Unburdened by the plastic wrap so common to art books, it was sitting in the bookstore and was reminded how much I wanted it. A copy of The Art of WolfWalkers. Ten minutes of delight, but it was too spendy for this trip.
WolfWalkers is the third in a set devoted to Irish myth from Cartoon Salon - a tiny studio in Kilkenny, Ireland that has won respect from Pixar, Disney Animation and Studio Ghibli. It's on Apple TV+ if you like amazing animation.
Animation studios and art schools are amazing places. Years ago they seemed like black boxes that took stories and turned them into animation. More recently I've been involved with one and am wobbled by the amount of creativity and work play that goes into the most simple moments. It's always a team effort spread among disciplines and years.
After a few months I finally bought the book. Just wow! Here's a video of a roundtable the before the film was released. It was my introduction to the film (although not to the myth or its historical offshoot as Kilkenny is an ancestral home).
It's worth writing about as (a) some of you may enjoy and even love it and, (b) creativity in the era of generative AI is something I've been spending time on this past year an animation studio and two universities. Signals have emerged.
The New Yorker published a must-read piece on AI and Art by Ted Chiang. Given my experience with animation studios, a music conservatory and physics and math, I'm in conditional agreement. I do see a place as a tool, even in the creative arts, but more as a tool to relieve drudgery rather than become 'thought'. I use it to organize references in papers as well as to create simple programs that involve freshman level programming for simple but time-consuming tasks. I stay far away when precision and accuracy are needed and I don't see the creative spark.
Film studios, musicians, and artists worry about wholesale theft of their work in the short term and the potential, if these tools improve, that we'll see more 'art' of lower caliber largely because human-created art is too expensive. I think the later isn't possible with generative AI - at least not for quality work. That doesn't mean real art won't be forced out by economic pressures.
As for schools I worry teenagers may take the easy way out in pursuit of easy grades and free time. They'll be cheating themselves. The world has no need for more high school essays, but that isn't why they're assigned. On the other hand student can learn about tasks these tools can help them with. That's going to be more important in college. I've been on two task forces and some schools are developing solid measures as well as the ability to change with time. The guiding light is "are you teaching them how to think?"
Clearly we're in a fascinating time. I think we'll see some real carnage in the industry and use cases before signals we probably haven't thought about emerge. But in the meantime we have beautiful art. If you haven't seen WolfWalkers, you're in for a treat!
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