling our artificial brains with spam and stock image offcuts as well. </p>

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/spam-collage.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3226"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Examples of watermarks and logos in images generated by Stable Diffusion (v1.5).</figcaption></figure>

However these issues may be trivial to bigger concerns now that a model with such power is out-in-the-wild. Stability.ai claim that the images are digitally watermarked, there are safeguards against NSFW content and mandate some fairly hefty licence restrictions. However judging by some of the community outputs this is almost impossible to regulate and potentially laying the groundwork for even more complex challenges.

<p>However these issues may be trivial to bigger concerns now that a model with such power is out-in-the-wild. Stability.ai claim that the images are digitally watermarked, there are safeguards against NSFW content and mandate some fairly hefty licence restrictions. However judging by some of the community outputs this is almost impossible to regulate and potentially laying the groundwork for even more complex challenges.</p>

Benjamin Bratton &amp; Blaise Aguera y Arcas, in their recent essay <em>"<a href="https://www.noemamag.com/the-model-is-the-message" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Model Is The Message: Why We Need New Language For Artificial Intelligence</a></em> <em>"</em> partially in response to Google Engineer Blake Lemoines claim that the LaMDA chatbot might be '<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/technology/google-chatbot-ai-blake-lemoine.html">sentient</a>', define <em>"Seven Problems With Synthetic Language At Platform Scale"</em>.  Two of these seven seem of immediate relevance to the release of Stable Diffusion - <em>The Machine Majority Language Problem</em> - what happens when the majority of language is spoken machine made? Then as a chaser – <em>The Ouroboros Language Problem</em> - what happens when the models are then trained on a corpus that was machine made?

<p>Benjamin Bratton &amp; Blaise Aguera y Arcas, in their recent essay <em>"<a href="https://www.noemamag.com/the-model-is-the-message" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Model Is The Message: Why We Need New Language For Artificial Intelligence</a></em> <em>"</em> partially in response to Google Engineer Blake Lemoines claim that the LaMDA chatbot might be '<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/technology/google-chatbot-ai-blake-lemoine.html">sentient</a>', define <em>"Seven Problems With Synthetic Language At Platform Scale"</em>.  Two of these seven seem of immediate relevance to the release of Stable Diffusion - <em>The Machine Majority Language Problem</em> - what happens when the majority of language is spoken machine made? Then as a chaser – <em>The Ouroboros Language Problem</em> - what happens when the models are then trained on a corpus that was machine made?</p>

<a href="https://www.stockphotosecrets.com/news/getty-images-shutterstock-ai-submission.html">Getty and Shutterstock have already banned AI generated images</a> given the sudden ease of being able to make them and the training pool for the next generation models is probably now already polluted. As Bratton and Aguera y Arcas observe, given the forthcoming onslaught of AI content, more radical approaches may be necessary, such as tagging content which is explicitly <em>'human made</em>'.

<p><a href="https://www.stockphotosecrets.com/news/getty-images-shutterstock-ai-submission.html">Getty and Shutterstock have already banned AI generated images</a> given the sudden ease of being able to make them and the training pool for the next generation models is probably now already polluted. As Bratton and Aguera y Arcas observe, given the forthcoming onslaught of AI content, more radical approaches may be necessary, such as tagging content which is explicitly <em>'human made</em>'.</p>

Although their focus is on language processing models, the underlying logic is not only directly transferable to image generation, but really all machine learning approaches to media – as they write <em>"the sequence modeling at the heart of natural language processing is key to enabling generalist AI models that can flexibly do arbitrary tasks, even ones that are not themselves linguistic, from image synthesis to drug discovery to robotics"</em>.

<p>Although their focus is on language processing models, the underlying logic is not only directly transferable to image generation, but really all machine learning approaches to media – as they write <em>"the sequence modeling at the heart of natural language processing is key to enabling generalist AI models that can flexibly do arbitrary tasks, even ones that are not themselves linguistic, from image synthesis to drug discovery to robotics"</em>.</p>

While of course Stable Diffusion is largely manipulated with text-based prompts, the deeper consideration here is that linguistic capacity is the likely foundation for computational systems that can learn or build models of the world with a comparable speed, flexibility or inventiveness that even small children might display when picking up grammar, syntax and vocabulary. When it comes to machine learning, metaphor isn't a metaphor.

<p>While of course Stable Diffusion is largely manipulated with text-based prompts, the deeper consideration here is that linguistic capacity is the likely foundation for computational systems that can learn or build models of the world with a comparable speed, flexibility or inventiveness that even small children might display when picking up grammar, syntax and vocabulary. When it comes to machine learning, metaphor isn't a metaphor.</p>

So the commercial viability of libraries of stock images, game textures (and in time footage, copy-right free music) is perhaps shaky, but more fundamentally, but so to is the very nature of the 'stock' image. It's easy to forget such archives represent an industrialisation of visual communication, though the continuous production of generic images, vector graphics, symbols, logos and templates. What's changing is that the 'stock' is no longer a store but likely to become a process - the fruits of which will be strange. Adaptive illustrations that A/B test themselves, hyper-personalisation, deep instability.

