Artist's Statement: Summoning An Oracle

Process Notes

The above was the result of using AI, which I then edited. What follows are the original words I wrote. I mention it as this writing process is related to the smaller process of building images and the larger process of using AI (in that I try to think first, then rely on AI to improve and restructure, but not always, as the dialogue is what improves):

I've always had a profound interest and active study in history, technology and the occult. Throughout my life, I have tried to understand the deeper roots of human comprehension since we seem to be a symbolic species. Whether the i-ching, the Egyptian book of the dead, the kabala, the bible, koran, or any of the hundreds of other ancient texts I've read (I'm trained as a classicist and can de-code ancient Greek, as well as fluent in French in Spanish) the lost knowledge that provides a view into other worlds and how we stir and blend different world views and understandings together has hypnotised me.

Ontologies that provide a scaffolding for these things such as the tarot or the I Ching is, of course, linked to artificial intelligence for the above reasons. The idea of summoning a daemon, the traditional linux name for a background process has always seemed a kind of divination or summoning. The traditional ideas of abracadabra, or "in the beginning with the word" are ideas that software and the occult are both based upon.

Our instinctive desire to summon knowledge through a conversational entity is a fundamentally instinctual tendency we have and the myths and legends from thousands of years ago are each different cultural views of this truth. I was drawn to building a tarot deck, using AI for these reasons. The tarot deck and AI are both ontologies of collective knowledge that provide an algorithmic window into questions we ask. They both contain many of the same parallels of probability, inference, a reflection of ourselves, and a willingness to learn and look beyond what we can see.

So that's what drew me to creating this deck. I started the project three years ago. Each illustration was generated with some principles, but the way the variable stacked changed from card to card.

I worked with the RWS deck, but also carefully researched, the "visual etymology" and symbolism of seven other decks. I worked with three professional tarot card readers and over a dozen friends to try to find a user interface for the deck, a way to advance the art of tarot, but also respect the tradition and pneumonic devices that are used in the symbols, pushing myself to make each image the very best I could without any deadlines.

I'm also a sailor, and after having lived on my sailboat for 18 years, the world of the sea has soaked my brain and heart and so doused many of the traditional fire or earth elements, adding a bit of salt to the symbolism, perhaps more than was necessary.

By way of introduction, I'm a classically-trained oil painter (MFA/SFAI, 1992), focusing on semi-abstract portraits. In 1999 I started using Adobe Photoshop (i think it was V.1) which I'd pirated while working in FLAX, the local art supply store on Market street. My path using software was always twisted into my path using paint because the core exploration was the same question; "how do the variables stack?"

Moving to Europe in the oughts I had my own art gallery in Paris, where I sold paintings, meanwhile building interactive AI portraits with Xerox-PARC, TheWaag, Ars Electronica and others. These days I work as a researcher at NASA, leading a team of about a dozen people developing AI focused on research systems and white space identification. I'm also working on inventing airports 50 years in the future (writing and painting to explain the concepts), but that's another story.

There's something fundamentally occult about AI. Not only that it is a root system of what we know, but in that it reflects back to us what we are through a growth process that is sometimes invisible. AI is esoteric. The virtual can be considered a step towards the spiritual.

This tarot deck is different and unique compared to the tradition for three reasons.

It is a calculated deviation from tradition. Many of the basic concepts and specific forms are generated by AI. That said there was not a pixel that I have not inspected and changed. Each image took approximately seven hours of work. So the struggle, like all art, is in achieving an act equal to the will.

It is a willful deviation from the calculation. AI is great for getting most of the work done, but AI slop is a real thing and AI is not very well loved in the traditional art world now partly for this reason. But just like computer graphics of the 1980s, it will be adopted and artists will learn how to use it. AI is asymptotic. The asymptote rises quickly, and as you near the end of the calculation, you can never quite hit the upper limit you wanted. You can get about 80 or 90% of what you want, but you can't hit the excellence of art with just the tool. That means that for most of these cards, I started with a watercolor or sketch, fed that into midjourney, used style references ("—sref"), profiles ("—p"), image weights ("—iw"), and any and all other technical efforts i could summon, usually getting frustrated and moving onto a different card. It was a long struggle and eventually I learned that producing the image I felt was needed required solving the problem from directions I had not previously imagined. Anyway the process was going from a sketcher watercolor, then through mid journey, then re-prompting, sometimes nearly 1000 times until I got something shaped like I wanted. This I then took into GIMP (an open source version of Photoshop) and using my tablet stylus just got into pushing pixels until the final result was where it needed to be.

