Lynx sive Tigris, said Hevelius

“Lynx sive Tigris, said Hevelius, is a generative animation, a part of art research practice in the field of generative art. Generative art is considered a post-conceptual movement in the history of art. In generative art, concepts or predefined image rules must be described before creating a visualization. Currently, the primary method for creating images using artificial intelligence is text prompts. Even if another image, photo, or drawing is used as a reference to create an image or video, the AI process requires a brief textual description of what the visualization is expected to represent. The description that initiates the generation must contain at least four words.
The need to describe an idea before creating a generative image is consistent with the principles of conceptualism, which recognize the primacy of concepts over visualizations and other material or sensory forms (Sol LeWitt, 1967).

At the same time, the generative method allows for the questioning of the conceptual standpoint. By its very nature, it produces a chaotic overabundance of images, which compels the artist to a continuous process of acceptance or rejection. Within this spectrum of variations, the artist accepts certain depictions even if they depart from initial assumptions. The result of the generation process is far more expressive than one might anticipate. Therefore, certain works of generative art, especially figurative representations, can be named Expressive Post-conceptualism.
This term best describes the style of the animation titled "Lynx sive Tigris, said Hevelius." This applies not only to the visual style but also to the narrative, which did not precede the visualization but developed during video editing, in a way more natural for an expressionistic approach, where concepts need not be precisely defined, and expressive dramatism can be deciphered from already generated images. These create a story that did not yet exist when the idea for the first image in the series emerged.

The animation "Lynx sive Tigris, said Hevelius" consists of two images. The first is an astronomer measuring the sky. The second is a lynx in the firmament. Johannes Hevelius spotted a constellation, which he called "Lynx or Tiger." A hand-drawn image based on Hevelius’s original sketch was used as the reference in an AI generator, resulting in a series of feline forms, some adorned with lynx tufts and tiger tails. Few resemble the original drawing, and none of the "astronomers" resemble Hevelius. Both representations generated by AI are further evidence of AI's poor understanding of commands, which produces "correct" answers within the range in which it has been trained. Beyond this range, it wanders and creates what it naturally excels at—chaos. These observations pertain to art, a field that exists thanks to human consciousness. When it comes to imitating certain selected fragments of reality, AI is making astonishing progress, and the possible misuses of this range of its abilities are, of course, concerning.

However, in the field of art, AI generates chaos and semantic coincidences. Often amazingly beautiful, yet revealing a lack of understanding, which appears in the result of a lack of awareness, but also due to the imperfections of algorithms and the limitations of reference data, even if these are real-time contextual data.

The animation "Lynx sive Tigris, said Hevelius" was created as a result of lengthy attempts to communicate with a tool that, while not capable of understanding, generates willingly and efficiently, and is capable of surprising the artist and bringing joy to the viewers.                  

 Joanna E. Kabala, 15 June 2025, Eindhoven