<p>So the commercial viability of libraries of stock images, game textures (and in time footage, copy-right free music) is perhaps shaky, but more fundamentally, but so to is the very nature of the 'stock' image. It's easy to forget such archives represent an industrialisation of visual communication, though the continuous production of generic images, vector graphics, symbols, logos and templates. What's changing is that the 'stock' is no longer a store but likely to become a process - the fruits of which will be strange. Adaptive illustrations that A/B test themselves, hyper-personalisation, deep instability. </p>

It is only within the last few years that architectural visualisation and product photography has really got anywhere close to a level of 'true' photo-realism which might reasonably confuse experienced professionals, mainly because achieving the right level of complexity and textural variation that we are subconsciously rely on is extremely tedious or expensive. At the very least we can imagine that a commercial rendering pipelines are going to start including AI if only to sprinkle some of this magic realism dust at various stages of the pipeline.

<p>It is only within the last few years that architectural visualisation and product photography has really got anywhere close to a level of 'true' photo-realism which might reasonably confuse experienced professionals, mainly because achieving the right level of complexity and textural variation that we are subconsciously rely on is extremely tedious or expensive. At the very least we can imagine that a commercial rendering pipelines are going to start including AI if only to sprinkle some of this magic realism dust at various stages of the pipeline.</p>

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/sd-0001.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-3172"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjlfg43Ib9x/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“#0001&nbsp;(geons, polished stones, building blocks, sheets of marble, film)”, 2022</a></figcaption></figure>

Stable Diffusion appears capable of generating a particular flavour of unreality. Given the right blend of inputs it will generate detail, form and lighting that reassure the human eye and appears to ‘<em>know</em>’ how to make something appear 3D or correctly textured while simultaneously making fundamental logical errors that we don't immediately acknowledge. While machine vision may be able to police machine image production, human labelling may soon be a thing of the past.

<p>Stable Diffusion appears capable of generating a particular flavour of unreality. Given the right blend of inputs it will generate detail, form and lighting that reassure the human eye and appears to ‘<em>know</em>’ how to make something appear 3D or correctly textured while simultaneously making fundamental logical errors that we don't immediately acknowledge. While machine vision may be able to police machine image production, human labelling may soon be a thing of the past. </p>

What this means for digital professional is a more complicated question. It's true that creative people who depend on a highly cultivated visual language may take a hit from unscrupulous actors if potential legal protections are fiddly to design or slow to be realised, but these may in time, also be easily addressable concerns to legislate for. To hold focus on the legal or economic side may gloss over the fundamental expansion and necessary reconstitution of what it means to be 'an artist' in the first place.

<p>What this means for digital professional is a more complicated question. It's true that creative people who depend on a highly cultivated visual language may take a hit from unscrupulous actors if potential legal protections are fiddly to design or slow to be realised, but these may in time, also be easily addressable concerns to legislate for. To hold focus on the legal or economic side may gloss over the fundamental expansion and necessary reconstitution of what it means to be 'an artist' in the first place. </p>

At a basic level, the premise that AI can independently make coherent art is essentially a boring category error, illustrating the somewhat reductive nature of conversations in mainstream and tech discourse, often based on the overestimation of the importance of 'style', as if visual art has remained static since Van Gogh chopped off his ear. While it may sound slightly obnoxious - it may also be literally true - that AI models and their creators might find a great advantage by somehow integrating lessons from art history and visual theory instead of presuming it can continue to be brute-forced a billion images 512px x 512px at a time.

<p>At a basic level, the premise that AI can independently make coherent art is essentially a boring category error, illustrating the somewhat reductive nature of conversations in mainstream and tech discourse, often based on the overestimation of the importance of 'style', as if visual art has remained static since Van Gogh chopped off his ear. While it may sound slightly obnoxious - it may also be literally true - that AI models and their creators might find a great advantage by somehow integrating lessons from art history and visual theory instead of presuming it can continue to be brute-forced a billion images 512px x 512px at a time. </p>

<h3>Stabilisation (And Its Discontents)</h3>

This isn't to make a value judgement about the different ways that people might use Stable Diffusion, quite the opposite, art is perhaps the primary process <em>through</em> which we as humans will build a cultural understanding of the computational structures that AI is revealing, and the wider the gamut of outputs, the better. As we shift from demo to tool it's likely that enhanced interfaces will provide a suite of richer interactions that may explicitly challenge us on this front, rather than defaulting to one-liner prompts, squashed into a HTML text input.

<p>This isn't to make a value judgement about the different ways that people might use Stable Diffusion, quite the opposite, art is perhaps the primary process <em>through</em> which we as humans will build a cultural understanding of the computational structures that AI is revealing, and the wider the gamut of outputs, the better. As we shift from demo to tool it's likely that enhanced interfaces will provide a suite of richer interactions that may explicitly challenge us on this front, rather than defaulting to one-liner prompts, squashed into a HTML text input. </p>

There is of course a whole separate debate to be had as to what it might mean for such a model to make art for itself or other machines, and even if we could realistically recognise it doing so. In the mean time it's a technology that will likely reveal more about ourselves, how we perceive the world and our emotional relationship to images, perhaps in time taking the the form of industrial-grade, cheaply available art therapy.

