Today’s phenomenal artist is yet another great find by Alison and Don of Adventures in Wonderland. I’m starting to think I should be paying you two a finders’ fee…

Sweden-born (Austin-based) photographer and graphic designer Jonas Peterson has found an entirely new way to celebrate older folks. Though he is a professional fashion photographer, he created this series, known as Youth is Wasted on the Young, using only computer software. Both the people and the wild fashions they’re wearing are completely created by AI (artificial intelligence). I always thought using AI to create images was kind of cheating, but the way Peterson describes it has given me a different impression entirely.

“I give specific direction using words only to a program, lenses, angles, camera choice, color theme, colors, styling, backgrounds, attitude and overall look and the artificial intelligence goes to work, it sends back suggestions and more often than not it’s completely wrong, so I try other ways to describe what I’m after, change wording, move phrases around and try to get the AI to understand the mood. It’s frustrating mostly, the AI is still learning, but getting any collaborator to understand you can be difficult no matter if it’s a human or a machine.

“After a long stretch of trial and error I get closer to a style and look I want and after that it comes down to curation, picking the renders I believe go well together, I start making it a series. To me the process is similar to that of a film director’s, I direct the AI the same way they would talk to an actor or set designer, it’s a process, we try over and over again until we get it right.”

– Creation Process, Jonas Peterson

I’m utterly fascinated with the images, both still and moving, that this artist and his computer have been able to cook up. What a collaboration!

You can see all of Jonas Peterson’s amazing art on his website and on Instagram and Facebook.

Note: I know Instagram is being a jerk lately. In case these posts don’t load for you, I’d like to ask you to at least click on the first embed below. I promise it’s worth it.

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A post shared by Jonas Peterson (@jonaspeterson_ai)