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Visual Turntablism | Cars by Fashion Brands

 

I made these car images in an AI generator using the prompt car by (enter fashion label). They popped out pretty much as you see them.  It's a trend at this point to mix-master adjacent concepts using AI. Makes me think we’re entering the turntable era of film production.

The turntable era of music production took off in the late 1970s, when DJs in New York and Chicago would loop segments of records-- taking backbeats and vocal tracks from different songs-- and combine them in original ways to form the bedrock of hip-hop and house.

This sample-based mode of music production-- which also has roots in 1960’s Jamaican dancehall riddims, where producers would record rhythm tracks and resell them for use in hundreds of songs-- has now become the dominant mode of music production the world over.

Music producers use samples and prerecorded sound libraries because it’s cheaper than putting a band or orchestra together and recording it yourself. Composers for TV shows never need step out of their home studios to produce a sweeping orchestral theme and bedroom pop stars can drop masterpieces with a set of headphones and a laptop.

The combinative approach-- like our own DNA blueprints, made from four discrete nucleotides recombined in billions of ways-- is also an underlying methodology of AI image prompts. Star Wars by Wes Anderson. Guns by soda brands. Cars by fashion brands. Recombining pre-existing ingredients to conjure original works.  [A method also employed in the visual effects and gaming worlds, with 3D model marketplaces providing a massive virtual storehouse of prefabricated items for artists to use].   

AI image generators produce astounding results out-of-the-box. AI video is turning the corner, and bedroom filmmakers can start self-producing sweeping masterpieces of their own.

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