Can computer programs and art still be friends? Susi Bumms gives three examples of that uneasy relationship nowadays – and doesn’t hesitate to use AI herself to picture it.
Artificial neural networks are running hot these days, as are the public debates about their use. What is the nature of the relationship between computer programs, whether “artificially intelligent” or not, and the production of art? Kiss, marry, kill? Love, amity, enmity?![Artificial neural networks running hot Illustration: Artificial neural networks running hot](/resources/files/jpg1228/kuenstliche-neuronale-netzwerke-rennen-v2-formatkey-jpg-w983.jpg)
Some artworks are now produced by means of “intelligent”, i.e. self-learning, programs. In 2016, French-American artist Sarah Meyohas hired sixteen workers to photograph a hundred thousand individual rose petals for a work called “Cloud of Petals”. The resulting dataset was fed into a self-learning program that generates new, unique petals. The process is documented in an artistic video that gives you the feeling of watching the AI program at work.
More new rose petals forever!
![Off they go Off they go](/resources/files/jpg1228/los-gehts-formatkey-jpg-w983.jpg)
Stability AI, the startup behind Stabile Diffusion, is now being sued for damages: earlier this year, three American women artists filed a class-action lawsuit for copyright infringement.
Having to let AI use your pictures free of charge and run the risk of losing your job to a machine? No, this isn’t exactly love or uncomplicated friendship anymore. But it’s not quite all-out enmity either.
How might this uneasy new relationship be summed up in a picture? I’ll leave it to OpenArt AI to draw it for me:
Prompts: No Friendship but no strangers, drawing
![Prompt: No Friendship but no strangers, drawing Prompt: No Friendship but no strangers, drawing](/resources/files/jpg1228/no-friendship-but-no-strangers-drawing-formatkey-jpg-default.jpg)
“Frankly...“
On an alternating basis each week, our “Frankly ...” column series is written by Susi Bumms, Maximilian Buddenbohm, and Sineb El Masrar and Marie Leão. In the “Frankly…visual” column, Susi Bumms observes pop culture and politics, commenting on what she sees through cartoons and pictures..
May 2023