4 ms·

Personally believe that art requires intention and some attempt at communication but it's an interesting project.

by LegitShady 5y ago

jazzyjackson 5y ago
In this case I suppose the real artwork is the space of all artworks that the machine is sampling from.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  I'm not sure that makes this installation art in and of itself.
cryptoz 5y ago
Who's to say that the AI doesn't have intent, and makes no attempt at communication? These are certainly very philosophical questions and I would be ready to stand by the idea that first, there is possibly intent and communication here, and second, I've never heard of this narrow definition of art before. Art is art, defining it so narrowly seems strange to me.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  It's ok to disagree with me - everyone is allowed a different opinion on art. I'll explain a bit more about my opinion, which you are free to disagree with. Personally I don't think a machine generating pixels from neural networks trained on intentional art can create art - it can create something that seems very similar because it seems to generate the same or similar output but its missing the process and intention of art. If an artist draws random shapes with no intention or intent to communicate or evoke thought/emotion, all they're doing is making shapes, unless the random shapes themselves are an intent to communicate something (which is difficult if they're actually random). 'art is art' is a tautology with no meaning, and defining art in a way that makes some things not art is the only way you can have a useful definition of art. Change my tire? Art. Spill chocolate milk on the table? art. vomit after drinking too much? art. because art is art, right? I guess the question is why you think everything, including things done without intention or intent to communicate, is art?
  - ozzmotik 5y ago
    in the semiotic tradition of Peirce, everything is a sign, signaling some sort of message or meaning. even if there is no evident or inherent intent being encompassed in some chunk of reality, there is still something being signified, and therefore something being communicated. in cases like this, the art is the interpretant formulated by the interpreter, a personal value judgment, rather than some intended value encoded by some given creator of art. just my take on it, maybe it might provide a framework for seeing how even unintentional, stochastic processes can be conceived of as art. :)
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      >in the semiotic tradition of Peirce, everything is a sign Again, if you interpret changing a tire, spilling milk, or the vomiting after drinking too heavily as art, I disagree with you. Are traffic signs art, in and of themselves? are all signs art? I don't think I agree with you. I've never read peirce and I don't do that 'argument from authority' thing, but given your wording here I don't think I agree with what you're saying. >the art is the interpretant formulated by the interpreter, So according to pierce, my interpretation of this as not as art is as valid as you thinking its art, since that's how im interpreting it? It doesn't seem like a very self consistent idea.
      - ozzmotik 5y ago
        >I don't do that 'argument from authority' thing i get what you're suggesting here, and i would be inclined to say that i don't really appeal to someone I would personally consider authoritative as a means of validating my argument, but that being said, citing someone who was fairly prominent in a specific field of study in order to make a point based on their work in that field of study isn't really appealing to authority. it's like if i were to cite Stephen Hawking to make the claim that black holes slowly radiate out their content over time, that wouldn't necessarily be appealing to authority, it would just be citing someone who happened to be an expert in a specific field for their work in it. granted, there are better, more objective things to refer to than the hypothesis of hawking radiation to demonstrate the accuracy of it, but I think the analogy stands. >So according to pierce, my interpretation of this as not as art is as valid as you thinking its art, since that's how im interpreting it? precisely. that's the nature of the relationship between interpreter, signs, and the signified. >It doesn't seem like a very self consistent idea. that's because the idea isn't necessarily one specifically used to justify the validity of what constitutes art, it's more about categorizing the relationship between an interpretive entity and that which is being interpreted as a triple, namely as a sign (the conveyed meaning or intent), the signifier (the thing which the sign is referring to), and the intepretant (the personal interpretation formed by the interpreter in response to the sign+signifier.) (note: apologies to anyone reading this if I haven't represented it fully accurately, im still in the process of integrating it completely, but I am confident my summation of it is generally correct) the connection I made to the subjective interpretation of what constitutes valid art is just my own invocation of this idea in the specific context of art and the criticism thereof. it definitely is a very generalized approach to things, but it's important to note that this process of semiosis isn't about the specific outcome, but rather about the process that leads to it, and therfore despite our personal experiences with it being contradictory, the process itself that leads to it is self consistent, it's just that you bring something different to the process of interpretation than I do because of your own experience, your own Bayesian Net as it were.
xaedes 5y ago
I think the generated pixels are not the art. The whole piece is the art, made by the artist, i.e. the OP.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  perhaps the whole installation is art, if as a whole there's some kind of overall intention, message, or communication. Personally having trouble seeing that here. It's more a tech demo. It's a digital picture frame that generates its pictures procedurally from a neural network.
  - mfi 5y ago
    I'm glad that you're bringing this up, because it's an interesting (almost philosophical question) around what art is. In my mind, the interesting part in this installation is not necessarily the generated artworks, but rather the fact that they are one push of a button away from being deleted forever. It adds a consumable aspect to the installation, which I think is interesting. Can that evoke emotions and be art in itself? But that being said, I don't look at myself as an artist. I'm a simple Data Scientist enjoying building projects at the intersection of technology, woodwork and art (whatever that is).
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      >but rather the fact that they are one push of a button away from being deleted forever but how is that expressed or communicated through the installation? Why should anyone value random patterns generated by a machine that had no intention? I find andy goldsworthy's art incredible, and he bases his work almost entirely on this idea of impermanent art (although his is usually found materials). I'm not sure its communicated by what you've presented. I think the impermanence of random patterns that don't communicate anything is something you can find interesting rather than something thats communicated by the video screen, or the intention of the installation. It's a cool project, but ya, still not sold on this being art per se.

