Hello dear readers and subscribers.
Welcome to this webinar in which we'll discuss AI and art, because it has had a lot of buzz hype excitement, but also fear and misconceptions around this particular topic.
Recently, I did a lecture for Lanzhou University in China and, instead of presenting the academic format, I wanted to address some key conflicting statements that are very dominant when it comes to the discourse about AI and art.
In the past few years there has been a lot of buzz around AI, since the arrival of ChatGPT, stable diffusion mid-journey, etc.
However, at 2021-2022, these tools became publicly accessible, but it was not the invention of AI at the time.
Actually, AI has existed for numerous years and its roots go back to the 1940s and 1950s even.
What is more interesting for artists is that at the very start, at the genesis of AI, art was already an important factor.
In the 1940s the invention of the programmable computer was in the making, and that led to the question can intelligence be mechanized?
The 50s were therefore marked by a lot of research into computing, algorithms, etc.
And art also explored that ground vividly.
A great example, for instance, can be found in the works of Vera Molnar, who created this machine imaginaire in which she could create different permutations, which resulted in different works before accessing the computer.
Later, when she accessed a computer at the Sorbonne, she could create the codes to create those artworks.
But here the idea of generative art art as a result of codes was already happening before the computer.
And this is actually a little bit also the genesis of how AI art today works.
Another key historical milestone is also Harold Cohen's Aaron in 1973.
The artist programmed Cohen to create ink plotted drawings, to create this kind of behavior of human art making and creativity.
Throughout the 80s 90s 2000s, people continued to push this notion of generative art and also computer art, and their additional questions were also being asked, not only about who is the artist when the image is made digitally or made by a machine, but they pushed it further towards interactivity, behavioral intelligence and also asking questions relating to it.
Think of Agent Ruby Lynn Hirschman Leeson, which was a conversational AI persona, a bit like we would have Siri, for instance, in which she also already asked about the agency and gender of the machine.
Who gets to decide this and what values do we embed into those technological infrastructures?
A very decisive turning point which sped up this entire process and this ongoing exploration for AI emerged in 2014 with GANs, which stands for Generative Adversarial Neural Networks.
In short, machine learning, deep learning, in which the machine could train from vast data sets to create new images.
With the arrival of this software, we're still some years before the democratization of software tools and a lot of artworks ai artworks were created in this period, where they critically examined the possibilities, but also the dangers and limitations of machine learning.
Think of Trevor Pageland's The Faces of the Accused and the Dead, in which he presented 3200 MUX shots from facial recognition datasets which kind of exposed how historical bias could be reinforced by AI.
And then of course, 2021 and 2022.
We have ChatGPT that's being released DALL-E, Midjourney and of course also Stable Diffusion.
Now, with this AI boom, people can create complex texts and images, at least on a surface level, just with a couple of written prompts, without spending a lot of time effort, skill or experience in it.
And yet they can create these complex images.
So what consequences does this have for art and human creativity, one might wonder.
This fear of an imminent apocalypse is not something new.
In fact, there was actually already in the 1960s, for instance, a lot of anxiety and fear and distrust towards technology and the arrival of the computer and the idea that robots would soon be taking over.
And it's kind of in the similar discourse that we see these critical thoughts when it comes to AI and how it would end human creativity.
Humanity and creativity have always been the case, and it's not a question of whether or not humanity would stop being creative, because AI can do creative work as well.
I think people will continue to be creative.
It's an inherently human desire.
I think the fear is predominantly if that human creativity will still have a place in society, so also from an economic perspective.
In short, will AI steal my creative job?
And this fear of losing one's job, of course, goes beyond the creative industries as well.
When it comes to technology making jobs obsolete, this isn't something new either.
This is not with the arrival of ai that all of a sudden there is this huge shift.
It will be a big catalyst, especially in, i would say, the most recent industries.
But There is already a very long process in our capitalist, globalist society, in which we constantly are pursuing growth, and to pursue growth we increase productivity, reduce labour costs.
Think of, at first, the automatic elevators replacing the elevator operator.
Or what about automation processes to replace industrial labor?
But also with software, for instance, booking software that are replacing travel agencies.
Software such as Canva, that actually also takes away a lot of the work that is available in terms of graphic design by giving an easy to use software so people can do it themselves.
And AI is kind of also from a creative perspective an extension of that tendency.
So yes, AI will have a further impact on those creative industries, predominantly graphic designers illustrators, commercial artists.
Because it enables people to do the job, either themselves or by someone else faster.
So the amount of work that is available can be done by fewer people or in fewer hours.
From this perspective, the artists who embrace AI will be the ones that are able to keep their job.
Because in that sense, AI is not able yet to completely perform a perfect job.
It kind of still needs the assistance of the experienced graphic designer who ties everything together, or needs to go in there manually to solve some mistakes, so to speak.
The same goes with writing a novel, for instance.
ChatGPT could write a novel, but it would be very generative.
It wouldn't be a good novel.
We need someone with the experience and understanding what it takes to create a good novel.
And with AI, they will be able to write it faster.
Now beyond commercial artists, will it end human creativity in an art for art's sake context?
And this is, of course, what aligns more with the channel and, I think, most of the people watching this video.
And here it kind of boils down to a different question.
Is AR art real art?
With the rise of text-to-image software, anyone can create an image in a couple of seconds.
So many might wonder, well, does this qualify as art?