<p>There is of course a whole separate debate to be had as to what it might mean for such a model to make art for itself or other machines, and even if we could realistically recognise it doing so. In the mean time it's a technology that will likely reveal more about ourselves, how we perceive the world and our emotional relationship to images, perhaps in time taking the the form of industrial-grade, cheaply available art therapy.</p>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>That the go-to nomenclature for such technologies is 'dream' i.e DeepDream, Dream Studio, Dream Fusion etc, may not be as trivial as it might first appears if in time such software performs a perceptual function similar to actual dreaming, albeit a little more <em>on-demand</em>.</p><p>As with dreaming though, the process of AI image generation is generally speaking far more fascinating than any specific output. The most common audience responses usually concern method - 'how was that done?' and 'can I do it too?'.</p><p>Very few AI images hold our attention in a meaningful way except perhaps those with a particular satirical resonance (see <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/x3u3r0/jeflon_zuckergates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeflon Zuckergates</a>) which capitalise on Stable Diffusions dazzling capacity to seamlessly blend between numerous semantic concepts. </p></div>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/hdyw1o181el91.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3325"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/x3u3r0/jeflon_zuckergates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeflon Zuckergates - via reddit</a></figcaption></figure></div>

<div class="wp-block-columns alignwide"><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>That the go-to nomenclature for such technologies is 'dream' i.e DeepDream, Dream Studio, Dream Fusion etc, may not be as trivial as it might first appears if in time such software performs a perceptual function similar to actual dreaming, albeit a little more <em>on-demand</em>.</p><p>As with dreaming though, the process of AI image generation is generally speaking far more fascinating than any specific output. The most common audience responses usually concern method - 'how was that done?' and 'can I do it too?'.</p><p>Very few AI images hold our attention in a meaningful way except perhaps those with a particular satirical resonance (see <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/x3u3r0/jeflon_zuckergates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeflon Zuckergates</a>) which capitalise on Stable Diffusions dazzling capacity to seamlessly blend between numerous semantic concepts. </p></div><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/hdyw1o181el91.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3325"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/x3u3r0/jeflon_zuckergates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeflon Zuckergates - via reddit</a></figcaption></figure></div></div>

Reading through the pages of community generated add-ons already reveals the pathology of its current userbase to some extent - a blend of fantasy castles, cyberpunk streets, celebrity portraits, and of course endless, endless waifus. Beyond meme soup of X in the style of Y, lies a whole alphabet of image-based psychoanalysis.

<p>Reading through the pages of community generated add-ons already reveals the pathology of its current userbase to some extent - a blend of fantasy castles, cyberpunk streets, celebrity portraits, and of course endless, endless waifus. Beyond meme soup of X in the style of Y, lies a whole alphabet of image-based psychoanalysis.</p>

Indeed using Stable Diffusion has gradually unpicked and reassembled my own visual inclinations, distilling a mix of 70's conceptual sculpture, waste materials, geology and architectural formalism. For all the discussion about what it will mean for artists to have their work encoded into such models, it's also more than a little humbling to have an AI suggest that your images resemble an artist you thought you weren't obviously ripping off.

<p>Indeed using Stable Diffusion has gradually unpicked and reassembled my own visual inclinations, distilling a mix of 70's conceptual sculpture, waste materials, geology and architectural formalism. For all the discussion about what it will mean for artists to have their work encoded into such models, it's also more than a little humbling to have an AI suggest that your images resemble an artist you thought you weren't obviously ripping off.</p>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/0005img.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3174"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">“<a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/0005/">#0005</a>&nbsp;(prompt: ‘geological scrap paper, plaster, sculpture’)”, 2022</figcaption></figure></div>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/insty_08.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3178"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">#0008 &nbsp;(prompt: ‘blocks, concrete, brick’)”, 2022</figcaption></figure></div>

<div class="wp-block-columns alignfull"><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/0005img.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3174"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">“<a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/0005/">#0005</a>&nbsp;(prompt: ‘geological scrap paper, plaster, sculpture’)”, 2022</figcaption></figure></div><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/insty_08.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3178"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">#0008 &nbsp;(prompt: ‘blocks, concrete, brick’)”, 2022</figcaption></figure></div></div>

While it's astonishing that models like Stable Diffusion are capable of such outputs, they are still hyper-specialised only within a single domain, the question lingers about what happens as they start to become even slightly more general or perhaps even why they aren't already.

