Not-so-fun Friday Resource

Just a single, rather disturbing, resource this week: https://thisartworkdoesnotexist.com/

It uses a generative adversarial network (GAN) to create abstract paintings, and while I have seen some snarky “it’s not even that good” comments around the intertubes, I found the images compelling enough to bother me.

Here’s a small gallery:

It would be interesting to know the images the programmers used as a database, but the AI’s STEAL FROM THE BEST approach is evident. There’s some Rothko in there, and some Dufy, occasionally some Morgenthaler; the machine knows its stuff.

You will have noticed, if you clicked through to the website, that there are no controls, no About page, nada. To get a new artwork, you refresh the window, and presto! there’s another abstract painting.

And the other one is gone. Forever. It was randomly generated, and it will never be assembled again. Talk about MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT.

1070px-A_Sunday_on_La_Grande_Jatte,_Georges_Seurat,_1884.jpg

So here’s my thinking. If one of the purposes of art is create a permanent locus of attention/thought/meditation, i.e., if one of the values of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte is to freeze that moment in time, to synthesize the artist’s vision and technique into its own moment of time, and to hold that moment of time in perpetuity for us to return to again and again…

… then what is our relationship to these images on the screen that vanish without a trace? Are our brains being fooled into thinking they’re “real art” and trying to respond that way? Why should these images engage our brain any differently than, say, these faces? Or these cats? They’re just AI tomfoolery, right?

Are they more real if they’re turned into NFTs? Ugh.

To me — and perhaps it is just me — the difference in our response to these paintings vs. those faces or cats is a testament to the innateness of art to our brains. We see a face or a cat, and we think “person” or “KITTEH!” and that’s pretty much it unless the being in question is outstanding in some way. We see what purports to be a piece of art, though, and our brains think “universe.” We may find ourselves connected or repulsed or indifferent to the image, but the point is we seek that connection — because that’s what MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT is about.

Only connect.

Here, clear your brainthoughts with the sound of distant surf.