But it goes in the same way as anyone can tape a banana to a wall.
So conceptually, there is no reason why an AI generated image would not be a real artwork or could be considered as an artwork.
The more pressing question is whether or not AI art can be relevant or considered good.
And that is of course a different question, because here we need to be aware that we already live in a visually saturated world and culture.
And AI will tremendously speed up this process and create images at a scale we've never seen before.
So is it able to create something meaningful or will it just create a visual noise?
I think that is the more critical way to approach this question.
And this, of course, depends entirely on how you use the AI.
Within the contemporary art world, art operates as a field of signifiers as well.
So to do something meaningful, we need to go beyond mere visual production.
Visual effects is important, but it's part of the equation.
The digital nature of AI art is also a structural problem.
Yes, there is also digital art, but we see that successful digital art always comes in some sort of physical execution, whether it's through immersive art.
It can be through installation, through video, etc.
And digital only even with the arrival of NFT is that it can become scarce on a blockchain.
It struggles very, very badly also because of this tremendous disbalance between the supply and the demand for digital artworks.
So from that perspective, mere visual production of digital images is not what qualifies as easily as relevant or good art to stay.
Another very delicate topic among artists, and especially online, is whether or not the use of AI for art is ethical.
Not only do we have this fear of artists being put out of business, but the way AI is trained using vast datasets of existing images, which includes a lot of copyrighted images by other artists that are then used to train, something that puts artists out of business.
You can see why this is kind of a sensitive topic and why there is a lot of outrage about AI, that they try to resist and actually fight AI in any way they can, sometimes legally, or to condemning anyone who uses AI in their practice or business.
Authorship and plagiarism will naturally be part of the equation with how AI works.
That's kind of a problematic nature, but I think it's also important, and here I would like to play the devil's advocate for a moment.
The way it trains or learns from the images is actually not that different from how a lot of artists and human creativity trains itself.
By seeing learning, internalizing and transforming external visuals inspiration, creating something new by processing it through their own creativity.
With AI it's processed through machine creativity and we see that we are a lot less forgiving.
One is a homage or when there is no citation, just normal inspiration, and the other is theft.
So we see that there is kind of a disbalance here, and I don't think it's a story of humans versus machines here.
I think It has a lot to do with transparency, also how these models are trained, but also the use of it.
I think responsible use is very important with AI.
And from this perspective, there have been many malpractices of people who create derivative forms or derivative artworks of successful artists and sell it online via print on demand stores very problematic and putting artists out of business as well.
But this is of course not necessarily the fault of the technology.
One might say well then, it needs to be regulated better, but that is of course a different topic to discuss.
From that perspective, the use of AI does not per se have to undermine artistic ethics.
I would say
Even more, it can be used as a tool to ask critical questions about artistic ethics.
So from that perspective, can it result in a paradigm shift?
Can it result in a new avant-garde?
And this brings us to the final, very popular narrative when it comes to AI that it will bring this new renaissance of AI art with it, that it will change art the way we know it today, that it will demolish how the art world works right now, and that a new era has arrived.
I think this is once more a bit of a sensational take on it, and art is being implemented not only for decades, but also in the past five years, very Although it is very clear to see that it has effect on art, as many technologies have actually in the past.
To say that it is a new era, that seems a little bit of a stretch.
So this narrative of an AI renaissance is a little bit misleading.
Ultimately what it does is it confuses technological novelty with artistic merit.
In the end what matters is not the technology itself, but how it is being used.
Artists have been terrific and genius when it comes to absorbing new technologies to implement it in their artistic practices for centuries.
Think of the use of grid technologies in Renaissance painting to improve anatomical proportions in perspective or architectural ones.
Think of the Camera Obscura, which is not why Caravaggio was lauded.
If anything, it was being kept secret because they were afraid if they would see it as cheating, and one can understand why if we see it today.
But he was also lauded, not for the technology, but how it resulted in a more dramatic visual language, how he also included real people in his paintings instead of idolized figures.
And the same can be said for artists who started to work with or include photography in their practice.
The same with video.
The same goes with editing softwares such as Photoshop and Paintbox.
So it's more about how the technology is being used as a tool than it is about the novelty of the technology itself.
Because then after a couple of years you would already be obsolete and the art would not age well and it would become, if anything, or at best, a footnote in art history.
And we see that here, this observation of AI as a tool is already happening.
There are artists like David Sally, for instance, who taught AI, as if it would go through art school, how to make a good painting.
On the other hand, there are also artists who use art to explore AI.
So not AI to explore art, but art to explore AI.
And a great example is the aforementioned work by Trevor Pagelin, but for instance also Rafik Anadol, that makes this complex process of machine learning and all the generative adversarial networks to make them visible.
So from this perspective, AI does not create by default a new avant-garde.
Its use does not automatically produce artistic relevance.
What it does offer is new tools, new spaces, new realms, new things to explore, uncharted terrain, and that, of course, is very, very exciting.
Feel free to read the complete online version of this video in article format, which is a bit more extensive, online at contemporaryartissuecom.
And I very much wonder if you would be interested in seeing more videos about art and AI.
For instance, I could create a video about the most or like the leading AI artist, of whom already a couple were mentioned throughout this video, but there are a lot more or how artists can use ai in responsible ways to improve their artistic practice.
So do let me know in the comments.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Feel free to watch our video on eight artists to watch in 2026.
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