Since Google’s DeepDream programme in 2015, machine learning has advanced significantly. We suddenly find ourselves able to create any image we can imagine in any style, as opposed to the original technology’s lucid dream of transforming everything within a photo into a creepy dog’s face. The fact that it can achieve this new level of precision using a text description rather than a reference image is one of the most astounding recent developments. One of the latest project’s to explore this technology, Artsy Monke, was developed using Google’s powerful Cloud Computing service and recent advancements in AI and picture diffusion methods on their collaborative notebook platform, Colab.
“We fed the machine ten thousand cartoon apes, it then destroyed each one in turn using noise filters, then de-noised them back to life over hundreds of steps to bring into focus a new work of fine art according to the descriptive prompts we requested.” Said the project’s artist, CryptoGrims. “A ghost remains of the original ape if you half close your eyes and look sideways at it, but up close every pixel is brand new, and you suddenly have an oil painted landscape.”
The results are incredible. Browsing through the 10,000 Artsy Monke collection, it’s easy to pick out the intricate Viking ship scenes, the moody neon city landscapes, and the intense stormy oceans, but if we step back while looking at any one piece, we see what once was a very familiar Bored looking Ape.
The collection of 10,000 portraits of painterly apes took several machines weeks of processing power to compute, but only minutes to eventually sell out. “We sold 400 or so initially, and then told the world about it.” Said project artist CryptoGrims. “When that happened, all ten thousand were gone in minutes.”
Holders have continued to trade the art pieces on NFT marketplace OpenSea ever since, with over 200 ETH ($316,680) of sales volume generated in secondary sales alone. Anyone who bought an Artsy Monke for $1 a few weeks ago would now be able to sell it at close to forty times that amount. With the highest purchase so far standing at 1 Eth, there are already over two hundred and fifty of the pieces currently listed for sale by their owners at an eye-watering 10 ETH($15,834) or higher.
Boasting a 4K resolution print-ready version available only to owners, the collection has quickly evolved to be much more than just fine art. An online video game arcade world is in development, with Artsy Monke holders to be given free access to play and earn digital currency. They are also releasing a series of children’s books in partnership with a bestselling writer/illustrator to cement a relationship with their future audience.
“We felt there was something missing from standard NFT art. We wanted to recreate the magic of the Bored Ape collection and convert it into art.” Said Dan Hovey, Artsy Monke’s Blockchain Developer. More information can be found at OpenSea or the official website at ArtsyMonke.com.