Personally believe that art requires intention and some attempt at communication but it's an interesting project.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

In this case I suppose the real artwork is the space of all artworks that the machine is sampling from.

LegitShady 5y ago
I'm not sure that makes this installation art in and of itself.

cryptoz 5y ago

Who's to say that the AI doesn't have intent, and makes no attempt at communication? These are certainly very philosophical questions and I would be ready to stand by the idea that first, there is possibly intent and communication here, and second, I've never heard of this narrow definition of art before. Art is art, defining it so narrowly seems strange to me.

LegitShady 5y ago
It's ok to disagree with me - everyone is allowed a different opinion on art. I'll explain a bit more about my opinion, which you are free to disagree with. Personally I don't think a machine generating pixels from neural networks trained on intentional art can create art - it can create something that seems very similar because it seems to generate the same or similar output but its missing the process and intention of art. If an artist draws random shapes with no intention or intent to communicate or evoke thought/emotion, all they're doing is making shapes, unless the random shapes themselves are an intent to communicate something (which is difficult if they're actually random). 'art is art' is a tautology with no meaning, and defining art in a way that makes some things not art is the only way you can have a useful definition of art. Change my tire? Art. Spill chocolate milk on the table? art. vomit after drinking too much? art. because art is art, right? I guess the question is why you think everything, including things done without intention or intent to communicate, is art?
- ozzmotik 5y ago
  in the semiotic tradition of Peirce, everything is a sign, signaling some sort of message or meaning. even if there is no evident or inherent intent being encompassed in some chunk of reality, there is still something being signified, and therefore something being communicated. in cases like this, the art is the interpretant formulated by the interpreter, a personal value judgment, rather than some intended value encoded by some given creator of art. just my take on it, maybe it might provide a framework for seeing how even unintentional, stochastic processes can be conceived of as art. :)
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    >in the semiotic tradition of Peirce, everything is a sign Again, if you interpret changing a tire, spilling milk, or the vomiting after drinking too heavily as art, I disagree with you. Are traffic signs art, in and of themselves? are all signs art? I don't think I agree with you. I've never read peirce and I don't do that 'argument from authority' thing, but given your wording here I don't think I agree with what you're saying. >the art is the interpretant formulated by the interpreter, So according to pierce, my interpretation of this as not as art is as valid as you thinking its art, since that's how im interpreting it? It doesn't seem like a very self consistent idea.
    - ozzmotik 5y ago
      >I don't do that 'argument from authority' thing i get what you're suggesting here, and i would be inclined to say that i don't really appeal to someone I would personally consider authoritative as a means of validating my argument, but that being said, citing someone who was fairly prominent in a specific field of study in order to make a point based on their work in that field of study isn't really appealing to authority. it's like if i were to cite Stephen Hawking to make the claim that black holes slowly radiate out their content over time, that wouldn't necessarily be appealing to authority, it would just be citing someone who happened to be an expert in a specific field for their work in it. granted, there are better, more objective things to refer to than the hypothesis of hawking radiation to demonstrate the accuracy of it, but I think the analogy stands. >So according to pierce, my interpretation of this as not as art is as valid as you thinking its art, since that's how im interpreting it? precisely. that's the nature of the relationship between interpreter, signs, and the signified. >It doesn't seem like a very self consistent idea. that's because the idea isn't necessarily one specifically used to justify the validity of what constitutes art, it's more about categorizing the relationship between an interpretive entity and that which is being interpreted as a triple, namely as a sign (the conveyed meaning or intent), the signifier (the thing which the sign is referring to), and the intepretant (the personal interpretation formed by the interpreter in response to the sign+signifier.) (note: apologies to anyone reading this if I haven't represented it fully accurately, im still in the process of integrating it completely, but I am confident my summation of it is generally correct) the connection I made to the subjective interpretation of what constitutes valid art is just my own invocation of this idea in the specific context of art and the criticism thereof. it definitely is a very generalized approach to things, but it's important to note that this process of semiosis isn't about the specific outcome, but rather about the process that leads to it, and therfore despite our personal experiences with it being contradictory, the process itself that leads to it is self consistent, it's just that you bring something different to the process of interpretation than I do because of your own experience, your own Bayesian Net as it were.

xaedes 5y ago

I think the generated pixels are not the art. The whole piece is the art, made by the artist, i.e. the OP.

LegitShady 5y ago
perhaps the whole installation is art, if as a whole there's some kind of overall intention, message, or communication. Personally having trouble seeing that here. It's more a tech demo. It's a digital picture frame that generates its pictures procedurally from a neural network.
- mfi 5y ago
  I'm glad that you're bringing this up, because it's an interesting (almost philosophical question) around what art is. In my mind, the interesting part in this installation is not necessarily the generated artworks, but rather the fact that they are one push of a button away from being deleted forever. It adds a consumable aspect to the installation, which I think is interesting. Can that evoke emotions and be art in itself? But that being said, I don't look at myself as an artist. I'm a simple Data Scientist enjoying building projects at the intersection of technology, woodwork and art (whatever that is).
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    >but rather the fact that they are one push of a button away from being deleted forever but how is that expressed or communicated through the installation? Why should anyone value random patterns generated by a machine that had no intention? I find andy goldsworthy's art incredible, and he bases his work almost entirely on this idea of impermanent art (although his is usually found materials). I'm not sure its communicated by what you've presented. I think the impermanence of random patterns that don't communicate anything is something you can find interesting rather than something thats communicated by the video screen, or the intention of the installation. It's a cool project, but ya, still not sold on this being art per se.