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In brain surgery, there is a saying “nobody wants to know how the sausage is made”

You want your aneurysm repaired, but if you knew how it was done– what goes on– you would be so repulsed that you would never allow it

Art is the opposite to me. A look inside the process🧵->
It's pretty obvious that artists, even in the same medium, use different techniques. Talking to my friends I learned a lot more about what goes into their craft, but also how difficult it can be to explain things as well (@thisjackkaido , I'm looking at you!) /2
Understanding what goes into a piece of art can give a different perspective than aesthetics alone. We can all go to a museum or an online galley & take in a work, the best of which stand on their own "as is", of course

But the backstory behind the creation adds more /3
You can never understand everything that goes into a work, but seeing @Reuben_Wu dart around on a volcano bridges the gap between concept & the masterpiece for me. I have a better context to appreciate his work after seeing the "behind the scenes"

/4
Across different mediums, the creative process remains interesting. I found this website on my friend @ArchanNair. The steps to used to create the art- the brushes, the colors, the photos- are described in detail. It’s almost “open source.”

creativecloud.adobe.com/discover/article/inside-the-mind-of-digital-dreamer-archan-nair

/5
Yet we all know that the masterpiece is only possible in his hands, despite the steps in plain view. An analogy would be that @YoYo_Ma and I could be reading the exact same sheet music, but somehow only he can create the masterpiece. It's really what you do with the tools /6
Traditional canvas based art has typically been where I’ve seen “process” the most, with artists showing progression over time in the studio. Little by little, more & more is added to the painting until it is finished (proof of work!) /7
the art of @ChrisBenchetler has been anything but traditional, and has bridged the canvas & NFT-native worlds in a way that is really artistic in itself. For example, in “coastal acoustic convergence”, the canvas is originally a large landscape /8
Next, the canvas is digitized and then wrapped around a sphere, allowing the small details to shine through and not get lost in the large dimensions of the landscape. Seeing the canvas without the NFT, or the NFT without the canvas, would not be enough to appreciate the art. /9

Photography is something I’m new to, and TBH the main reason I got interested was just getting to know @GuidoDisalle first and then his photography as a progression of that. I had no idea went into his work but took some time to learn about his setup and execution. /10
From the makeup, to lighting, to the storytelling he creates via composition was an eye opener. It is literally a physical challenge. To paraphrase, “Such an easy shot? But you didn’t take it” A ton of work goes into making something look effortless & creating the spontaneous /11
Glitch art is something else I didn’t understand until I looked into it deeper. Same idea, I met @JakNFT first and then got into his work as a progression of that. @TungstenDAO is the ultimate incubator for that type of interaction /12
The amount of effort & creativity that goes into his work is incredible. In "Angel"- 40 frames & 20+ layers of depth is borderline absurd. Even though the eye can’t decipher frame rates that high, now I can get a mysterious sense of what is going on



/13
Another digital artist that has an extremely unique creation process is @thisjackkaido. The process is so complicated that it is hard to even understand how layers (or actually lack of layers) are transferred between apps to apply different functions


/14
As iterations are made, they are swapped between apps to paint/draw/edit/cut/stretch/apply effects, then swapped again & again until finished. So it is not about color, or energy, or collage, or shape or abstraction- but rather all of these things from a single layer canvas 🤯/15
Not all artists create with a brush, and @yungwknd uses code. Each element of his creations comes from an almost mechanical input in javascript. This methodical process produces precise outputs, & some of the beauty in the art is seeing how he can make it into a composition /16
His latest work "sunshine cabin" shows how these alphanumerical commands can come together to create a painting that looks like it is on the verge of animation cabin.yungwknd.xyz/ /17
In terms of my own work, and generative work in general, there is not much visual to show to describe the process. The technique used in my recent projects is called diffusion modeling (diffusion model in PyTorch to be exact) & almost all of the code is open source on GitHub /18
It takes multiple layers of custom dataset training, typically over weeks, to arrive at a model that will simulate/synthesize exactly what I want. In an era of commercial click-to-generate AI art apps, I try to make sure the aesthetic qualities of my work help it to stand out /19
Overall, how art is made is fun to learn about & adds value. I truly believe we are living in a new age where the artists we see now are blazing paths that will be go down in history. These will be names that are remembered in museums of the future. /20
NFTs as part of the open metaverse give us a unique opportunity to have direct communication between artist/collector/fans, and with that comes insight into the creation process. And that’s something we can all slow down for and appreciate a little bit more 🙏 /21 end
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