By: Camille Lauren Russler
Bowdoin Review A&E article
8 March 2024
The Contemporary Age of Art:
Human Creativity & AI
Today, clicking a button can generate art never created before and visualize whole new worlds, all based on simple word prompts. Now, we are entering a new age of art, with machine learning systems and artificial intelligence (AI) ingrained into daily life and culture. Throughout history, art has acted as a way to record, reflect, and express, as shown by the cave paintings dating back to 64,000 years ago. Artistic expressions of humanity, the natural world, and ideas define the use of art and media throughout art history. Amazingly, AI generates images through only the input of a couple of words of text and develops that into a picture from pure noise on a computer screen in a tenth of a second. There are new mechanisms to generate “art” with AI that takes from previously created artworks to develop “new” media, an assortment of pixels arranged based on text prompts associated with such images. Even though there is a departure from direct tactile involvement in the artistic process in this tech form, there are avenues for human creativity to manifest in AI.
In an exploration of AI art in my AI Ethics class, my friend and I created an online gallery of AI art images called Generated Lives: An Exploration of AI and Us. Using the image generator Gen Craft, we asked AI to create images based on ethical questions about art and productivity and the limited perspectives made through echo chambers online. By prompting the AI to use the impressionist painting style, we wrote questions to produce images. For Image 1, we asked how echo chambers, created by AI algorithms, shaped your feelings of individuality. We then wrote another question to produce Image 2: Do you feel efficient using AI algorithms, and do they help you stay on task? By asking questions to prompt images, we revealed the biases of the image generator algorithm, such as portraying productivity as a depiction of a white man in a suit at a desk and portraying the preset of impressionism and ‘art’ through repetitive splotches of color arranged consistently.
Image 2
To define the characteristics of art and what concepts such as productivity or art mean through an absolute and structured formula of image representation, we limited the meanings and ways in which abstract concepts could be represented creatively through artistic mediums. Initially, we created images that only illustrated the biases within the AI system. Putting the images into a collection and gallery setting, we place added meaning, artistic intention, and consideration, which implemented our creativity. We set up the layout of the virtual gallery space in a rounded view of art to demonstrate how the images, based on the AI images, all related to and mirrored each other in symbolism and aesthetics. The heptagon shape of the exhibit illustrated the robotic conclusions made by the AI when creating symbolisms and stereotypes with the ‘art.’ The angular walls showcased the AI art in contrast to the circular bench where visitors sit and observe the art. The bench represented the flow of human creativity, which was the opposite of AI-generated art’s rigid and absolute structure.
Gallery Layout
Art made by AI is now mainstream, with image generator systems like DALL*E, Night Cafe, and Gen Craft creating distinct ‘new’ art from simple text prompts in seconds. This powerful technology should be used to value artists, not machines, and pre-prescribed art algorithms that mechanize “creativity” should not be valued over human creativity and the artistic processes of artists. Thinking about the importance of the process, I started exploring these different AI-art-producing programs. I found that the artistic and creative process is informed by the intention and skill of the artist through their chosen medium. The meaning and methods of artists are essential to the value and merit of the art created, even with the subjectivity of interpretations of art. However, AI art and the particular lack of humanity involved in its creation tend not to relate to a worldly experience compared to the physical mediums visual artists employ.
Art is everywhere, and we can make it out of anything. Everyday objects, plain paper, and canvas can become drawings, paintings, and sculptures, which can be transformed through a simple human touch. Who’s to say our innate creativity can’t be utilized online to create art? I am an artist myself and find that creating a painting on canvas or digitally is a non-linear process; I often find myself going over lines or adding back color to an area of the composition based on feeling or when I think something needs to be highlighted or defined more. I am flexible when creating my art; I do not have a defined structure that I follow. I make art based on my personal experiences and skills, which I have developed through trial and error. I cannot make the same thing twice, and my art flows as I do because it is so deeply connected to the person I am and the thoughts and ideas I have. To me, art has intention and importance through the artist’s method, reflection, and conceptualization, no matter how good or bad someone thinks that art is.
An illustration of the artist’s touch as a product of their life experience is demonstrated by Pablo Picasso and the napkin story. Legend has it that Picasso was at a Paris market when an admirer of his work approached and asked if he could do a quick sketch on a paper napkin for her. Picasso politely agreed, promptly created a drawing, and asked for a million Francs before handing the napkin back to the lady.
The lady was absolutely shocked, saying, “How can you ask for so much? It took you five minutes to draw this!”
“No,” Picasso replied, “It took me 40 years to draw this in five minutes.”(Gohar 1).
Take this how you will, Picasso has guts and a story behind this napkin drawing. No matter how rudimentary you may think that artwork is, in reality, the value and interpretation of the art stems from Picasso and all the years of practice and intention it took for him to create that sketch in just five minutes. Art is what we make of it, and to me, a crucial element of art is the creative process that cannot be tossed aside when considering art’s importance, which is the artist and their story.
Image generation through AI with human input can be part of art’s broad scope. By asking AI to create images based on ethical questions about art and productivity illustrated the limited perspectives made through echo chambers online. Attempting to encapsulate the characteristics of art via AI and the significance of concepts like productivity within an absolute framework of visual representation restricted the diverse interpretations and expressions of abstract concepts. Some examples of conceptual art that have raised questions of artistic legitimacy are Marcel Duchamp’s The Bicycle Wheel and Kaisamir Malevich’s White on White. In both these artworks, they took rudimentary shapes and everyday objects and placed them in an artistic context, which flipped their meaning and made the world consider what the fundamental aspects of art actually are. These conceptual art pieces display a technical practice in art-making and show work with emotional, aesthetic, and theoretical significance. A similar consideration of the fundamental aspects of art is now being questioned by AI, forcing humanity to consider the role of people in the processes of art. In the new contemporary age of AI image generators, artists cannot simply be boiled down to editors of AI content to prescribe meaning to randomly generated images. Art is innate to the human experience and expressions of ideas and realities we face, which are not predetermined. As AI integrates into art, we must uphold the importance we place on human creativity, ensuring art remains tethered to our shared experience and our ingenuity.
Works Cited
“Cave Art Movement Overview.” n.d. The Art Story. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/cave-art/.
Yasmine Biyashev & Lauren Russler; Generated Lives: An Exploration of AI and Us
Gencraft – What Will You Create?” n.d. Gencraft.com. Accessed December 13, 2023. https://gencraft.com/prompt/872ba1c5-ec24-455a-8080-efac4ed65938?creation_id=bfa4c914-343b-4dd9-9511-c6491518f229.
Gohar Goodby. 2023. “Picasso’s Napkin Story.” JG Contemporary. JG Contemporary. April 12, 2023. https://jgcontemporary.art/blogs/news/picassos-napkin-story.
Mateas, Michael. “Expressive AI: A Hybrid Art and Science Practice.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 147–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577018. Accessed 9 Nov. 2023.
