The iPigeon.institute "Journey Through Art History" Generative AI Online Art Exhibition (annotations coming soon).

 It's the year 2024. 

We'd had several months' lead up time, to this place in time (February, 2024), in which conversational AI, Search Assistance with AI, and AI featuring Large Language Models had been introduced to the general public, alongside various generative AI platforms, some of which promised to shake up many industries and professions, with users' minds being given a vastly new and competitive margin in creating content, whether it be audio, video / visual, or code-based, in nature.

Personally, I let a lot of the headlines come and go, as I'd been preoccupied with healing up, from my months in being homeless (I'm now housed), for the most part. That being said, I've now come across a neat platform for generative AI at labs.google (it's called ImageFX), in terms of image generation, via text prompt. I thought of some humorous and idiot concepts, pertaining to pigeon'ry, or, which would ostensibly include pigeons, in the rendered image. 

To my delight, some of the renders come out just fantastic, to be honest! I was truly impressed by some of the images that ImageFX returned. After a few go-rounds with the web-based platform, I decided that I could compile a "History of Art," of sorts, with all art works featuring pigeons, in place of humans, or that just have pigeons present in the image. 

This article begins as simply an uploading compilation of images, and I expect to update the art exhibition, intermittently (hopefully soon, maybe later today) with annotations and art historian insight and allegory, as though the reader is brought along, on a tour. Here are the images!

Lascaux Cave Art of Southern France

I felt that the original Lascaux cave art images were a perfect place to begin a journey through art history, since the images are commonly regarded as some of the chronologically first remaining evidence of artistry in modern man. Here, pigeons take the reins, as the imaginative figures of man's encounters and imaginations, with a slice of bread being eaten by the birds.

Classically-styled pigeon busts, featuring curly-haired wigs

The next style of artistry that I visit, here, is the classical white marble sculptural bust of a pigeon, with some notes of fashionable styles of a different period in our Western cultural and historic legacy; in this case, the powdered wigs, which became fashionable around the 16th century, amongst the social and cultural elite and aristocracy.

Giant Chinese Buddha-styled pigeons

One of my formative childhood memories was visiting my Cantonese (Chinese) mother's home of Hong Kong and nearby coastal Chinese areas. Memories that surface include the Chinese Buddhist temples, which stand as historical and cultural testament to China's former (and remaining) Buddhist monks, as well as some of their mannerisms, values, and establishments, such as rich aromas of incense, marketplaces, where food, handiworks, such as ink stamps and miniature jade stone carvings were sold. They also sell small fireworks, year-round, for children to play with.

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Roman frescoes featuring pigeons

This art history reference draws influence, locally, in finding inspiration still present, in society, in establishments such as J. Paul Getty's coastal home, which stands as a museum, here, nearby Los Angeles. The decorum of the classically-styled grand home and enclaves feature painted imagery of some effects of nature; in this instance, pigeons.

 Illuminated Manuscript Pigeons

Here and there, over time, as a website administrator, I check on the website's incoming visitor traffic geographic location data. In this instance, I had noticed that I had a couple of visits from Mayotte, a territorial division of France, located off of the Southeast coast of Africa. I explored some of the other global island territories of France, and I encountered Reunion, which is located in the Indian Ocean. Here, the illuminated manuscript texts feature song lyrics in Reunion Creole, describing memories of flowers as cultural offerings, as well as the singing of birds.

The Golden Pigeons of Russia's Hermitage palace and museum

I'd visited Russia, around the time I was 29 years old, or so, and my (then) wife took me to visit St. Petersburg, which has some rich cultural centers and historically and artistically significant establishments, such as the former monarch Saint Peter's palatial home. One of my memories piqued, from my visit to St. Petersburg's Hermitage palace, as it's known, was an antique mechanical peacock, which plays music, and is cast in gold, as the outer surface.

Two-headed taxidermy curiosities of St. Petersburg's Kunstkamera 

Also in St. Petersburg is a small museum, which features local, pre-historic anthropological information exhibitions, as well as some of the curiosities of the former monarch's interests, such as two-headed taxidermy figures, as some of the display pieces of the collection.