Blank By Blank, May 2021

This series of oil and acrylic paintings explore the integration of artificial intelligence into art-making, authorship and the boundaries of art. Firstly, I ran a pre-trained Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which is a type of generative model invented in 2014, to create never-before-seen-art. The pieces produced by the machine learning process were trained on a corpus of human-made art from WikiArt. After studying and comparing the different results, I chose 3 that I found to be the most successful. I used the metrics of color, composition and texture to measure each piece's success. Despite the fact that they are simply made of pixels, I could see a process, an application, and removal of paint; I could picture an artist working and revising the works. This implied process, physicality and concept is what instilled my desire to recreate the work.

I wondered if this digital art could be recreated in physical form and what the process would feel like. I wondered if they could be made by a human and if so would it be plagiarism. Who is the creator of this art? Is it the person that created the GANs? Is it all the artists that the GANs was trained on? Is it the person that ran the GANs? Can I be considered an artist in this case? Or am I just a fabricator? Would it be unethical to consider this my art? Is it inaccurate to even consider this art? 

All these questions ran through my mind as I painted these pieces. I challenge the viewer to ask themselves how the digitals original compares to the physical copy. Do their feelings change once they learn that there is no intrinsic emotion behind the work? Through this series, I explore themes of science and authorship in the context of contemporary art-making. I gained inspiration for this series from the book entitled Themes of Contemporary Art. In the text, it says, “Going digital is happening alongside a shift in culture, which, of course, means a shift in values, including what is defined as valuable in art.” (27) The integration of current advancements in computer image generation and traditional oil painting technique creates a contrast between artificiality and authenticity. This project works to question how digital art and man-made art are differently understood. I also hope to show the power that machines have to create beautiful images, despite their lack of consciousness.