a rabbit and shark chimera facing forward, illustrated in the style of a children's book. The shark is shades of lime green with a black background.

Are We Art Yet?

AWAY Collective is a coalition of artists working to bridge the divide between traditional, digital, and AI creators. Our work centers a multi-modal approach, utilizing new media technologies without sacrificing ethics in its distribution. We believe in accessible artmaking for people of all abilities, and seek to close the literacy divide between the early adopters and future users.

Collective Gallery

Members

Aaron

Founding member of AWAY, making AI art since summer 2021.

Cadmus

Hi! I'm Cad, which could be short for Cadmus (who was transformed into a dragon) or Cadaeic (who names the numbers of pi) or anything you'd like. I'm a transmasc Asian-Australian using image synthesis to illustrate fantasy stories, tabletop games and other flights of fancy, as well as to explore naval art history. I also occasionally tinker with code on the side, finding that AI art appeals to both the creative and the technical sides of my brain. It's been fun, though I primarily generate pictures of sailing ships and resplendently rainbow sailing ships!

crumb

I'm a developer/hobbyist that got a start with AI art in the Style Transfer/Deep Dream days and gained a special interest in ML in early middle school.

Curio

I am the founder of AWAY and general malcontent-around-town for the AI Art community as a whole. I have always been interested in the ability to visualize my dreams and imagination in a way that would not require me to use my hands or fingers very much - I am disabled, and use of my hands for anything more strenuous than typing is generally a non-starter. Ever since then it has been one large, amusing, slightly infuriating, but always joyous rollercoaster.

Kara

I had gotten into AI art relatively early on, and I have loved watching its rapid progression and I'm sure I'll love seeing what's next. I love mixing concepts, ideas, artists, styles and mediums and seeing what the little robot does with it.

Lumiat

I am a disabled trans woman who started with Wombo when it first started, and moved to Midjourney when I found out about that. AI tools let me express myself in ways I couldn't before due to disability.

RhapsodyXVI

Hiya! I'm Rhapsody, or Vergil. I'm a transgender disabled artist who started with Looking Glass when it was first released, but now I mostly use Midjourney and Civitai. I've been a digital artist for around 13 years, and with my wrists getting worse and worse, AI art has helped me to continue creating without further injuring my body. I also just think it's really cool! I love messy abstract art and testing the limits of whatever tool I'm using.

Star St.Germain

A tornado disguised as a girl.

Weird Mustard

Just an artist exploring the limits of what AI art can and can not do to show the viewer what I'm thinking

Anthony

I'm a software developer, but I tinker with a lot of things. I've always been interested in the intersection of programming and art, and I've been following the AI art scene since the release of DeepDream in 2015.

Code of Ethics

  1. No fascists, no cryptocurrency, no web3 bullshit, no staunch capitalists, no marketers. If you're the regular kind of capitalist but can keep a lid on it then you are welcome to join.
  2. If a non-AI Artist comes to us and requests we avoid using their style (i.e, "A painting of a forest in the style of Walt Disney") in text prompts, or their images as image prompts/init images, we must do so. A list of artists to avoid will be available publicly.
    1. In general, if artist styles must be used, we encourage you to synthesize new styles from older artists – ideally those in the public domain.
    2. Draw from nature, or your own design, when you can. Use sloppy MS Paint sketches and your own phone camera. Use older, style-transfer capable AIs like CLIP+VQGAN to transmute your works up the ladder, to be fed into the newer stuff.
  3. We do not work with corporations. Any commercial work you do, within the boundaries of the terms of service of whatever AI is in your pipeline, must be sold for yourself, and not for an employer. We do not make corporate art for Coca Cola. We do not make corporate art for Wal-Mart. We do not make corporate art for Wizards of the Coast. Etc.,
    1. Absolutely no NFTs. When you join this organization, you are swearing off NFTs in perpetuity. This is non-negotiable.
    2. You are allowed to sell your artwork, commercially, or allow others use for commercial projects. What we are talking about here is corporate usage of AI art, by corporations, to undercut and penny-pinch on artwork/design costs. Don't do that, don't let them do that.
  4. We're not here to create forgeries. If you are creating something explicitly with the style of a single other artist, do not sell it, and make sure it is clear that an AI generated it - that it is not yours and that it is not an original work by the artist either. Do not monetize the replication of a single artist's style.
    1. 2a is especially, doubly applicable to this.
  5. Do not undercharge for your work. Not only is all art valuable, but undercharging gives the impression that we are attempting to undercut current traditional artists. We are here to work peacefully and in synchrony with them to gestate new ideas, not to get an economic edge on the competition. If you are selling commissions, try to sell for close to what any other work of a similar style would commission for.
  6. General provisos of appropriateness - we are not using AI to marginalize the marginalized. No punching down, no racism, sexism, transphobia, etc., etc.