<p>While it's astonishing that models like Stable Diffusion are capable of such outputs, they are still hyper-specialised only within a single domain, the question lingers about what happens as they start to become even slightly more general or perhaps even why they aren't already.</p>

This concern is at the centre of Stanislas Dehaenes highly approachable <em>'<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/22843/stanislas-dehaene" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">How We Learn: The New Science of Education and the Brain'</a></em>, in which he compares the limit of current machine learning to the multi-layered, multi-sensory and social nature of human learning and it's surprising adaptability and robustness.

<p>This concern is at the centre of Stanislas Dehaenes highly approachable <em>'<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/22843/stanislas-dehaene" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">How We Learn: The New Science of Education and the Brain'</a></em>, in which he compares the limit of current machine learning to the multi-layered, multi-sensory and social nature of human learning and it's surprising adaptability and robustness.</p>

More recently the multi-author paper&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.08340">Toward Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence: Catalyzing the NeuroAI Revolution</a>&nbsp;is in essence a challenge to the wider AI research community to lean more fully into the study of Neuroscience and so-called ‘NeuroAI’, and to explore biological models that might radically improve the environmental interactions, flexibility and energy efficiency of AI.  Certainly many in the field are betting on neuro-biologically inspired research to further reveal how to better design software intelligences while possibly helping us understand our own brains in the process.

<p>More recently the multi-author paper&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.08340">Toward Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence: Catalyzing the NeuroAI Revolution</a>&nbsp;is in essence a challenge to the wider AI research community to lean more fully into the study of Neuroscience and so-called ‘NeuroAI’, and to explore biological models that might radically improve the environmental interactions, flexibility and energy efficiency of AI.  Certainly many in the field are betting on neuro-biologically inspired research to further reveal how to better design software intelligences while possibly helping us understand our own brains in the process.</p>

Among the authors is Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of Numenta (and formely co-founder of Palm Computing, originators of the PalmPilot) and author of the recent&nbsp;<em><a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/jeff-hawkins/a-thousand-brains/9781541675810/">A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence</a>. </em>The book is&nbsp;a cogent articulation of why AI needs neuroscience, based on two decades of research into the neocortex and it’s seemingly all-purpose role in high-level cognitive tasks - such as language. Emerging from this work are new theories of the organisation of the neocortex based on cortical&nbsp;columns and 'frames of reference', that might yet be one of the building blocks of neuro-inspired computational models.

<p>Among the authors is Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of Numenta (and formely co-founder of Palm Computing, originators of the PalmPilot) and author of the recent&nbsp;<em><a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/jeff-hawkins/a-thousand-brains/9781541675810/">A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence</a>. </em>The book is&nbsp;a cogent articulation of why AI needs neuroscience, based on two decades of research into the neocortex and it’s seemingly all-purpose role in high-level cognitive tasks - such as language. Emerging from this work are new theories of the organisation of the neocortex based on cortical&nbsp;columns and 'frames of reference', that might yet be one of the building blocks of neuro-inspired computational models.</p>

A key observation is that intelligence in biological systems is at least one or two orders of magnitude more efficient that current software approaches - implying there is still massive headroom in realising ever more powerful AI systems. It’s somewhat surprising perhaps that the artificial intelligence community maintains any distance from neuroscientific enquiry when so many of the active topics as, attention, episodic memory and of course neural networks themselves, are direct biological in origin.

<p>A key observation is that intelligence in biological systems is at least one or two orders of magnitude more efficient that current software approaches - implying there is still massive headroom in realising ever more powerful AI systems. It’s somewhat surprising perhaps that the artificial intelligence community maintains any distance from neuroscientific enquiry when so many of the active topics as, attention, episodic memory and of course neural networks themselves, are direct biological in origin.</p>

Of particular value are ‘sparse' networks, or ones with a minimal amount of connections is already appearing to have significant performance in real world applications, with a claimed improvement of 100x improvement in the "<a href="https://numenta.com/assets/pdf/research-publications/papers/Sparsity-Enables-100x-Performance-Acceleration-Deep-Learning-Networks.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Performance Acceleration in Deep Learning Networks</a>”. As they write in their whitepaper: <em>“How is the brain so intelligent with such amazing efficiency? One reason is that most of the neocortex is sparse. It stores and processes information in the context of extremely sparse neural activity and sparse connectivity.”</em>

<p>Of particular value are ‘sparse' networks, or ones with a minimal amount of connections is already appearing to have significant performance in real world applications, with a claimed improvement of 100x improvement in the "<a href="https://numenta.com/assets/pdf/research-publications/papers/Sparsity-Enables-100x-Performance-Acceleration-Deep-Learning-Networks.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Performance Acceleration in Deep Learning Networks</a>”. As they write in their whitepaper: <em>“How is the brain so intelligent with such amazing efficiency? One reason is that most of the neocortex is sparse. It stores and processes information in the context of extremely sparse neural activity and sparse connectivity.”</em></p>

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/0006-1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3328"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">‘<a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/0006/">#0006</a>&nbsp;(prompt: “industrial materials, studio photoshoot”)’, 2022</figcaption></figure>

Although this is only a single example, it demonstrates there is still plenty of room for step-change improvements in artificial intelligence. It's not just that models may become computationally more dazzling, but more nimble, easier to train, run and embed.