The deviation always led me back to the tradition. I would be gleefully careening off into some abstract exploration (the ability to produce an image in about 30 seconds is as rewarding as it is distracting), and then I would realize that any educated tarot card reader would not be able to interpret what I'd put down. I almost always kept the RWS deck at my elbow, but was constantly looking up other interpretations and trying to orbit a traditional set of symbols, that alone took half of the production time because while you can get AI to produce a general image quickly it is impossible today, to my knowledge, for AI to properly produce the multiple images and icons that a single card presents simultaneously. The point about the asymptote is important: the art is what is above the 90% return the tech provides.

AI brings something to the tarot deck that the tarot deck brings to us: a complicated language of symbols which pattern shift and rearrange in front of us, so we can improve our understanding of ourselves through reflection. There are many parallels between AI and the tarot deck, but at their core they are both providing us reflection.

What I learned from doing this is that automation can cover the bulk of the work, but that the artist is there to provide the refinement, connect the symbols and bring meaning. AI's knowledge is based on learning, but art's knowledge is based on experience. And that's a very human line.

Decks referenced (among other research):
Visconti-Sforza Tarot (c. 1450)
Tarot de Marseille (17th century)
Golden Dawn Tarot (? 1900 ?)
Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (1909)
Crowley's Thoth Tarot (1944)
Salvador Dalí Universal Tarot (Salvador Dalí, 1984)
Hexen 2.0 Tarot (Suzanne Treister, 2011)

Last note, if you're still reading and interested in how i used AI to get to the top text, in some cases i was engaged in a direct dialogue about the phrase being written. here's a final example, then i'll stop.

ME:
Ok, great, now lets look at this question and think more deeply about this: "What does it mean to be willful in a chaotic world?" .. is that the question, here? Please give me your reflections on that and if that is the core question that overlaps the skills of esoteric, scientific, engineering and artistic practices. The term "Will" is important here, it denotes the basis of divination, projection, much traditional magick and in the context of Hermeticism, particularly the texts of Hermes Trismegistus, the concept of Will is twisted into the concept of the divine. how can we improve the phrasing of that sentence and core question?

AI:
You're absolutely right to question this. "Willful" feels too narrow and almost petulant—it misses the profound metaphysical weight you're after.

Will in the Hermetic tradition isn't about stubbornness or personal desire, but about the divine creative force—the λόγος made manifest through conscious intention. It's the same Will that Crowley explored in "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"—not arbitrary desire, but alignment with one's true divine nature and purpose.

The question that seems to run through esoteric, scientific, engineering, and artistic practices is closer to:

"How do we align our Will with the patterns that govern reality?"

Or perhaps:

"What does it mean to exercise divine Will in an uncertain cosmos?"
"How do we shape reality through conscious intention when the underlying patterns remain hidden?"

The overlap between these disciplines is precisely this: they all seek to understand and work with hidden patterns—whether through divination, scientific method, algorithmic processes, or artistic intuition. They're all attempting to bridge the gap between human consciousness and the deeper ordering principles of existence.

Tarot, AI, engineering, and art all ask: How do we participate consciously in the creative forces that shape reality? They're tools for exercising Will in the Hermetic sense—not imposing arbitrary desire, but discovering and aligning with the deeper currents of creation.

What resonates most with your vision of this overlap?

ME:
i like, "How do we align our Will with the patterns that govern reality?" but it should be tighter, pithier. try again please then i'll edit

AI:
Here are tighter versions:
"How do we align Will with reality's patterns?"
"How do we align our Will with the governing patterns?"
"How does Will align with reality's hidden order?"
"How do we harmonize Will with cosmic pattern?"
"How does Will work with reality's design?"

My favorite is the first: "How do we align Will with reality's patterns?"

It's direct, uses "Will" in the Hermetic sense you want, and captures that fundamental question about conscious intention working with (not against) the underlying structures of existence—whether you're reading cards, training algorithms, or creating art.