Artwork is in a constant process of reinvention. From the Woman of Willendorf in the stone age to Dali’s surrealism in the early 20th century, art’s evolution has taught its students that if nothing else, it’s development is unpredictable. Afterall, who would have anticipated the conception of Van Gough’s post impressionism after admiring Da Vinci’s high renaissance?
Since the 1970s, deconstructionsim and postmodernism have become the prevalent artworks of our time, with a greater focus on symbolism and investigating the abstract. However in the 21st century, art’s latest stage of development has not intoduced a new style, but a new artist.
AI art is now not only a reality, but a curious success. An exhibition in the HG Contemporary art gallery in Chelsea, New York, featured work from an artificial intelligence entitled ‘Faceless portraits transcending through time’.
Henri Matisse once said ‘creativity takes courage.’ Today, creativity takes analysis of thousands of years’ worth of archived artwork. Whilst AI art is unlikely to progress without its novelty status, this new step in the history of art is an interesting reflection on human creativity. Nothing put together by the intelligence is unique; it is the culmination of thousands of years of artists from different periods and around the world. The digital paintings being produced are, themselves, portraits of the history of art.
A French trio capitalised on the allure and mystery of artificial intelligence, despite its relative simplicity, with the first piece of art produced by artificial intelligence. Auctioneers at Christies had assumed that the literal artificiality of the work would render it not especially valuable, at $10,000. In the end, the portrait of Edward de Belamy was sold for $430,000, firmly establishing A.I. art as a financial, if not creative force, within the art world.
Obvious’ artificially produced art work
Since then though, the field has developed, and the old model used to create Obvious’ work has been usurped by more effective generators, such as CAN (creative adversarial work). But there are no systems which are able to overcome A.I.’s inherent ignorance of art and culture. Renaissance work, for instance, is known to depict characters symbolically holding items which are reflective of their characters. As art historian John Smith told the Atlantic in an interview on the development of artificial intelligence art, “men might be shown with an open book to show how they are in dialogue with that material; or a writing implement, to suggest authority; or a weapon, to evince power.” When A.I. work depicts figures holding items, on the other hand, there is no subtle meaning, only randomness.
But what does the future hold for this ‘unique’ art style? Can A.I. produced work ever be considered original if it steals from what has come before? Is that not the very nature of normal, human-made art-work? The only difference is surely that artists are smart enough to call it ‘taking inspiration’.
A.I. art does not yet herald the “Gold Rush” era of artistic revolution which some suggest, but is an unremarkable development either, as more puritanical artists may suppose. Peter Patchen, digital chair of the Pratt Institute, noted the contribution of A.I art to the tools at disposal of artists. Phd student at Princeton spoke to the Washington Post to discuss the issues around the new wave of artwork, where the Post observed, “new techniques such as using artificial intelligence to create art are promising in her view. [Spratt] mentioned how the emergence of oil paints was a breakthrough for artists centuries ago. Now artificial intelligence creates new possibilities for the creative class.”
Artificial intelligence art is still in its infancy. How far will it go? Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “every artist was once an amateur”. Will his quote still ring true for a new genre of art which has unexpectedly burst onto the scene?
