Non-human art

The last few decades there have been a shift in the art world. Humans are not the only ones to produce art. You can of course question what art is. There are at least three criteria. Does it comment on the society in a thoughtful way? Does it evoke emotions in itself regardless of context? Does anyone want to own it? The pieces that are shown in this article is at least confirming the last two questions.

A decade ago we experienced animals that were able to create figurative art. Some of it was actually sold for large amounts. Now we have AI that can learn from previous art works to create own pieces. The first ten images in this article are generated by AI and they are originals in the sense that they have no copies or are not copies. On the other hand the originals are just digital and very hard to print in full size. The AI that generates the digital art works is to be found on the web site thisartworkdoesnotexist.com. Everytime you press refresh it generates a new image. The style or genre is varying even if you can see some similarities if you press refresh several times.

Almost figurative art

The AI can create some art works that are close to figurative. The image below is an example. It do look like a car even if it is slightly distorted.

There are other examples that look like a flock of flying birds or ballet dancers. It can be a person sitting on the ground or a forest edge.

Abstract art

It seems to be easier for the AI to create abstract art. The variation is still large. There are so many different styles that can be mimicked. You might wonder if the art works are truly original or just copies. After looking at hundreds of generated images no one so far is similar to something that has been seen before. So how much is it based on a creative process and how much it is just a modification of allready existing art works? This is not possible to answer without the help from the people behind the AI.

Texture

When you look at real originals made by oil or acrylic paint the texture is obvious, even if you don’t touch the painting. In some of the AI-generated art works it looks like the image has texture. The one above has it and the one below has it in another way.

Also copies can have texture. Carborundum etching is a technique to create some texture to imitate the oil texture. The picture above has carborundum-like qualities. This makes it look more organic in a way that is different from most digital prints.

Almost organic

Images that are said to be organic are lifelike and have some dynamics. Several of the AI-generated images can seem organic and dynamic. One way is that it is easy to imagine that it comes from nature. Like a piece of wood. The dynamics is imagined when you feel some kind of movement in the picture.

Paintings made of animals

Now when we know that all images above are made of an AI we might be less surprised that the images below are made of animals. Some elephants, birds and pigs can be trained to paint and when they get the opportunity to paint of their own choosing it might look like this.

The elephant is painting flowers. This is what we call figurative art. It actually looks like something specific. To be able to do this you need the cogntive ability to see something and transform it in some kind of replication. You also need the motor skills to paint the details which is hard for most humans.

The pig is painting abstract art. It is called Pigcasso. Even if you question if this actually is art we have to aknowledge that the pig can draw lines with a paintbrush, it can choose colours and it can choose where to put these colours. Even if it may look like random stuff it isn’t. Can the way the pig is painting be called expressionism? Is it just meaningsless doodle? It is not easy to answer these questions. But it is exciting.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *