PRANAB JOSHI
AI VISUAL ARTIST
“I would rather have my work recognised than be known as a person. I struggled to find my niche as an artist because I couldn’t create my imagination but now because of AI, I can bring my imagination into life,” says Pranab Joshi, AI Visual Artist.
AI has revolutionised the world of visual art offering a fresh perspective on creativity and innovation. AI-generated art combines the power of machine learning algorithms with the human touch, resulting in captivating and boundary-pushing artworks. Pranab’s fascinating journey to becoming a visual artist started with an interest in photography. He however pursued an education in architecture. “My photography didn’t take a backseat. I kept shooting music videos,” he shares. Pranab has done more than 80–90 music videos in Nepal.
After deepening his skills with music videos and short movies, he directed the film, “Resam Firiri.”
So, what interests him in AI? “Artificial intelligence as a field is quite new for a lot of people. I do a lot of research on it. I started testing the AI visuals which now I have been doing for over a year,” he shares. In the beginning, he watched YouTube tutorials and kept experimenting and working on the visuals. The procedure for tuning a subject into an AI visual photo starts with software training the AI. The techniques involved in the process are very long. To get one perfect image, he has to produce hundreds to thousands of different images. “The image we are trying to achieve doesn’t come from the same software, we have to train different versions of Photoshop to get the desired image,” he says.
After experimenting and refining his work as a visual artist, he started to upload his work online on apps like Instagram and Facebook. The response was huge. Many people were interested in buying or customising work. He then made a page where he sells his visual art.
After this, he started learning and experimenting with face transformation with AI visuals. And this led to a multi-partnership between him and many celebrities. It is a mutual collaboration in which the visuals created by him are based on their imagination and what they want to see themselves as.
“AI acts as a tool and is also a co-creator in itself. AI visuals are used in the entertainment industry, media, advertising, marketing, design, architecture, fashion, training, and healthcare. Alexa and Google Home are basic tools of AI but now we have so many advanced tools that they can give us any data in just a click,” he informs.
Will AI overshadow the art of photography? “AI is impacting the future of the world and there is no turning back. When photography was introduced during the painting era, people thought it would lose all its importance, but it turned out that it made painting more valuable. Likewise, even if AI visuals come photography will have its importance,” he answers.
The challenge he faces while learning about AI visuals is that there is a new update almost every day, and he has to regularly watch tutorials to keep learning. “The language barrier in AI hinders the exact desired visual even though we completely train AI for what we want to generate. This mostly happens in the creation of Nepali visuals, as AI is based on Western culture and mythologies,” he explains.
His advice to future aspiring AI visual artists is that they explore the integration of AI and their creative practise while keeping in mind that AI is ever-changing and evolving. “The tools I used two weeks ago were changed in a span of 14 days, so you have to practise and experiment daily,” he shares.
Will AI replace human creativity? He says that AI is going to replace the majority of work and jobs in the coming days, but people will eventually find better jobs.
His upcoming project, which he also believes is a masterpiece is an art piece about the “Nigerian Prince”, the greatest scammer in the world. He is excited to see how people will interpret it because in reality, it doesn’t exist.
