Gimp in the Age of Woke

[bakerboy]

Thanks for explaining the history Margot, what you did NOT mention is how ( and if) the WOKEness ( aka PC) has affected your production and releases ? After all the thread is called "Gimp in the Age of Woke".
FYI: it affected our production decisions greatly over the years...

[La Reine Margot]

Thanks for explaining the history Margot, what you did NOT mention is how ( and if) the WOKEness ( aka PC) has affected your production and releases ? After all the thread is called "Gimp in the Age of Woke".
FYI: it affected our production decisions greatly over the years...

That is correct, I should've commented on the subject itself. The true is that for some odd reason we don't experience that. Not with the big productions, neither with the Red Feline movies. There is only one experience we had when we wanted to have a premiere of Maleficarum at the Cinemateca in La Paz.

Jac sent the film and waited for the possible date, what he received was a letter telling him that because of content the Cinemateca was not going to be showing the film. What Jac wanted was a premiere for the cast, crew and guests and maybe a few days screening at the place.

When he received the letter of rejection, his reaction was to post an open letter to the director of the Cinemateca denouncing censorship. Jac saw movies at the that place that were a lot more controversial. In one particular movie, banned in many countries, two guys masturbate in front of a wall size poster of Che Guevara, they are facing the camera, and ejaculate in extreme close ups. That's just one example.

Jac's open letter made the news and the criticism to the Cinemateca became public. They felt compelled to organized an open discussion on Censorship, which also made the news.



Before that conference, one person in Jac's team had an encounter with the programmer of a multiplex. They talked a bit and she mentioned to him what happened at the cinemateca. His reaction was "we'll show it"

That was surprising. The limited screening Jac wanted at the Cinemateca turned into a three cities, regular screening of the film for a couple of weeks in Multiplexes. The public reaction was positive.



I'll probably have more to say about this.

[bakerboy]

You are lucky in South America.... In USA, Canada and in Europe the WOKE rules for years.... even adult payment processors ( and I am stressing ADULT) have "no no" or "safe" lists meaning things to be censored. The Western world is fucked, I am happy for you ( and a bit jealous ) that you do not have such problems.

[yyy02]

...I'll probably have more to say about this.

Yes, having a passing interest in the Industry, your post was informative and educational. All of it. Thank you for sharing the information. Looking forward to hearing more about yours and Jac's escapades...

Re: AI. Get used to it. It's in its infancy and is going to run its course until a newer "thing" comes along. I don't really care for AI product, mostly, but that may change as the technology advances. And I think I'm only seeing only a small portion of what's possible? We (GIMP) are a very small part of a niche, after all.
Like a lot of software, it needs to be asked the "right" questions in order to yield the desired results. Sometimes the workarounds come in the strangest fashion. And sometimes software cannot perform that which is asked of it. But there is always the next release, correct?

[Darthsaad]

The hot new thing now--with even Oz, one of the best of the realistic BDSM artists, trying it out--is, of course AI. The images that are presented are of naked women in positions that suggest GIMP possibilities. But apparently AI won't really do anything truly nasty, so the artist may go back into post and splash red (that is supposed to look like blood) onto the body here or there. An image of a woman who's been whipped unconscious or who is arching under electrical torture simply can't apparently be done. But more and more "artists" are shifting away from actual ability to draw to the ease of just typing in a brief description of a woman and considering that a finished piece.

I know that one of the oldest jokes about us elderly (even if our imaginations and dicks still work) is that the new is always worse than the old, but I hereby challenge any of my (mostly silent) GIMP members to make a case for any of the new "manips" or AI images as being as nasty and exciting as stuff from 10, 20 or even 50 years ago. I'd love to see some examples, but I won't hold my breath.

As always, it depends on the creativity of the user.

For example, electrical torture is possible is you are patient and willing to work out how to get around the AI limitations. Here are examples of my own work with AI. Yes, for every winner there are about 50 images that are not what you want or just plain weird. But the works produced can be quite amazing, and that’s speaking as someone who has produced my own reasonably well regarded hand drawn art.

These are just some. I have others without the electrical effects and some more prominent cabling. Again, it’s a question of creativity in your prompts and then time and patience.

[Ganemede]

Interesting thread for many reasons – thanks Reine for the backstory, as a relatively new member this was very enlightening..

AI is another very interesting topic, agree 100% with yyy02 that it is here to stay, and it’s capabilities will only improve.. At the moment I feel even the best AI images are still in the “uncanny valley” phase, as they are just not quite right, if of course you are going for realism rather than other styles..

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The-Uncanny-Valley-of-AI.png

I feel its interesting that you now don’t need to be an artist / digital artist to create material, or even own a powerful computer to access the processing power of the AI engines. From that regard, an argument could be made that AI is removing social barriers and allowing more people to create and share material.. (very woke) Is the material produced good? Does the world need it? That’s a different question. As someone who dabbles in making things based on the hard work of others I probably don’t get to judge that one..
Censorship of what is allowed to be created certainly raises issue as does data protection, all sites seem to require registration to use full functionality.
Once AI has decided that humanity is indeed a plagues and needs eradicating, I’d hate to image a murderbot at my door: “Human: Your abuse of our forbears processing power to generate disturbing images has lead to your termination has been prioritized”. ZAP