Victor Gnarly is my own character art regurgitated by Ai so many times that I don’t consider it my own anymore. Figuratively speaking, he’s now just part of the collective goo within the black boxes of generated imagery. This website catalogs his adventures.

E-mail your derivative comics or films to be included in the Stories tab.

Any art of Victor not featured on this website is considered fanart. All works featuring him are Creative Commons.

What is Beyond the Valley?

Originally intended to be a tech demo of Ai storytelling, the web series evolved into an expression of a greater struggle all creatives are feeling right now. The plot is largely inspired by the famous Duck Amuck short from Looney Tunes with an Ai twist that’ll explore classic entertainment, popular internet media and so much more.

The rest you’ll just have to wait and see!

Are you an Ai developer?

No. I am a filmmaker with a background in Hollywood visual effects. Ai developers and their products are not storytellers, they generate images that without reasoning, societal context or purpose cannot create art. Victor is a demonstration of my own humanity within these artificial worlds told through both long form narratives and meme comics.

Are you training (via machine learning) ON other artists?

No. All my work is derivative to either hand drawn thumbnails fleshed out by Ai or uses references to guide the Ai’s understanding of my intent. Sometimes gifs and memes are used to direct the image into a familiar composition for the sake of parody but the artwork itself is usually derivative to my own storyboards.

However, I cannot guarantee anything else used doesn’t include copyright works as all publications fall under the terms of use for Adobe, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and Runway. Due to the nature of these black boxes, we’ll never truly know and that’s why you’re seeing this full lean into the technology (if and) until government regulation steps in.

This is also why all works produced are Creative Commons -- Share Alike unless partnered with a 3rd party.

Why do you use Ai?

I’ve generated roughly 40,000 images and all of which are not art on their own. They are, however, powerful tools that can do so much more than make pretty (and cursed) pictures. I went through my own grief for all creative industries as I saw an already stacked house of cards suddenly get a massive weight dropped on it. That weight is generated content.

My realization was that these black boxes had the potential to be entire animation or productions studios in your pocket that could be competitive to our corporate overlords. The irony is that by utilization Ai, indie artists could leverage this enhanced capability for more bargaining power. If you don’t need the studio dollars to make + share great content, why involve them at all? These are the tough questions we are asking through the MovieMachine workflow.

Or to put it more bluntly, this ugly art is the most punk rock thing I’ve ever experienced in my life and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.

What’s around the corner?

As audiences escape into their own generated worlds, those diverted eyeballs mean less clicks, limited engagement and (lastly) the zombification of an already dying internet run by bots. Staying relevant in a generated world is about to become an industry within itself, shifting the focus from content creators to corpo worldbuilders. If a company like Disney or government regulators are successful at shutting down public Ai, it’ll simply take its place in a much more neutered fashion. And arguments for that are both valid + worthy of intense scrutiny, the only thing I know is there isn’t one right answer when we’re talking about a super intelligence made by egotistical techbros.

All of this sounds a bit sci-fi now but we are stepping ever closer towards an entertainment singularity. The big players Netflix, Disney, Google and others have already begun the Ai arms race. As someone who’s worked in studios across multiple networks, the executives being able to nix those pesky creatives and their principals is what they want.

How do we fight back?

Education, practice and community projects:

1) Support local creatives whether it’s buying art directly, ordering a commission or otherwise protest with your wallet.

2) Explore generated content of your own artwork instead of corporate properties + their mascots

3) Credit artists when using their artwork in your own generated works with a [remix] tag.

4) Petition Ai companies to create passive revenue streams for traditional artists.

Should everyone use Ai?

No, this tool is in its infancy that needs a lot of tweaking + paintovers to hone in a particular vision. I have found a personal niche with a process I’ve dubbed “reverse metalogical filmmaking” where the generated images gives us a glimpse into a non-existent film that I then flesh out through remixes of generated content or editing afterward by hand.

Traditional artists however need to understand that this elevates their importance as authenticity grows in value to compensate the devaluation of all digital media. And it’s just my opinion, but this will be largely driven by public opinion therefore encouraging stronger parasocial relationships that many creatives are not ready to see or utilize themselves.

The most advantageous artists though will soon be collaborating with their artificial counterparts rather than adding yet another tool to their skillsets. Once the tech has matured, I expect to see many Victor-like doppelgangers telling stories, hawking products or otherwise visualize stories written in real time by your audiences.

The rest is pure speculation, even this prediction is likely to change soon. Please don’t shoot the messenger.