<p>Although this is only a single example, it demonstrates there is still plenty of room for step-change improvements in artificial intelligence. It's not just that models may become computationally more dazzling, but more nimble, easier to train, run and embed.</p>

Altogether it feels like we’re at an inflection point. On one hand Stable Diffusion demonstrates that open-sourcing AI models can ignite creativity around them - especially as media technologies - far more rapidly than the initial attempts to commercialise them  as AI-as-a-service or a via APIs.  Simultaneously, the underlying architectures are still a space of wild invention and likely to become ever more ‘untameable’. Now we’ve established Doom can indeed run on your <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/yes-doom-is-playable-on-a-pregnancy-test" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pregnancy test</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFDlVgBMomQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">potato-powered TI-84 calculator</a>, or even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5ELKTivbE&amp;feature=emb_title" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ATM</a>, perhaps the next question may be will they run Stable Diffusion and what happens when they do?

<p>Altogether it feels like we’re at an inflection point. On one hand Stable Diffusion demonstrates that open-sourcing AI models can ignite creativity around them - especially as media technologies - far more rapidly than the initial attempts to commercialise them  as AI-as-a-service or a via APIs.  Simultaneously, the underlying architectures are still a space of wild invention and likely to become ever more ‘untameable’. Now we’ve established Doom can indeed run on your <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/yes-doom-is-playable-on-a-pregnancy-test" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pregnancy test</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFDlVgBMomQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">potato-powered TI-84 calculator</a>, or even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5ELKTivbE&amp;feature=emb_title" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ATM</a>, perhaps the next question may be will they run Stable Diffusion and what happens when they do?</p>

0004 – It’s On Like Comic Con

0005 – Model Behaviour

In his 2012 <a href="http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/04/29/the_avengers_collects_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbustersuper_groupthe_avengers_assembles_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbuster/">review</a> of the movie <em>The Avengers,</em> film critic of The Boston Globe, Tom Russo noted:

<p>In his 2012 <a href="http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/04/29/the_avengers_collects_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbustersuper_groupthe_avengers_assembles_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbuster/">review</a> of the movie <em>The Avengers,</em> film critic of The Boston Globe, Tom Russo noted:</p>

core/quote

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>The word “<em>universe</em>” is standard parlance in the comic book industry. [...] You don’t hear “<em>universe</em>” much in the film industry. Here in the real world — or Hollywood, at any rate — the prospect of mingling franchise characters is dauntingly complicated. &nbsp;Sure, we get a novelty such as “Alien vs. Predator” here and there, but rarely. Different studios hold rights to characters. Actors’ contracts can be tricky to coordinate — and so can their egos, one imagines.</p><cite>– <em><a href="http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/04/29/the_avengers_collects_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbustersuper_groupthe_avengers_assembles_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbuster/">Super Group - 'The Avengers' assembles all your favorite Marvel characters in one handy wannabe blockbuster<br></a></em><br></cite></blockquote>

The quote is a useful reminder that the era of the Big Comics crossover franchise, at least in cinema is barely a decade old.

<p>The quote is a useful reminder that the era of the Big Comics crossover franchise, at least in cinema is barely a decade old.</p>

Marvel's ambitious pace has been matched by staggering financial returns. Including the movies they used to strategically (re)introduce audiences to individual characters before <em>The Avengers</em> first assembled, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is now a catalogue of 28 films, with a further 11 in development, all in just 15 years. A single franchise that has amassed <em>billions</em> of global fans and  as of 2021 represents <a href="https://screenrant.com/marvel-movie-mcu-box-office-2021-details/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">30% of all US box office revenue</a> and generated <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchises" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$26.5B in global revenue since 2008</a>.

<p>Marvel's ambitious pace has been matched by staggering financial returns. Including the movies they used to strategically (re)introduce audiences to individual characters before <em>The Avengers</em> first assembled, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is now a catalogue of 28 films, with a further 11 in development, all in just 15 years. A single franchise that has amassed <em>billions</em> of global fans and  as of 2021 represents <a href="https://screenrant.com/marvel-movie-mcu-box-office-2021-details/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">30% of all US box office revenue</a> and generated <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchises" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$26.5B in global revenue since 2008</a>.</p>

<figure class="wp-block-image alignwide size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/comicon-1-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2597"/><figcaption>The long and winding path in the first entrance hall.</figcaption></figure>

The methods, platforms and regularity with which we consume, or become consumed by, has also been changing at a dizzy pace during this time. Marvel, along with Harry Potter, DC, Star Wars, Lord of The Rings (to name just a few) are the juggernauts of IP,  speculative fictional universes that are inducing a new era of immersive fandom that is continuously reprocessed across every concievable contemporary media from film, books, comics, computer games, mobile apps, theme parks, trading cards, cosplay and seemingly unlimited avenues for merchandise or online social presence and communities.

