Who Actually Pays for Public Art
Public art is mostly a rounding error on a construction budget. That single fact explains why it is durable, where it appears, and why so little…
Technology & Digital Culture
Making sense of the tools shaping how we create, work, and live
Public Art Now covers practical technology: AI tools, software, gadgets, and the digital culture growing around them. No hype cycles, just clear takes and hands-on guides.
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How to Make AI Animations From Still Images Without Paying
Last reviewed August 2026 Several free tools convert still images into short animations using AI. AnimateDiff running inside ComfyUI offers the most creative control for loops…
What Is ControlNet and Why It Changed AI Image Generation
Last reviewed August 2026 ControlNet is a neural network architecture that adds spatial conditioning to AI image diffusion models. It accepts reference inputs — edge maps,…
How Open-Source AI Rendering Caught Up With Paid Services
Last reviewed August 2026 Open-source AI image generation has closed the quality gap with paid services. Models like FLUX.1 and SDXL now match or exceed Midjourney…
Why AI Image Models Keep Getting Smaller and Better
Last reviewed August 2026 AI image models are getting smaller because of three converging techniques: knowledge distillation (training small models to mimic large ones), quantisation (reducing…
Free Alternatives to Midjourney That Run on Your Own Computer
Last reviewed August 2026 The best free alternatives to Midjourney that run entirely on local hardware are Fooocus, ComfyUI with FLUX, and Stable Diffusion through AUTOMATIC1111…
Free AI Tools That Turn Rough Sketches Into Finished Designs
Last reviewed August 2026 Several free AI tools now convert rough hand-drawn sketches into polished visual designs within seconds. ControlNet’s Scribble preprocessor inside ComfyUI offers the…
How to Create Consistent Characters Across Multiple AI Images
Last reviewed August 2026 IP-Adapter combined with a single reference image is the fastest method for generating consistent characters across multiple AI images, requiring no model…
What we cover
AI without the hype
We test AI writing, image, and productivity tools on real tasks and tell you which ones are actually worth your time and money.
Software that earns its place
From note apps to design platforms, we compare the tools people rely on every day and highlight the trade-offs reviews usually skip.
Guides you can follow
Step-by-step tutorials written for normal people, not sysadmins. If a guide is on this site, it has been tested end to end.