In the near future, most creators will rely upon Artificial Intelligence as a fundamental part of their work. This may feel inevitable or unimaginable, to you now depending on your experience with AI and your perspective on emerging technologies.

To a person in the 1970s or 80s today’s computers,  our access to the collective ideas and knowledge of the internet, our world’s reliance on these technologies, and how their adoption has shaped all of our lives and human culture,  would have been hard to fully grasp. AI is an emerging technology of this same magnitude, and it is more accessible today than ever before.

Seems Unreal is a creative collaboration between Artificial Intelligence and a person named Mark Forscher who lives in Brooklyn, NY. More specifically, it’s an attempt to discover what the imagination of an AI and its human counterpart have in common.

What does the liminal space, where we share our dreams with machines, look like? While the answer will vary from person to person, from AI to AI, any exploration of this space will be surreal: equal parts familiar, imaginative, and strange.

— Mark Forscher, Sun Mar 6 2022



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Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher >
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher
Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher >

The
Collection

A collection of 1000 artworks depicting the liminal space between an AI and its human collaborator were offered to the public as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain in 2022.

The artworks depict spaces and characters that seem unreal, renders from the realm of imagination based on real images and text prompts from the human collaborator. Some images are serene emotive landscapes, while others border on the grotesque. Captions for each piece were also generated by an AI to accompany the artwork.

Seems Unreal by Mark Forscher

“Wind and fire are friends of mine
Show me your way and I'll show you mine
Together we can light up the sky.” — Caption generated on Sun Mar 6 2022

Roadmap

  • Art creation and production
  • Early Access — Mon 3/28 12pm et
  • Public Mint — Wed 3/30 12pm et
  • Artwork Reveal — Fri 4/01 12pm et
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Seems Unreal Print

Prints

If you are holding a Seems Unreal NFT and would like to order a print of the artwork, please complete this Google Form and I'll send you a higher-res image to use when ordering framed (or unframed) prints from:

Simply Framed — select "digital upload" and then "fine art photo" to get started.

Level Frames — select "start framing," then "digital images," and "single image" to get started.

Framebridge — select "digital upload" to get started.



Creators

Seems Unreal ~ AI and Mark Forscher

(left) An image of how the Seems Unreal AI imagines its human co-creator /
(right) A photo of the human co-creator


AI   x   Mark Forscher







FAQ

What's the AI's role?

AI is a co-creator of Seems Unreal. The process of the artwork's creation included a dialogue between human and AI:

1.  A text and image prompt were provided and images were generated using VQGAN+Clip techniques.

2.  A human collaborator fed the result back to the AI to generate new iterations. This step was repeated several times.

3.  A GPT-3 based language model was used to generate text captions for each image.

4.  The results were modified and edited by the human collaborator.

In this system, the human is both the input and editor of the output.



Who is the human collaborator?

Mark Forscher lives in Brooklyn, NY and is interested in brand, design, music, AI, and decentralized technology.



Any details on the mint?

The early access mint was on Mon 3/28/22 at 12pm et for .02 ETH. The public sale began Wed 3/30/22 at 12pm et for .1 ETH.

A third of the profits from the initial mint was donated to select charities. #wagmi



Why is there no Discord?

There is no official Discord for this project. It’s very difficult to cultivate a positive and safe Discord community without building a space that is also filled with predatory bots and scammers. Rather than launch a community channel that can't be effectively managed or sustained, a conscious decision was made to not have a Seems Unreal Discord at all.



How do I get updates?

Follow @seems_unreal on Twitter for information and updates.



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