02: Generating originality from sentimentality

In his first recipe, Tim Yarzhombek showed us how fingerprints could form the basis of a model to create linocut art. Next, he describes how a memory from childhood train journeys led him to a series of surrealist paintings.

1. exactly.ai is probably the first full-fledged creative tool that can fit in your pocket. One day, I was on a train and imagined making a model from the Soviet trains I remembered from my childhood.

2. I gathered a dataset of photographs of people looking out of train windows. I like to observe these scenes as people pass in long-distance trains; imagining how they sleep, eat, or walk.

3. I trained a model on these photos and then tried to generate paintings. I started with prompting the model to create an oil painting of the window of a train. Sometimes I experimented with adding the names of specific artists in prompts for the model to reference.

4. I also experimented with creating unusual scenes on the train like an alien or an elephant. I really liked how exactly recreated the foggy glass.

5. I’ve found that models based on photographs work unusually well with prompts relating to 3D graphics. Although the image doesn't change much it adds a bit of surrealism and madness. You can get similar, interesting results when you ask the model to replace people with sculptures.

6. I returned to generating images of paintings. This time focusing on having the train car appear as a frame for the painting.

I think the results here resembled a computer bug, or a rift through time.

7. I combined this idea with my recollections of the unpleasant characters who haunt Russian trains. I added "Peter Breugel" to my prompts as he sometimes depicted unpleasant scenes.

The result was a perfect match: oil paintings of undesirables framed by Soviet train cars. Magic! It's a fantastic example of how iterating your prompts based and allowing them to depart from your original vision for the base model can open up new and exciting creative directions.

These works were selected and exhibited in a group show of artists who work with exactly.