Is This Art Already?
AI as tools to generate images have upset many. The opinions on whether the resulting works can be called art differ greatly between skeptics and users of these tools. In an exploration of the impact that the use of AI and other digital tools has on the perception of visual data as art, I created a series of four works and released them on zeroone where they can be collected for free.
The images consist of scans of random physical sketches that I made recently and that don't fit my personal definition of art. That definition is pretty straight–forward: If the creator of something calls it art, it usually is, and if the work is the manifestation of any of the creator's ideas or concepts, it usually is, too. The drawings at the base of the artworks are just meaningless sketches; some are more detailed and were done with more enthusiasm than others, but in the end, they are all just random and made by an amateur with neither talent nor message. Not art.
What happens when I add bits of AI images to them? These AI images aren't art, either. They are merely the first visually pleasing outputs of quick, uninspired prompts or recreations of other physical drawings I did and carry no meaning in themselves.
Link to collection on Zero One: https://zeroone.art/profile/boringoldguy
The image's title is more of a comment on my own sketches and drawings than on other people's works. However, in context of this series, it also refers to the AI–generated recreation of an abstract painting that I added.
Is this art already?
WTF!? You Think That's ART?
PirAItes
Everyone loves pirates.
While the background sketch was fun to do, it is the AI–generated pirate ship that makes the image interesting—especially when taking into consideration the voices claiming that the outputs of AI tools are based on the theft of intellectual property.
Harrrrrr!
Is this art already?
Space ExplorAItion
Let's explore the worlds inside our minds.
Without the (admittedly random) AI–generated background, the naive drawing of this spacecraft would just be hovering on a blank page of my sketchbook.
Is this art already?
Dead Fool
People want glitch. As the old saying goes: Anything, literally anything with a glitch on it.
So I added glitch and colour cycling, and (of course) a random, cute AI alien. I even took a hex editor and replaced part of the BMP file with the sequence "DE AD F0 01".
Is this art already?
But now, I call the resulting images art: By adding meaningless AI–generated content to meaningless hand–made drawings, I want to encourage people to question their own definitions of art, especially with regard to the impact and use of AI tools.