<p>The methods, platforms and regularity with which we consume, or become consumed by, has also been changing at a dizzy pace during this time. Marvel, along with Harry Potter, DC, Star Wars, Lord of The Rings (to name just a few) are the juggernauts of IP,  speculative fictional universes that are inducing a new era of immersive fandom that is continuously reprocessed across every concievable contemporary media from film, books, comics, computer games, mobile apps, theme parks, trading cards, cosplay and seemingly unlimited avenues for merchandise or online social presence and communities.</p>

The <em>condition of</em> fandom is by no means new, although the connective tissue of the digital age is allowing the entertainment and media companies controlling these franchise to offer the contemporary fan something altogether more boundless and integrated. Captivating oceans of glossy, social activated and deliciously addictive content. If "<em>politics is downstream of culture</em>", then fandom may very well be the melting glacier atop the mountain.

<p>The <em>condition of</em> fandom is by no means new, although the connective tissue of the digital age is allowing the entertainment and media companies controlling these franchise to offer the contemporary fan something altogether more boundless and integrated. Captivating oceans of glossy, social activated and deliciously addictive content. If "<em>politics is downstream of culture</em>", then fandom may very well be the melting glacier atop the mountain.</p>

What might be novel though is the scale and rich complexity that underpins the proposition of these 'universes', the result of decades of output by hundreds of authors and artists. Marvel films for instance can draw from a staggering diversity of story arcs and characters, given there are approximately approximately 27,000 comics in the series, so many in fact it is considered by some to be the largest continuous human narrative and it's speculated that only a handful of people, notably author Douglas Wolk and Marvel archivist Peter Sanderson and have read them all. The 4,868 pages that make up the Harry Potter books (including spin-offs) seems slight by comparison.

<p>What might be novel though is the scale and rich complexity that underpins the proposition of these 'universes', the result of decades of output by hundreds of authors and artists. Marvel films for instance can draw from a staggering diversity of story arcs and characters, given there are approximately approximately 27,000 comics in the series, so many in fact it is considered by some to be the largest continuous human narrative and it's speculated that only a handful of people, notably author Douglas Wolk and Marvel archivist Peter Sanderson and have read them all. The 4,868 pages that make up the Harry Potter books (including spin-offs) seems slight by comparison.</p>

This vastness enables a type of story-telling that can sustain countless spin-offs, callbacks, knowing references - interwoven narrative threads that might take a dozen movies to resolve, only to reappear in a video game demanding 100 hours of gameplay. A screenplay writer friend of mine once theorised that one of the major innovations of the crossover comic book film is that there is so little requirement for exposition that the movies can essentially begin with full tilt action, when in a more polite era of Hollywood the audience might expect to get at least 10 or 20 minutes to settle in.

<p>This vastness enables a type of story-telling that can sustain countless spin-offs, callbacks, knowing references - interwoven narrative threads that might take a dozen movies to resolve, only to reappear in a video game demanding 100 hours of gameplay. A screenplay writer friend of mine once theorised that one of the major innovations of the crossover comic book film is that there is so little requirement for exposition that the movies can essentially begin with full tilt action, when in a more polite era of Hollywood the audience might expect to get at least 10 or 20 minutes to settle in.  </p>

Personally speaking however, I feel like I missed the bus altogether, despite being deeply curios my knowledge of comic books is very patchy, which is why I took the chance to go to Comic Con, or more fully <strong>Movie Comic Media</strong> (MCM) London Comic Con 2022 at The Excel Centre. The trip was anything but premeditated however - I had been travelling on London's new Elizabeth Line when the carriage was suddenly overwhelmed with Cosplay - when the (Marvel) universe gives you a sign, you better act on it.

<p>Personally speaking however, I feel like I missed the bus altogether, despite being deeply curios my knowledge of comic books is very patchy, which is why I took the chance to go to Comic Con, or more fully <strong>Movie Comic Media</strong> (MCM) London Comic Con 2022 at The Excel Centre. The trip was anything but premeditated however - I had been travelling on London's new Elizabeth Line when the carriage was suddenly overwhelmed with Cosplay - when the (Marvel) universe gives you a sign, you better act on it. </p>

The cradle of Comic Book conventions is Comic Con San Diego, first held in 1976, steadily growing to 13,000 visitors by 1990, before exploding in popularity and reaching 130,000 by 2010.  Whether Comic Con or Comicon or Comic-Con is a legal trademark has been a major legal battle. I incorrectly assumed it was all part of the same happy family, but Comic Con London is distinctly not commercially related to San Diego.

<p>The cradle of Comic Book conventions is Comic Con San Diego, first held in 1976, steadily growing to 13,000 visitors by 1990, before exploding in popularity and reaching 130,000 by 2010.  Whether Comic Con or Comicon or Comic-Con is a legal trademark has been a major legal battle. I incorrectly assumed it was all part of the same happy family, but Comic Con London is distinctly not commercially related to San Diego.</p>

For all the observations that follow, and some of the overt cynicism I have for certain aspects of the industries involved -  almost everyone attending seemed to be having a contagiously fantastic time. Although precise numbers are hard to locate, The London Comic Con is one of, if not the largest convention held in the UK, frequently receiving upwards 130,000 visitors, rivalling Glastonbury in sheer numbers albeit requiring distinctly less investment of both time, money and exposure to the elements.

