Schiele’s Ghost Reloaded (V2) 2023
This project symbolizes the continuation of my artistic exploration that began with Schiele’s Ghost 10,000 (see below). The development of this work is guided by a central question: How can a living person today be integrated into this project, creating a connection between the past and the present?
To achieve this goal, I used the AI tool “Midjourney”. With this innovative tool, it’s possible to blend photographs of contemporary faces with a generated image from Schiele’s Ghost 10,000 using the /blend mode. This creates a fusion between Egon Schiele and the modern world, resulting in new images, yet the individuals depicted are unrecognizable.
The technology behind “Midjourney” offers new perspectives compared to Schiele’s Ghost 10,000. Midjourney has access to an unknown dataset of Egon Schiele’s works and can imitate his style. By using the prompt “Egon Schiele,” the images generated through /blend are shifted even more clearly toward Schiele’s style. By 2023, the technology had evolved to the point of generating nearly photorealistic images, yet these also feature intentional imperfections, such as unusual arrangements of body parts or incorrect numbers of fingers. These flaws draw my attention and, in my point of view, define a distinctive expression of AI art in this specific period. However, I guess that future technological developments may soon eliminate such errors.
In a time when the world is striving for perfection in artificially generated images, and debates about copyright and the definition of art are ongoing, I’ve found my own answer. AI art is a document of our time, created through technology. The images being produced now are unique and inseparable from the present moment. Each click of the generate button results in a new, unmistakable work.
These considerations provoke the question: Do painters experience something similar? Can they truly realize their vision 100%, or do their practice and the use of technical tools shape the final artwork?
For me, the creative process is a mental journey. As I design, arrange, develop images, and finally select the appropriate paper, countless thoughts flow through me. These artworks are testaments to this unique era in human history, one in which I find myself in the midst of a technological paradigm shift and a full impact of which remains to be seen. Fascination and unease are closely linked.
The works in Schiele’s Ghost Reloaded represent the collaboration between human and machine. Without the machine, they would not be possible, and without my artistic vision, these images would not exist. Just as a painter needs brushes and paint, or a photographer needs a camera to create, these works are born from a symbiotic relationship that explores the boundaries of creativity in the age of AI.
The series is printed in editions of 10, with each purchase including an accompanying NFT.
s.myselle, 2024
Schiele’s Ghost 10,000 (V1) 2021
“I am everything at once – but never will I do everything at the same time.”
Egon Schiele, 1910
„May you live in interesting times,“ was the motto of the 2019 Venice Biennale, the last ordinary edition before everything changed. Then came the pandemic, sweeping over us, seemingly tearing apart the basics of society. This old Chinese curse appeared to have caught up with the present, or perhaps was it simply history repeating itself? Pandemics and diseases have always interrupted societies, reshaping, transforming, and creating new directions. The last pandemic to affect Europe and the world in a similar, yet distinct, way to today’s COVID-19 was the Spanish flu. One of its most famous Austrian victims was the artist Egon Schiele—he was not spared by the virus. Schiele died in 1918, at a time when no vaccine existed, and there were also no state programs to support the survivors financially or in any other form.
Egon Schiele passed away at the height of his career. A century later, our society faced a similar scenario. Although much milder, it is still comparable. The science of the fin de siècle, closely intertwined with art, reached its peak shortly before everything turned tragic. Before the political change forced many brilliant minds to leave Austria. Is history repeating itself in a modern way? Have we learned as a society, or are we doomed to repeat the past? Indeed, we live in interesting times, don’t we?
Since May 2021, artist Stephanie Meisl (s.myselle) has been engaging with Egon Schiele’s legacy. The foundation of Schiele’s Ghost stems from hours of discussions with AI expert and artist Martin Gasser during the pandemic. The question at the heart of this exploration was: Can a machine capture and reproduce the essence of Egon Schiele?
The project, Schiele’s Ghost, began with an in-depth study of Schiele’s life, personality, thoughts, and artistic style. The result is 10,000 machine-learning-generated images, based on a dataset of 440 digital images of Egon Schiele, sourced from the Kallir Research Institute. The artificial intelligence creates new works, incorporating traces of Schiele, analyzing, deconstructing, and rearranging them—continuously evolving under the curation and direction of the artist.
What remains is Schiele’s Ghost: an infinite series of synthetic images, generated on demand. They resemble each other yet remain distinct, never identical. „Same same, but different.“ This complexity is reflected in the totality of the 10,000 images, and, if one so chooses, Schiele’s Ghost reveals itself to the viewer.
s.myselle, 2023
Artist’s Note, February 2024:
In 2023, Schiele’s Ghost was widely featured in educational lectures, keynotes, panel discussions, and workshops helping to introduce audiences to the concept of what we call „artificial intelligence“ (machine learning). It has become a central art research project through which the emerging art form of AI-generated art is analyzed, discussed, and explored. New technologies are transforming the way art is expressed, it forces us to reconsider ethical and moral standards, it creates a demand for new rules – and I see AI as a tool to reflect and interpret contemporary perceptions of the present and the past.
As part of the concept, the digital twins of these images are being registered as NFTs on a blockchain – mainly it was the Tezos Blockchain, documenting this current trend. Whether NFTs will endure or not remains to be seen. When the images are purchased, the buyer receives an NFT, transferred once they communicate with the artist and provide a Tezos wallet. Until then, the artist holds these NFTs in trust.
