AI generated art piece wins fine-arts competition

[Herbert123]

This art piece won first price in the Colorado Fair arts competition. Jason Allen (the artist) did mention that he had used Midjourney to generate it, although the judges had not understood the implication before they awarded his artwork first place.

Even after learning about this, the judges had no reservations about winning 1st place.

From the article referred below:

Sebastian Smee, The Washington Post’s art critic, said the piece’s textures and lighting are reminiscent of Gustave Moreau, a late 19th-century artist, associated with the Decadents, who influenced Edgar Degas and Henri Matisse. (He also recalled a quote from the artist Sol LeWitt, who said, “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.”)

Plugins for design apps like Photoshop are about to hit the market where the user can basically enter a couple of phrases, draw a couple of shapes to direct the composition, and then have it generate an image in a specific style ("Disney Style", "Van Gogh", "hyper-realistic", etc.)

If find this quite interesting as an artist myself, but others seem to be convinced it is the death of art. Which is what critics also said of photography...

Thoughts?

Source & linkies:

He used AI to win a fine-arts competition. Was it cheating?

When Jason Allen submitted his “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” into the Colorado State Fair’s fine arts competition last week, the sumptuous print was an immediate hit. It also marked a new milestone in the growth of artificial intelligence.

www.washingtonpost.com

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[AlaskaMoose]

Sounds interesting like a fantasy is, but in reality it is something that can be used to create a thing that one is not capable of on one's own merits. It is sort of having a machine creating a fantastic fake in a short period of time. Well, some people are more in-tune with virtual reality, AI, and so on than real people.

 

[Jessica Lares]

You can't compare it to the criticizing of photography. With photography there is still a process you have to go through to get a shot, and it doesn't just come out of thin air. That's why there's been so many pictures of just people's pets and faces more than anything else in this last decade. Art also evolved to go beyond its initial use of documenting life and is better for it.

AI is just putting money into the hands of chipmakers, tech companies, the people who can afford to buy into them, and making sure we're only going to see the world in the way a few tastemakers of old once did.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

You can't compare it to the criticizing of photography. With photography there is still a process you have to go through to get a shot, and it doesn't just come out of thin air. That's why there's been so many pictures of just people's pets and faces more than anything else in this last decade. Art also evolved to go beyond its initial use of documenting life and is better for it.

AI is just putting money into the hands of chipmakers, tech companies, the people who can afford to buy into them, and making sure we're only going to see the world in the way a few tastemakers of old once did.

I imagine that it could be used for decorating a place with murals that resemble the works of classic paintings, but at a much lower cost than even a true fake from another painter (these fakes exist). Most people can't afford decorating their homes and offices with the original famous paintings, thus the use of reproductions or fakes that are universally sold. I imagine that there will be a market for such software in the film industry where fake paintings are used.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Yeah, that's a decent use of it, but that's not using it to enter a contest. Putting your ideas into a machine and tweaking it until you get an output you like is not the same as spending 20+ years practicing your choice of medium to then later be able to produce something within a month for something like this.

 

[rpmurray]

Yeah, that's a decent use of it, but that's not using it to enter a contest. Putting your ideas into a machine and tweaking it until you get an output you like is not the same as spending 20+ years practicing your choice of medium to then later be able to produce something within a month for something like this.

There are plenty of "artists" that have churned out dreck for 20+ years that would agree with you. Unfortunately, true art is what endures with the masses that enjoy it, otherwise it just becomes something fawned over by a very few pretentious pricks.

Art is like a Turing test, if you can't tell who made it but still enjoy it, then it passes.

 

[theluggage]

If find this quite interesting as an artist myself, but others seem to be convinced it is the death of art. Which is what critics also said of photography...

We live in a world where many ordinary individuals own cars that can travel at 100mph or more, but thousands of people will still cram into a stadium to watch human beings run the 1500m.

