The artwork depicts a mesmerizing surrealist scene evoking hues and lights of old masters – Théâtre D’opéra Spatial. It won a prize at the Colorado State Fair… Yet, it was generated by a generative AI, which transforms text cues into an elaborate graphic designs. Can it truly be a contender in an art competition? Against ‘flesh and blood’ artists? Be considered a ‘true’ Art?
The debate is raging!
Is AI creative? Who is the artist? Is AI an impending death of art? Endangering the livelihood of artists and the reverence for the art as an inextricable essence of humanity.
Well, we already met AI-DA, the robot artist, and after much debate, included her into our ‘Close to Heart’ anthology, following her world adventures, speeches and art exhibits ever since. However, not before we made a passionate commentary reaffirming living human souls and imperfections as true origins of art – a commentary (Who am I?) that shared the top place in the BrainArt competition 2021. There will be no end of this controversy any time soon…
We decided to collaborate with AI. There are amazing examples of AI aiding artists in generating unique artwork that would have not been possible or probable otherwise. In this session, we are visiting two momentous exhibits, one in Vancouver, the other at MoMA, that explore AI collaborations.
We are not strangers to AI, warming up to AI-generated digital transformations of photos, draft paintings and sketches [sometimes also digital] to explore their own possibilities of existence in multiple and very different stylistic spaces. Occasionally, I choose one (or two) of these possibilities to go forward with in finishing the painting because they ‘speak’ to me. However, it typically takes exploring numerous ‘filters’ to get to the one that is ‘it’, emotionally and conceptually – it is hard work after all that helps augment the expression of the original idea, our own. A collaboration…(still not fully open-hearted).
..and then comes DALL-E – not just an ‘enhancer’ of the existing art, but a ‘creator’ as well – few instructions required. Still grappling with that.
Our experiments with AI are fun and surprising. A short flipbook was the best way to share this – so go flip (and visit sites and videos we included) – the future is upon us!
Left Brain Artists 