<p>For all the observations that follow, and some of the overt cynicism I have for certain aspects of the industries involved -  almost everyone attending seemed to be having a contagiously fantastic time. Although precise numbers are hard to locate, The London Comic Con is one of, if not the largest convention held in the UK, frequently receiving upwards 130,000 visitors, rivalling Glastonbury in sheer numbers albeit requiring distinctly less investment of both time, money and exposure to the elements.</p>

While the fictional universes of comic books is the glue, the real show is of course the Cosplay. It's trite observation, but Cosplay obviously gives affords an experience out of the everyday, a cheat code to a different way of socialising. The atmosphere at Comic Con is far more electric than I anticipated, a tangible slightly nervous atmosphere of hyperactivity, neon energy drinks and imported Japanese sweets. The buzz also seems almost entirely be generated by attendees interacting with each other, a plasma of awkward but joyful high-fives, photo opportunities and sparks of recognition.

<p>While the fictional universes of comic books is the glue, the real show is of course the Cosplay. It's trite observation, but Cosplay obviously gives affords an experience out of the everyday, a cheat code to a different way of socialising. The atmosphere at Comic Con is far more electric than I anticipated, a tangible slightly nervous atmosphere of hyperactivity, neon energy drinks and imported Japanese sweets. The buzz also seems almost entirely be generated by attendees interacting with each other, a plasma of awkward but joyful high-fives, photo opportunities and sparks of recognition. </p>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>While clearly providing space for a particular form of personal expression in overdrive, it's simultaneously and studiously playing by a very particular logic. Comic Con is not a spectator sport, </p><p>Everyone in attendance is either in everyday clothes or somewhere on a spectrum that builds from a few accessories, a bit of make-up, a knowing t-shirt, a mask to fully realised cosplay. Even the encounters with people in oversized, calculatedly terrifying horror costumes with might otherwise feel warmly friendly.</p><p></p></div>

<div class="wp-block-columns"><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_4577-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2640"/></figure></div><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>While clearly providing space for a particular form of personal expression in overdrive, it's simultaneously and studiously playing by a very particular logic. Comic Con is not a spectator sport, </p><p>Everyone in attendance is either in everyday clothes or somewhere on a spectrum that builds from a few accessories, a bit of make-up, a knowing t-shirt, a mask to fully realised cosplay. Even the encounters with people in oversized, calculatedly terrifying horror costumes with might otherwise feel warmly friendly.</p><p></p></div></div>

Possibly the most jarring approach would be to attend as a character fully of your own invention, especially if it wasn't very good. Afterwards I also discovered that the American comedian Stephen Colbert did exactly this - attending Comic Con San Diego as artfully terrible "<a href="https://www.cc.com/video/zryrry/the-colbert-report-undercover-at-comic-con-prince-hawkcat">Prince Hawkcat</a>".

<p>Possibly the most jarring approach would be to attend as a character fully of your own invention, especially if it wasn't very good. Afterwards I also discovered that the American comedian Stephen Colbert did exactly this - attending Comic Con San Diego as artfully terrible "<a href="https://www.cc.com/video/zryrry/the-colbert-report-undercover-at-comic-con-prince-hawkcat">Prince Hawkcat</a>".</p>

There seems to be something of an unwritten rule that prevents the professional writers, actors and anyone in the 'biz' dressing up - "don't get high of your own supply" - although Cosplay it would seem is bounded the rules of it's fictional universe and some separation between fan and creator. There is a tradition of celebrities attending <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/comic-con-15-stars-costume-as-a-disguise-1014839/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in disguise</a> (frequently while having something to promote) although it's curious that this is distinguishable from simple being in 'costume'.

<p>There seems to be something of an unwritten rule that prevents the professional writers, actors and anyone in the 'biz' dressing up - "don't get high of your own supply" - although Cosplay it would seem is bounded the rules of it's fictional universe and some separation between fan and creator. There is a tradition of celebrities attending <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/comic-con-15-stars-costume-as-a-disguise-1014839/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in disguise</a> (frequently while having something to promote) although it's curious that this is distinguishable from simple being in 'costume'.</p>

Through the lens of the original premise - that these franchises and 'fandom' are building a serious gravitational energy in society - the ritualism of Comic Con, seemingly governed by code of signals to fellow fans and celebration of everything fan-based represents this potential at it's most polychromatic. In their recently published book <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314162/the-dawn-of-everything/9780141991061">The Dawn of Everything</a>, David Graeber and David Wengrow, reassess the perceived origins of egalitarianism by appreciating the complexity and diversity of how early human communities self-organised. They do so in part by establishing the importance of rituals, in particular seasonal festivals that fostered <em> "political self-consciousness... as laboratories of social possibility.</em>" A key component of this was the temporary upheaval of entrenched or status hierarchies, as they note:

