Talk: AI and Images
Geoff Davis, Luba Elliott, Patrick Ehtesabian-Lichty et al.

Summary

In 'Talk: AI and Images', Various Speakers discuss the rapidly evolving field of AI-generated art and the distinct creative practices shaping it. Geoff Davis opens by contrasting the joyful, widespread uptake of accessible image generators with the longer tradition of generative art, touching on ethical anxieties, health concerns and the risk of visual overproduction. Luba Elliott then traces a recent history from DeepDream and style transfer through GANs to contemporary text-to-image systems, highlighting artists such as Anna Ridler, Mario Klingemann and Sofia Crespo and controversies including AI-generated prize submissions. Anna Ridler explains her tulip projects, emphasising hand-built datasets, visible human labour, and the interplay between natural seasons, historical speculation and machine output. Mark Webster presents Hypertype, a typographic and sound work that uses IBM sentiment-analysis data while questioning whether computers can truly infer human emotion. Patrick Lichty describes 'Studio Visits in the Post-Humanitaria', a catalogue of imagined AI artists and empty studios produced through Midjourney and GPT-3 that probes institutional presentation and social anxieties. The subsequent discussion stresses that compelling AI art rests on ideas, process and context, and that artists must continually engage with fast-changing technology and growing viewer literacy.

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