AI and Artists

How AI technologies have an impact on the work of artist

In the talk ‘AI and creativity: What makes us human?’ on 16 May 2019 in the Barbican Centre, London, the artist Anna Ridler spoke about her project Mosaic Virus and how she has utilised artificial intelligence in her creative process. The Mosaic Virus art piece is a video that depicts blossoming tulips developed with help of a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) algorithm. The blossom reflects the fluctuating value of bitcoins, as this value has been compared to speculative prices for tulips in the 1630s, called the tulip-mania (Campbell-Dollaghan, 2018).

Mosaik Virus Extract (Ridler, 2018)

In context of speaking about the future of work of this weeks Global Design Futures class, where we addressed the topic of automizing jobs with technologies, it was very interesting to hear about Anna’s process. She went through various, time consuming steps.

1. Preparation of a data set for the algorithm

2. Creation of the algorithm and testing of its function

3. Development of the video

The data set consisted of 10.000 pictures of tulips taken, selected and labelled by the artist manually. In the talk, Anna pointed out the importance of creating her own data set to train the algorithm as this manual work is required to build a strong basis to produce a qualitative output. The data set created the connection of the artwork to the real world.

Then, the writing of the algorithm took her time and required various adjustments as the solutions already available did not suit her project vision.

Finally, to create the artwork itself, the video, was another time intensive step in her process.

Although by hearing that the project was created by an AI, the explanations by Anna made it clear that instead of automizing and thereby replacing her work, the AI technology became a new tool for her. She was positive about the possibilities the tool creates for her artistic work, as the process of collection of input data and the experimentation with the new AI tools provided her with a new perspective.

One of Anna’s statements created an optimistic future vision for creative people: She said that although a machine may be capable of producing a drawing in the style of a certain artist, it is very far from being able to actually draw – which is to her a combination of the physical skill with the memories of the artists creating a meaningful piece of art.

Reference List:

Ridler, A. (2018) Mosaic Virus (work in progress) 2018. Available at: http://annaridler.com/mosaic-virus (Accessed: 16 May 2019).

Campbell-Dollaghan, K. (2018) ‘This AI dreams in tulips’, Fast Company, 17 September. Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/90237233/this-ai-dreams-in-tulips (Accessed: 16 May 2019).