Photographer Paul Rousteau produced the official poster for Roland-Garros 2024, the tennis tournament which will take place from May 26 to June 9. In an interview with Numerama, he recounts the genesis of this image which “makes sense with the times”. It was born thanks to a unique experiment carried out using Midjourney generative artificial intelligence.
13 proposals, a good half of which were generated using artificial intelligence. This is the original work of French artist Paul Rousteau, winner of the competition which designates the official poster for Roland-Garros every year.
From May 26 to June 9, 2024, the whole world will see a daily sunrise/sunset that reflects the color of clay in the Seine (with a ball-shaped sun). In the background, Paris appears in impressionistic form, with a tennis court that appears to float on water. A very successful poster, presented in May and rewarded on December 20. It has a unique feature: the original diagram was entirely generated by the Midjourney artificial intelligence, before Paul Rousteau went over it to add ideas. “It’s a time marker. It makes sense with the times”affirms its creator to Numerama.
The poster for Roland-Garros 2024. // Source: FFT
Midjourney pushes the boundaries of creativity
In May 2023, Paul Rousteau discovered Midjourney and subscribed to a paid account. “I spent a month and a half on it, it was a vortex of time and discovery », Explains the photographer during a telephone interview. “I discovered lots of possibilities, crazy images coming out. » Paul Rousteau nevertheless draws the following observation: all the images generated by Midjourney have major flaws, “there is never a perfect image”.
This is how Paul Rousteau’s idea was born, namely to mix artificial intelligence and human creativity: “My favorite part of art history is Impressionism. Photography allowed me to free myself from a lot of rules. I tested lots of different currents with Midjourney. I had to type a prompt on impressionism with the Seine, Paris, the landscape. And at one point, this image was released in square format, without a tennis court. It was the most relevant. » Paul Rousteau explains that he was inspired by a prompt on impressionism that he found online to achieve this result, while adding information on the idea he had in mind.
Numerama tried to generate its own images taking inspiration from Paul Rousteau’s prompt. He has carried out hundreds of tests. // Source: Numerama
“It was very hard to get what I wanted”, confides Paul Rousteau. “ I added lots of little bits in Photoshop. The Eiffel Tower, the tennis ball instead of the sun, the tennis court… Midjourney can’t imagine a tennis court on water. This poster is a composition. Once I had all that, I had to retouch everything by hand with a graphics palette, to create a high definition image. »
Who worked the most? Paul Rousteau estimates that a third of the work, a maximum of half, is the fruit of Midjourney. Artificial intelligence had excellent ideas (he talks in particular about the bridge, which he had not imagined), but the rest is impossible without human know-how. “It takes hours and hours of testing to get an image, hours and hours of looking at paintings in museums to recognize a good image. You have to know how to stop and say that this is the right one. To photograph is to choose. »
“This poster is a composition”
Paul Rousteau
Is artificial intelligence a threat to art? Paul Rousteau doesn’t know that. “I’ve been a photographer for 12 years, why stop yourself from discovering things? I have no preconceived ideas”explains the artist. “I like debates. Many see a problem with this, but when photography appeared, it also created debates. I’d rather embrace things than say this sucks, I don’t want to do it. It’s a pretext for experimentation”explains the artist, who however specifies that he does not know what future use he will make of Midjourney. “I think more about painting for real. I prefer to be in real life. »
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I accept everything
Obviously, Paul Rousteau received great financial compensation for his work, in addition to worldwide exposure for his work at Roland-Garros. “People think artists are having fun, but it’s 15 years of battle”, answers the photographer for those who wonder about the remuneration of the competition. The Roland-Garros 2024 poster sets a precedent for human/machine collaborations, even if millions of people will never realize the artificial nature of the design.
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2023-12-22 08:00:00
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