<p>Through the lens of the original premise - that these franchises and 'fandom' are building a serious gravitational energy in society - the ritualism of Comic Con, seemingly governed by code of signals to fellow fans and celebration of everything fan-based represents this potential at it's most polychromatic. In their recently published book <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314162/the-dawn-of-everything/9780141991061">The Dawn of Everything</a>, David Graeber and David Wengrow, reassess the perceived origins of egalitarianism by appreciating the complexity and diversity of how early human communities self-organised. They do so in part by establishing the importance of rituals, in particular seasonal festivals that fostered <em> "political self-consciousness... as laboratories of social possibility.</em>" A key component of this was the temporary upheaval of entrenched or status hierarchies, as they note:</p>

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>... sometimes festivals are moments where entirely different social structures take over, such as the ‘youth abbeys’ that seem to have existed across medieval Europe, with their Boy Bishops, May Queens, Lords of Misrule, Abbots of Unreason and Princes of Sots, who during the Christmas, Mayday or carnival season temporarily took over many of the functions of government and enacted a bawdy parody of government’s everyday forms. ... The really powerful ritual moments are those of collective chaos, effervescence, liminality or creative play, out of which new social forms can come into the world.”</p><cite><strong>The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow</strong></cite></blockquote>

Comic Con might is by no means an isolated extremity, all number of 'seasonal', increasingly popular, global festivals ranging from Burning Man, Coachella or even the Miami International Boat Show might also be equally valid subjects of investigation as contemporary rituals.

<p>Comic Con might is by no means an isolated extremity, all number of 'seasonal', increasingly popular, global festivals ranging from Burning Man, Coachella or even the Miami International Boat Show might also be equally valid subjects of investigation as contemporary rituals.</p>

<h3>All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go</h3>

At the same time, one of the things that surprised me the most - despite a main stage and various panels and enormous scale - there isn't all that much to actually do. Granted I am not naturally inclined to spend hours browsing through comics but it didn't really seem anyone else was either. There's lots of queues to join, a zone to play vintage video and board games, a throng of food trucks parked incongruously inside. Much of the event is itself about taking photos, being present with the lore, acknowledging sparks of deep fan knowledge.  As a result my it felt equal parts over-saturating and underwhelming.

<p>At the same time, one of the things that surprised me the most - despite a main stage and various panels and enormous scale - there isn't all that much to actually do. Granted I am not naturally inclined to spend hours browsing through comics but it didn't really seem anyone else was either. There's lots of queues to join, a zone to play vintage video and board games, a throng of food trucks parked incongruously inside. Much of the event is itself about taking photos, being present with the lore, acknowledging sparks of deep fan knowledge.  As a result my it felt equal parts over-saturating and underwhelming.  </p>

<div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>Experiencing Comic Con for the first time though, what struck me most was the was the staging of the event itself. I was expecting something altogether more grandiose in setting but in the end it then it feels completely swallowed by the Excel center. It creates a very particular condition, an indoor car boot sale of dense fantastical fictional universes floating in endless, very contemporary infrastructural <em><a href="https://www.oma.com/publications/junkspace" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Junk Space</a></em>.</p></div>

<div class="wp-block-columns alignwide"><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:50%"><p>Experiencing Comic Con for the first time though, what struck me most was the was the staging of the event itself. I was expecting something altogether more grandiose in setting but in the end it then it feels completely swallowed by the Excel center. It creates a very particular condition, an indoor car boot sale of dense fantastical fictional universes floating in endless, very contemporary infrastructural <em><a href="https://www.oma.com/publications/junkspace" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Junk Space</a></em>.</p></div><div class="wp-block-column" style="flex-basis:70%"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://writing-api.burman.work/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/comicon-10-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2599"/></figure></div></div>

Conventions and trade shows have this sinking all-purpose soullessness and drabness to them by default, given the necessarily blank backdrop of convention centres, but expectations have probably also been warped by other events, notably technology and car shows where budgets are exponentially higher. London Comic Con isn't altogether very <em>showy</em>. This may be the particular cavernous blandness of the Excel Centre, looking at through images of Comic Con San Diego looks more vibrant, co-ordinated and vertical - at least in the photos.

<p>Conventions and trade shows have this sinking all-purpose soullessness and drabness to them by default, given the necessarily blank backdrop of convention centres, but expectations have probably also been warped by other events, notably technology and car shows where budgets are exponentially higher. London Comic Con isn't altogether very <em>showy</em>. This may be the particular cavernous blandness of the Excel Centre, looking at through images of Comic Con San Diego looks more vibrant, co-ordinated and vertical - at least in the photos.</p>

My assumptions have probably been distorted still further by watching videos of a new generation of immersive theme park zones, which offer visitors a full manifestation of their favourite fictional universe.

<p>My assumptions have probably been distorted still further by watching videos of a new generation of immersive theme park zones, which offer visitors a full manifestation of their favourite fictional universe.</p>

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Introducing… Fulfilment Centre

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