The laughing-while-eating-salad meme was always a curt commentary on the role of marketed images in our society, one hard to forget. In my attempts to seek out re-framing of darker styles with light-hearted motifs I began with a curiosity of trying the intricate work of H. R. Giger against this backdrop.
This album features images generated by text prompt
using StabilityAI's Stable Diffusion, unless otherwise noted.
Prompts are displayed in this font.
Here we begin with selections from the first series. The specific prompt was not recorded, but I believe it was prefigured in the style of Giger, Rembrandt and Dr. Seuss.
Series B attempted to move the style lighter. Skeletons seemed possibly a less grotesque image for Giger to work with, avoiding some of the strangeness of rendering people.
happy skeletons laughing and eating salad at a dining table, artwork by HR Giger and Rembrandt and Dr. Seuss, bright and happy palette
Look at the trouble you get into without salad.
Don't wait to find out about salad.
Series C: Intrigued by the motif's weight I pushed friendlier aesthetics, but I kept Giger around. The corporate nature of the laughing-salad stock image seemed a strange juxtaposition to offer with the family notion. I suppose it simply becomes the 'work family'.
happy corporate family laughing and eating salad at a dining table, corporate marketing photograph artwork by HR Giger and Rembrandt and Dr. Seuss, bright and happy palette, friendly and welcoming
Finally a synergy of business and salad.
Salad is green and efficiently conveys information.
Here the same prompt was attempted using Midjourney, which was mostly just strange.
Series D: none were saved from this series.
happy corporate family laughing and eating salad at a dining table, corporate marketing photograph artwork by HR Giger and Rembrandt and Dr. Seuss, bright and happy palette, maybe not delightful but still friendly
Series E, pushing further into marketing aesthetic, dropping Rembrandt (but not Giger) to draw the palette more modernly. These started to exert a real fanatic sense of the scenario which I appreciated, a kind of madness of "corpo-neutralism" which was brought out further by 'illustration'. Often I will use the 'diorama' cue to try to produce depth to the scene.
a happy corporate-neutral family laughs over their salad meal, a corporate marketing diorama illustrated by HR Giger and Dr. Seuss
You can relax with salad's solution to bureaucracy.
In old time salad was small and disguised.
Over the ages we plundered salad's secrets.
But salad became specialized, dangerous.
"I can't believe I brought this much salad."
This prompt was also attempted using Midjourney. While interesting, I still preferred the whimsical fanaticism of Stable Diffusion's output.
Series F pushed this further. I may have lost Giger at this point, and extrapolated more intriguing illustrative qualities by using Mœbius (Jean Giraud) as a style cue.
a happy corporate-neutral family laughs over their salad meal, a corporate marketing diorama illustrated by Hans Giger and Dr. Seuss and Jean Giraud
Our premium salad delights you with safe amusement.
Even safe for use with your illustrated friends.
Salad guard always ready if salad becomes dangerous.
"Let us believe this great safety, thanks salad!"
And Midjourney attempts with same prompt:
Here I switched to a new prompting. Some other series have tried to explore pareidolia to see if generative AI could encode suggested imagery on top of given imagery. I still have yet to find any success. These were all failures of my ambiguous prompting, but still represented the laughing-salad motif.
a nice close portrait scene of a family eating a salad and laughing at a table, but on closer inspection everything is just piles of grapes
Even children understand salad.
Feel salad's power in your hands.
Enjoy the warm happiness of salad around us.
(Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Aministration. Salad is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.)
Midjourney managed some curiosity with the same prompt and its subsequent effort of using fish instead of grapes. Either way, there is no hidden imagery here.
In the end Stable Diffusion was a real champion in producing what I wanted here, and such a 'vein' could provide a rich source of endless corpo-neutral salad engorgement. Midjourney has its own strengths elsewhere of course.
