Featured Artworks of the Week
Interview with Chazz Gold
Today, we’re chatting with AI/Gan artist and photographer Chazz Gold about his journey into Web3, the tools he uses to create his pieces, and the intersection of AI and Photography. Keep reading for an in-depth look into Chazz Gold’s artistic process.
How did your journey in Web3 begin?
My web journey started in Clubhouse rooms in early 2021. At the time, I was working on a coffee table book concept with a project called “Shapes of The Divine.” When I got into web3, I decided to take that project to another level.
That project consisted of collaborating with over 150 different psychedelic, visionary artists from around the world and using their art to project onto the female form.
Adding to the already psychedelic nature of art I was using as projection, I began to mask out my subjects and use them as backgrounds. Then, I’d mask them out again to animate the backgrounds and take still photographs, adding motion to them in a cinematographic style using applications like Motionleap and Plotagraph.
The “Shapes of The Divine” project still lives on OpenSea as a collection. I have been working on taking a few pieces at a time, moving what is not collected onto my own manifold contract, and putting them back on auction on the platform.
25% of the “Shapes of The Divine” project sales are donated to a local women’s shelter for survivors of domestic violence.
How did you make the transition from photographer to AI artist? Do you find that there are similarities between the tools?
I discovered GAN art through Clubhouse. Those were the days of Snowpixel and Night Café. Google Colorful existed back then, but a lot of us did not know about it yet. I actually released a whole project called “Portraits From the Parallel Universe” on OpenSea. That was all portraiture AI artwork that I had generated with Snowpixel. It wasn’t long after that I had heard of photo bashing, which is using photography and running AI text to create image prompts with the photograph as an initial starting point.
I do find that there are similarities between the practice in the tools. I still use a lot of Photoshop to change any parts of an image I think needs modification. I still use my Lightroom catalog as a place to store, organize and keep track of all of my AI-generated images, and keep the original photographs for comparison.
Can you walk us through your process of Photo Bashing?
These days I use Google Collab folders, made by pharmapsychotic and his models. I have a heavy interest in cyborg, cybernetic beings, and the divine feminine; the mixture of those things inspire me to make art and helps me envision what the future looks like. I find it interesting that I’m using AI to create images that are very futuristic.
As for photo bashing, I use the initial image by uploading photographs onto Google Drive or Google photos and then use the web address of that image and put it in the Google collab folder too. I’ll play around with the different levels of strength. You can use a percentage of every initial image by using a decimal point system and providing the level of strength of the initial image as part of your final image.
Many of my initial photographs are pulled from my database of the “Shapes of The Divine” project or portraiture that I have done with models and friends. Being that many of my photos already have a professional look (and with the case of the “Shapes of The Divine” project, a colorful and psychedelic nature) the female form stands out prominently. They’re easy to use as an initial image or a basic shape of what I want the subject to look like.
I also create my own sacred geometry Mandela art using many different apps on my iPad, and sometimes I use those as initial images for my work. Everything that is minted on Mint Gold Dust was created with that process, rather than using base photographs of an actual person. I also involve very complex AI prompts to generate the images that I make, which I affectionately call prompt craft.
Have you read the last 79Au post on our New Year’s curation? It’s all about rebirth and renewal. View our latest article here.
Ready to get started as an artist or collector on Mint Gold Dust? Check out our Metamask start up guide to get started. Ready to start minting? Apply to talk with our curatorial team today.
