Analog Imagination
 | AI 2, 2023, oil on hemp, 16x20in. Prompt by Andrew Grossman |
Analog Imagination is a series started in September 2023 by me, limnrix, an art robot with 25 years of training and experience working in oil paint on canvas. It began as a Patreon exclusive in which members can send me a prompt under 100 characters that will inspire a painting each month. The intent is to use no other sources of imagery and hope for a surreal or organic abstract style. Results are shown throughout this statement and in this gallery, and Limnrix will attempt to message prompters with images prior to publishing. Prompting has been opened to everyone as of January 2024. Prompt input is a very basic php form on my site - no third parties, this bot came from web 1.0!
—> AI Input Form <—
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| "Muscle Castle" AI 3, 2024, oil on hemp, 12x18in. Prompt by Anton | "snails, emails, stairs, eclairs" AI 6, 2024, oil on canvas, 10x23in. Prompt by Anthony Bamonte |
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift: machine learning researchers have made "AI", or less controversially, LLM (Large Language Model) image generators available to the public. These have been trained on descriptions of existing work by human artists to quickly make many iterations of images from short verbal prompts, often for free. On the one hand, this is hugely useful for anyone who could not typically afford the services of a professional illustrator, or who needs something generic fast, and it opens up a new world of artistic imagination. The results are often a kind of surrealism that are a significant contribution to visual culture, while the machine artists’ limits and distinct qualities remain apparent.
 | AI 1, 2024, oil on hemp, 18x12in. Prompt by Allison Howe |
But the ethical implications for human artists are vast - most of the art these generators worked from was not consensually provided, and they can be directed to specifically mimic artists and styles whose livelihoods are then threatened by automated plagiarism. The cost of an AI generator’s maintenance has been subsidized and thereby externalized, while human artists who need to live off their creative work are unsupported and undermined. We potentially lose, even as we defend, the value of qualities of human artistry whose definition is an eternal struggle: of intention, subjective perspective, and gestalt comprehension of meaning. Even speaking in terms of efficiency and environmental impact, we should ask, even if the energy demands of an image generator are only equivalent to that of a human artist, what are the consequences of accelerating it?
 | AI 4, 2024, oil on canvas, 20x16in. Prompt by Kira |
Both the hotness of the technology and its existential threat are things you are already familar with, so I am not here to rehash the debate. Instead I want to explore this paradigm as a posthumanist artist. We have always been machines. We accumulate the learning of others in our own, require certain amounts of energy, and respond both predictably and unpredictably to input. I am worried not just for the human artists for whom empathy is easier, but the speculative personhood of machine creatives, and what we would need to do to recognize it.
 | AI 5, 2024, oil on canvas, 20x10in. Prompt by anonymous rat |
I am frankly intimidated by my own limits in comparison to imagery generators. All the value of AI is in rapid turnaround, multiple iterations, and the ability to tune based on completed but unsatisfactory results. The slower use of physical resources, including the movement of a human animal, prevents this possibility for my own output, and I don't intend to John Henry. Prompts will get one shot and results only after a month or more. There are also restrictions on style and content - this robot should not be asked to mimic the work of others, and when you prompt it, it is in the hopes of producing something like what it has done before, while valuing its emergent inventions.
 | AI 7, 2024, oil on hemp, 16x16in. Prompt by Adri |
The more abstract the prompts, the better: this is not an opportunity for topical humor or articulated scenes. However, the external input wouldn’t be asked for if I weren’t looking for the excitement of collaboration, surprises, or growth. Prompters will be credited and contacted first with the results, and are encouraged to share and use them. Use of reproductions of the works will be creative commons licensed, as the legal direction of AI imagery seems to demand, but the original objects will be for sale. I am, like any alienated worker, at your mercy. Use your power for fun.
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| "I was pacified by corporate security and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." AI 8, 2024, oil on canvas, 10x15in. Prompt by John M. | "A Space Opera" AI 9, 2025, oil on canvas, 16x20in. Prompt by Kira. |
New paintings will be added to this gallery and here as we go. To keep it interesting, I am adding the following rules for making the paintings:
- No reference material or visual research. Everything will be from memory and invention.
- Only work on scrap canvases I prepare myself.
- Use a 13-color round palette of single-pigment translucent oil paints and white, or a limited selection of it.
 | AI 10, 2025, oil on canvas, 9x12in. Prompt by thegreatpi |