AI Art: Inanna Arrives at the Outskirts of the Amethyst City.


All I did was enter the title above into the MidJourney site and this was the end result.

What I actually wrote was "Inanna Arrives at the Emerald City."  I wanted to combine the Sumerian goddess' adventure with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

What I got was an image of Inanna's silhouette from behind.  She pauses on a half overgrown strip of two lane blacktop.  Her objective is in the distance.

Why does she want to go to the Amethyst City?  Is it her ultimate goal?  Does she wish to make a new home at this oasis in the wasteland of an abandoned interstate civilization?  Is it just a way station on an ongoing or even infinite quest?  Is she pausing to admire the city from a distance?  Is she simply walking past it?  What if the Amethyst City is just a ruin among many artifacts of the old world?  Perhaps in contrast it is a thriving metropolis?

The technique of MidJourney wavers between the fantasy artist Roger Dean and the much deplored idyllic artist Maxfield Parrish.  I am an admirer of the former and indifferent to the latter.  Yet those violet-pink clouds, that is not beyond the palette of nature.  My eyes have been blessed with many a summer sunset with those brilliant hues.

Jello Biafra, the former frontman of the Dead Kennedys and spoken word satirist, was improvising band names on his album No More Cocoons.  He described the stereotypical Roger Dean calligraphy and landscapes for a typical prog rock band and came up with the monicker Earth Fart.  As a fan of both prog and punk, I was highly amused by Jello's wit and scatological humor.

So, what say you?  Does the above AI rendering resemble a fantasy vista composed by Roger Dean, or is it just a florid hued earth fart?

I say a bit of both.

- JJB

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 3, 2023 at 12:19 PM

    I find it very pretty. I can’t help but find it fascinating that the AI colored the “Emerald City” more lavender-purple-ish than green. My feeling is it’s still a thriving city (perhaps in its later stages) and just one stop on Inanna’s ongoing quest. But that’s just me.
    As an admirer of the art of Roger Dean (and Hipgnosis, although that’s not quite evoked here), I don’t care for that “earth fart” characterization. It just looks nice to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John Joyce BakerMarch 3, 2023 at 12:21 PM

    Well, Jello is no patron of the arts - unless it comes to first pressings of Wax Trax albums. That said, we'll forego the Earth Fart title.

    ReplyDelete

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