I'm sure that the invention of affordable photography meant that many mediocre artists who made a living turning out family portraits, pictures of prize-winning animals, book illustrations etc. either had to buy a camera or find another job. Art may have died for them. Maybe the world "lost" some potential great artists who were relying on mundane commercial work to fund the production of their masterpiece... Maybe the world "gained" more great artists who learned about composition, lighting etc. by taking photographs... Maybe artists had to get more innovative and produce portraits etc. that appealed to people who wanted something more than a photo...

My suspicion is that people will quickly learn to recognise the output from Midjourney (I wonder if they've done any blind tests?) - it is very clever but once you've seen a few there's something about the images that say "mashup of familiar elements". It's telling that the critic related it to various old masters who's work most likely went into the hopper of images used to train the AI.

I think AI might be a problem for any human artist who might be hoping to make a fortune with Da Vincis's Mona Kardashian or Rembrandt's Steve Jobs Breaking his iPad - but really it's just up to the art world to come up with something new and original and prove that humans have a creative spark that can't be duplicated by machine learning.

 

[Jessica Lares]

There are plenty of "artists" that have churned out dreck for 20+ years that would agree with you. Unfortunately, true art is what endures with the masses that enjoy it, otherwise it just becomes something fawned over by a very few pretentious pricks.

Art is like a Turing test, if you can't tell who made it but still enjoy it, then it passes.

It should matter who makes it and it shouldn't have to appeal to the masses for it to be allowed to pass as art. We shouldn't discredit the whole art community just because we have this idea of a huge chunk of them being bad and not contributing anything.

 

[rpmurray]

- but really it's just up to the art world to come up with something new and original and prove that humans have a creative spark that can't be duplicated by machine learning.

Humans are just meat machines that happen to have had a lot more generations to get to where they are today than their non-biological cousins. There's nothing special about them that can't eventually be duplicated, except maybe their hubris.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Well, most human beings at least experience emotions and are self-aware, something that AI does not.

 

[rhett7660]

Wow and wow... If you read the article the OP posted, there is one line that kind of struck a cord, neither negative or positive I might add, with me:

“You said AI would never be as good as you, that AI would never do the work you do, and I said, ‘Oh really? How about this? I won’,” he said. “It’s here now. Recognize it. Stop denying the reality. AI isn’t going away.”

Also:

Of the 596 entries in the “fine arts” competition, 21 amateur “emerging artists” submitted pieces of “digitally manipulated photography,” one of the fair’s newest categories. Asked what art materials he had used, Allen told state fair officials only that he used Midjourney — though he did not exactly go into detail, and no one seems to have asked.

Don't have an issue with this.

And if you take a look at some of the pictures that have been created with this product. WOW.

https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Wow and wow... If you read the article the OP posted, there is one line that kind of struck a cord, neither negative or positive I might add, with me:



Also:



Don't have an issue with this.

And if you take a look at some of the pictures that have been created with this product. WOW.

https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/

Yes, this software is perfect for cinema work. Also, AI technology has already been used in software for several years. Just look at PhotoRaw 2023, and there are several other photo editing apps that include AI photo enhancements.

 

[rhett7660]

Yes, this software is perfect for cinema work. Also, AI technology has already been used in software for several years. Just look at PhotoRaw 2023, and there are several other photo editing apps that include AI photo enhancements.

I know it has been used in software, didn't know it was used to this extent in photo software though! Just wow!

 

[AlaskaMoose]

I know it has been used in software, didn't know it was used to this extent in photo software though! Just wow!

I know it has been used in software, didn't know it was used to this extent in photo software though! Just wow!

Several photo editing apps include AI digital noise removal, and other effects. For example, enhancing the foreground or background of a photo by a couple of mouse clicks, etc. PhotoRaw 2023 (preorders taken until October) can remove digital noise from a portrait while also sharpening one of two subjects that is out of focus. For example, two faces side by side where one of the two is sharper and the other slightly blurry. In this case AI can take care of the entire face that is out of focus, eyes and so on, without blurring the other face, and at the same time can remove digital noise from the background without softening the image. You can do the same work manually using the sliders, but AI can do it for you in mere seconds or fractions.

 

[ian87w]

AI or not, there's still a person behind the programming and the algorithm. But I do think they should separate the categories, human made and AI generated.