Computer Aided in the Eighties
What I lack in artistic talent, I also lack in desire for a free ride.
I was the Production Editor on my high school art and literary magazine in my senior year. There were many talented artists and writers in my high school. I was proud to work with all the editors and contributors on making an amazing 25th anniversary edition of the magazine. The end result was a beautiful collection of seventy-two pages of paired art and writing.
I am a writer. I discovered this in my sophomore year of high school when I wrote my first poem. I’m not a writer because I’m good at it, I’m a writer because I love writing. I love words. Sometimes I put words in an order that is pleasing to me and others. I love reading words that are put together with care. I love words that convey thought, feeling, and meaning. I submitted many poems for consideration, and several were accepted and included in the issue of the magazine in my senior year. I have shared some of my high school poetry the past few years in separate blogs here.
I am not an artist, at least not the kind that can draw anything many would consider art. I doodle, but usually just basic shapes like triangles and squares. I love symmetry. I love doodling on graph paper, because it helps me create block shapes quickly. I may have developed this particular habit after several years of hand drawing dungeon layouts for D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) games, where I would always wind up as the DM (Dungeon Master), because no one else had read the DM Guide and knew all the rules.
My senior year of high school, I used a Mac SE/30 to help prepare and layout pages in the magazine and for all the typesetting. I had spent the summer of my junior year in high school working at a desktop publishing firm, which is where I learned Pagemaker and other desktop publishing software.
I decided one day to doodle with drawing shapes on the Mac to see what I could come up with. The picture at the top of this blog was the result. I submitted it for consideration in the magazine. I think the novelty of computer art and its production cost being out of reach of most high school students in the late 1980s is what led to the inclusion of this picture in the magazine.
The “computer art” is pixelated, but there is something simple and relatable about the picture. When I stare at it, this is what I see now. Daredevil danger diving into pool. Square peg, round hole. “Move to Trash.” Ladder conveying the Sisyphean nature of this cuboids existence. Anyone with an office cubicle can probably relate. Cold obsidian pyramid structure. An arduous return commute. At the top, it looks like an “h”. I saw that for the first time today. Maybe three decades ago I subconsciously thought the cuboid needed h-elp to break this cycle. I can’t unsee the “h” now. Yeah, no, that’s just my mind playing tricks. Nothing was that deep or intentional in the thought process. I think I just decided on this shape to give the picture depth. But this is what art is supposed to do, make us feel and think, right?
I could probably have drawn this by hand back then. It would have taken me a hundred tries, and I would have just given up before getting to something I would be happy with. That’s the tricky part with art on a canvas or paper. There is no undo, or just move this bit here or there. The computer let us explore and share our ideas more easily. It did its job aiding me in the drawing and the experimenting. The ideas were limited by my imagination and patience. I created this much faster than I could have without being aided by a computer.
I thought about this picture today as I expressed on social media some recent feelings I have had about the flood of AI generated art that has been all over my feeds.
I throw up a little bit in my mouth when I see AI generated pictures now. I miss the joy of being surprised and mesmerized by the creativity of people with artistic talent. Art isn’t a burger. It’s much too special to be dispensed at a fast-art drive-thru.
I don’t want to use Generative AI to generate any pictures that I use in my own products and posts. I’m not an artist. I would not be proud to use an AI generated picture to represent something I could not create myself. My AI generated art would look like everyone else’s AI generated art, created by regurgitating the work of someone else who I will never meet, and will never get the credit nor compensation. The novelty is gone, and the awful feeling I would get benefiting from someone else’s work and style is too icky to contemplate.
I’m a writer. I find joy in writing, and getting feedback from people who read my work. I do not enjoy reading words generated by a machine. I want to read the unvarnished essence of truth written in the words of the person sharing the writing with me. Even if it is not that great. It’s easy to provide feedback and improve things. This creates an opportunity for humans to connect and collaborate. This is still a good thing, right?
I’d like to live in a world where artists produce art, and writers produce writing, because it is something they love and practice for years to improve their skills. I’m happy for the computer to be an aid to the creation of art, like a paintbrush, a canvas, a pencil, a typewriter, an eraser, or even a helpful mentor. I want to be able to see and experience the creative thoughts and feelings of the person behind the computer. I don’t want to ad nauseam see everyone flex their prompt muscles and show they are capable of being the same artist, that has someone else’s soul in their work. I know I don’t live in that world any more. I hope we don’t discourage future artists and writers from developing their talents, or force them to hide their work. We need them, and not to feed the regurgitation machines. We need them to remember and remind us of our humanity.
Thanks for reading, and I hope my eighties computer aided art brings positive thoughts and feelings to your day!
Note: This blog was written by me. I’m a human, who randomly thinks too much and writes a lot. I shared it with a couple folks for early feedback. I edited a few times, deleted some stuff, and then just decided to publish with imperfections and all. It was good fun, you should try it!
I am the creator of and committer for the Eclipse Collections OSS project, which is managed at the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse Collections is open for contributions. I am also the author of the book, Eclipse Collections Categorically: Level up your programming game.
