Call them intentional imperfections. Defects in the deciphering. Blemishes in the blueprint.
But whatever you call them, in terms of returns, bloopers have never performed better.
If you blinked last month you may have missed the world and wealth changing emergence of the Finnish designer Roope Rainisto, whose first gen art collection of 500 images dropped on Feb 7th at 0.7 ETH/~$1K and surged 100X in value in less than a week.
A month later the floor still stands at 10 ETH/~$15,535 with the highest sale 6 days ago at 20 WETH/ ~$31,046. Currently 12% are listed and the secondary market volume and price points are on the upswing.
Here at Take It or Leave It we thought these numbers alone make his Life in West America collection worth a look, before we even knew the compelling creation story.
His original idea was to base his collection on early American films and his own partially forgotten coast to coast road trip and meld these together in a mythical place fused with the ideals of the American West.
And then feed the AI.
The end result turns out to be a collection that both leverages and lampoons the mythos of the American Dream as only someone with some distance from its visual and consumer culture can do well.
But is this really his voice shining through or an AI hallucination? Turns out, he set the tone and taste, trained the models, and then the AI generated 50,000 original images trying to encapsulate what it it knew about the West. He then curated it down to his favorite 500, upscaled it further with AI, and edited it by hand.
So it's hard to say.
What we do know is that this symbiotic relationship in which he created his collection is now called post photography and will probably be the way the majority of photographic art is created from now on.
He fondly calls the AI (stable diffusion + dream board) a team of "Rain men" that will always know more than you, but don't have a good understanding of what is essential. So his ability to curate them based on asking himself "Does this photo make me feel something?" was critical to the collection's success.
And we did not even mention the mesmerizing mess ups yet...
The photos appeal to everyone, as they are stunning, beautiful images; then you notice the extra hands, doors that don't open, or knees bending backwards like Barbie on a bad day.
The devil is in the details.
It is a utopian/dystopian version of the American dream and the AI does it so well and the mistakes are so perfectly grotesque, it is hard to fathom that these mistakes are not purposely built social commentary rather just AI growing pains.
But we are witnessing AI growing up, and the adolescent mistakes it makes bear witness to a special moment in time we will never see again. Freeze framing the results of what AI knows about Americana. Suspending it on screen like an ant in amber.
In fact, Roope said that based on the AI's latest dreamboard training, he was actually able to finally make a virtual camera because the images were often succeeding at looking completely realistic. He realized that we are at the tipping point of being able to create a completely made up but hyper realistic reality. Most of the time.
But then he had an epiphany.
Post photography artists will soon have to intentionally create these warped realities because the AI will have learned how to perfectly simulate reality all the time. No longer will we be able to find a sixth finger anywhere.
And this is what also gives this collection its value.
In addition, the imperfections actually enhance the work, as the photos are curated to create both an emotion and an active engagement from the viewer, as they try to sort out the mystery.
Some are even claiming this is a watershed moment, a new Fidenza. We will see.
What we do know is that it is a stunning, intriguing collection that has performed extremely well for it's original owners in the last month.
And if we look back as far as six months, we will also see that there has been a complete 180 degree turn in sentiment in how we as a society perceive the value of AI art.
As Salikhov says we have gone from saying “AI art is not art” to the most sought after art genre. Over 3,000 collectors spent $20M collecting AI art."
This bodes well for Life in West America.
In addition, Roope has a new collection of 500 photos dropping April 6th. But the bidding starts at 10 ETH.
So even if you wanted to get in early on the next collection, the starting price for these AI abnormalities is strong. So choose wisely.
https://postphotography.xyz/auction-details/
While the high returns and historical significance of the works are super seductive, we want to be sure our readers also find a photo that appeals to them on artistic merit alone.
There should be plenty.
Roope has 17.4K Followers on Twitter, 4,684 followers on Instagram.
Cecily Score 6/10 - mostly due to less upside potential short term/longer term Cecily Score is 8/10
Take It or Leave It?!
by Cecily Lough