Tezos

Bienvenidos a Two Flags

Creator

tz1Y3hJohL6NVTkhZUJ1czH3cvG5U1bzFaie

Description

Shadows of a man sagged off the concertina wire that guards the border. Douglas, Arizona at Agua Prieta. He lost a black outfit in his attempt to enter the U.S. Other signs of life lie at the breach in the border. Was he arrested during this attempt, I asked myself aloud, at the starkly barren no man's land at International and G avenues. My photojournalist images and videos were strong enough to share. Those documents may wind up on the blockchain. However, I wanted to add colour to this story I felt compelled to recreate. My first step was running the image through Midjourney. The original fragmentation of the picture plane gave me overly abstract results. So I started my process over, running my street photo through Dall-e. That’s when my shadow man emerged from the scene. After a bit of tweaking, I opened up Midjourney and uploaded my work in progress. The results still weren’t hitting, so I added Mark Rothko, the esteemed Latvian-American abstract painter, to the rendering thread. Presto! The magic grew. Two variations, then my traditional colour grading technique for images. Why didn’t I simply upload the original street photos to the block? The evidence I found at the border needed to carry a hopeful message. The AI generated figure that emerged says just that. At the risk of life and limb, thousands of migrants enter the U.S. every day. The current situation of illegal entry into America only seems to be increasing. Who’s to blame: a man looking to make a better life for his family, taking illegal action to justify his necessity, or the oppressive U.S. foreign policy that favors despots and dictators in order to secure more resources? Both. We’ve all been at the precipice of a life-changing decision. Some are as mundane as getting married. Others have had to save the life of a fellow soldier in real time. ‘Bienvenidos a Two Flags,’ is a reflection of the risks that life demands of us. Often when we’re ill prepared to do so. The artistic result of this piece is to avoid providing answers but instead mirror the reality of perception.

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