When artists work with technology, they fundamentally rewrite narratives of hype and mistrust, Chung told Observer.

It’s not every day you witness robotic arms with brushes in hand, painting in harmonious tandem alongside a human. A rolled canvas, blank just seconds ago, is slowly being covered in an abstract medley of aquas and whites that bear the mark of three entities: two machines and one Chinese-Canadian artist, Sougwen Chung.

This isn’t the year 2035 or a leaked episode of Black Mirror Season 7, but a live demonstration of Chung’s practice before an intimate audience in Scorpios Bodrum beach club in Turkey as part of the sprawling retreat’s Encounters program that is an incubator for constructive experimentation across disciplines. This season’s recently closed exhibition, “Evolving Perspectives,” probed the co-existence of technology and humankind through a creative lens.

Seated in Scorpios Bodrum’s wellness hub, the Ritual Space, we watch Chung, who identifies as non-binary, take a seat between their two robotic systems placed at opposite peripherals of the canvas. Boldly dressed in white for the occasion, the artist enters what seems like a meditative state, despite being surrounded by curious watchers. Later, Chung would tell me that this state of complete immersion is one of the many drivers behind these performances: to escape in a room full of people and invite onlookers to do the same.

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With his art-making software dating back to the 1960s, the programmer and artist paved the way for today’s confluence of art and technology

Is artificial intelligence a tool to be used by humans to creative ends or is it a creative agent in its own right? The late artist and programmer Harold Cohen considered these questions in his 1973 essay ‘Parallel to Perception’ and articulated a position shared by many artists working with AI today: ‘Tools generally serve to extend or to delimit various human functions,’ he wrote, ‘but of all the many tools invented by man only the computer has the power to perform functions which parallel those of the mind itself, and its autonomy is thus not entirely illusory.’ In other words, the computer can play a more independent role in the creative process than, say, a paintbrush or a camera.

Cohen proved this point artistically with his best-known project ‘AARON’, an art-making software he conceived in the late 1960s and developed until his death in 2016. As explored in ‘Harold Cohen: AARON’, a new exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Cohen designed AARON specifically so that the software, and thus the machine running it, could make decisions with as little human input as possible. Today, AARON is known as the earliest example of an art-making AI. Reflecting on AARON’s relative simplicity, in comparison to the AI models used by contemporary artists, can show us how far we have come, but also what has remained constant.

What role, if any, should artificial intelligence play in the world of art and content creation? Prestige asks AI-art experts Alex Israel and Sougwen Chung.

As soon as artificial intelligence become easily accessible through the likes of ChatGPT, DALL•E 2 and Midjourney, it began raising endless questions about how humanity can co-exist with the ever-expanding and evolving digital realm. And when it comes to art, the questions become even more pertinent.  

Although it can be used as a tool, AI is increasingly being utilised to create end products, which are then sold and credited to the artist using the technology. To what extent can creators claim ownership over these works? Will AI completely take over human artists? Should we fear this technology? To answer these questions, we sought the help of American multimedia artist Alex Israel and Canadian-born Chinese artist and researcher Sougwen Chung. 

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Two leaders in the field of machine learning assess its progressive potential for art and beyond

For over a decade, Mick Grierson has been leading research into creative applications of AI. As a co-founder of the Creative Computing Institute, he has helped to drive inclusive approaches to a range of fields: from creative coding to machine learning, and from sensing to software. In that time, Luba Elliott has become an essential curator in the field of creative AI, a term which Grierson first attributes to Elliott. At a moment when artists are rewiring the digital systems that envelop society, RCS invited them to discuss AI’s trajectory as a creative tool.‍

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Arun Kakar

Mar 4, 2024 8:08PM

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