Turns out that we can have computers paint for us now. More jobs replaced by computers, I guess.
Some of these aren't too bad, really. I kind of like those four that make the upper-left corner. If I saw any of these at a gallery I wouldn't be terribly shocked.
The article is worth a read: the challenges of programming an AI to make works of art that are novel enough that they capture a viewer's interest but not so "out there" that they push people away. They actually refer to studies where viewers had to guess if works were man- or machine-made and people have difficulty telling.
Again, I kind of like some of them. I'd put a couple of those on my wall.
It does raise some interesting questions about what we actually do when we make art and what art actually is. I think that many people would say that the human spirit behind a work is what makes something "art" as opposed to "oh, that's nice." Animals at the zoo can swish a paintbrush around and now a computer program can generate works that give people pause and people would probably argue that without intent, these works straddle the line between "decoration" and "art.". What's the difference between these and what a painter does? Computers and (probably) animals don't have intent to make art, but often in the case of abstraction, people don't either. Sometimes I make stuff that doesn't "mean" anything but I take joy in the act of creation and discovery. Are the works I posted last time more "art" than these? When I start asking myself "what IS art?" I invariably think of this:
(Happy 100th birthday, Fountain!)
Is "Fountain" art? Well, Duchamp would say it's art because he says it's art which was the point of it all and the past century of art has been largely based on that idea.
So are those computer generated images art? Maybe.
Am I going to throw away my paints any time soon? No, I don't think so. I do wish I could find myself in L.A. next month to see the computer algorithm's "one-man show," but I guess I'll be missing it.
