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I think we will likely want to know the story that accompanies a painting more than ever. Aesthetics and composition alone will not make a great piece since we

by imranq 4y ago

I think we will likely want to know the story that accompanies a painting more than ever. Aesthetics and composition alone will not make a great piece since we can no longer trust that some work was created by a human artist. We know that AI paintings are simply points in the latent space between human-created artworks, so there cannot be any information gain from such representations and therefore have nothing new to say about the human condition without adding real-world context and story. Paintings will be judged by how well they fit in the context of nature and society. "I trudged through the Grand Canyon to paint this landscape in Spring" is much more compelling than "I just typed in these words in MidJourney and this is what came out".

michaelscott 4y ago
Art has been seen as an outcome of context, rather than simply a combination of aesthetics and composition, for a long time already. The movements of Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and, maybe most famously, Cubism have all already questioned the purpose of art in the recent-ish past. That purpose of art is what will need to be determined now. In the early Middle Ages of Europe or the Islamic Golden Age, for example, art served a religious purpose. In more modern times, art has served to question or criticise the status quo in the context from which it's born. I don't think this purpose necessarily needs to be abandoned, but it will definitely need to be re-assessed in light of this new tool we've developed.
- mouse_ 4y ago
  Let's not forget how much the CIA messed up our interpretation of art in recent times. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt-1909623 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt...
  - spaced-out 4y ago
    Damn, the CIA had good taste in art, who knew...
nestorD 4y ago
"I woke up from a dream in which I was crawling in an impossible landscape. So I jumped onto my keyboard and, after a sleepless night, conjured the image I saw from the numeric ether. This is that image."
sebzim4500 4y ago
Probably. I wonder how many people will just lie.
FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago
For 99.9% of people art == pretty pictures that they like. So no, what you describe will absolutely not happen. And let's be honest, most backstories of paintings are either fabricated, completely nonsense or boring. No, that mediocre painting of flowers in bloom isnt better because i know the artist went on a vacation to Tuscany. And no, that other painting showing three colored dots on a white background isnt representing the struggle of people against capitalism and is most definitely not evoking feelings of loneliness in a cold, harsh world or whatever the fuck museums try to tell me.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Brutal, but I couldn't agree more. Sure, by exception it's possible for one to have a deep emotional connection to a piece of art or the artist, but in general I don't think anybody is curious at all beyond it looking good/bad. As for critique on society by means of art, we're past the age where any of it would be original or shocking. Any critique you might have we can read about on social media every day. It's the norm, nothing out of the ordinary. It's so normalized that even the threat of a total societal collapse fails to impress. I once found myself in a modern art museum (against my will). We entered a giant empty room with 3 beach chairs in the far corner. In the next room was a wrangled and damaged piece of steel sitting on the floor. In both cases the tour guide questioned us as to what we believe the meaning of these works are. So now you have a bunch of adults looking at garbage yet complying with the social pressure to pretend that any of this is sane or interesting. You'll fake the genuinely curious but puzzled face, comply with the minimum thinking time to signal that you did some deep soul searching, and make the random guess. Which is correct, because art is whatever it means to YOU. We were looking at a mirror all along. Life-changing, really. As in, never again.

by imranq 4y ago

michaelscott 4y ago

Art has been seen as an outcome of context, rather than simply a combination of aesthetics and composition, for a long time already. The movements of Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and, maybe most famously, Cubism have all already questioned the purpose of art in the recent-ish past. That purpose of art is what will need to be determined now. In the early Middle Ages of Europe or the Islamic Golden Age, for example, art served a religious purpose. In more modern times, art has served to question or criticise the status quo in the context from which it's born. I don't think this purpose necessarily needs to be abandoned, but it will definitely need to be re-assessed in light of this new tool we've developed.

mouse_ 4y ago
Let's not forget how much the CIA messed up our interpretation of art in recent times. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt-1909623 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artcurious-cia-art-excerpt...
- spaced-out 4y ago
  Damn, the CIA had good taste in art, who knew...

nestorD 4y ago

"I woke up from a dream in which I was crawling in an impossible landscape. So I jumped onto my keyboard and, after a sleepless night, conjured the image I saw from the numeric ether. This is that image."

sebzim4500 4y ago

Probably. I wonder how many people will just lie.

FranzFerdiNaN 4y ago

For 99.9% of people art == pretty pictures that they like. So no, what you describe will absolutely not happen. And let's be honest, most backstories of paintings are either fabricated, completely nonsense or boring. No, that mediocre painting of flowers in bloom isnt better because i know the artist went on a vacation to Tuscany. And no, that other painting showing three colored dots on a white background isnt representing the struggle of people against capitalism and is most definitely not evoking feelings of loneliness in a cold, harsh world or whatever the fuck museums try to tell me.

fleddr 4y ago
Brutal, but I couldn't agree more. Sure, by exception it's possible for one to have a deep emotional connection to a piece of art or the artist, but in general I don't think anybody is curious at all beyond it looking good/bad. As for critique on society by means of art, we're past the age where any of it would be original or shocking. Any critique you might have we can read about on social media every day. It's the norm, nothing out of the ordinary. It's so normalized that even the threat of a total societal collapse fails to impress. I once found myself in a modern art museum (against my will). We entered a giant empty room with 3 beach chairs in the far corner. In the next room was a wrangled and damaged piece of steel sitting on the floor. In both cases the tour guide questioned us as to what we believe the meaning of these works are. So now you have a bunch of adults looking at garbage yet complying with the social pressure to pretend that any of this is sane or interesting. You'll fake the genuinely curious but puzzled face, comply with the minimum thinking time to signal that you did some deep soul searching, and make the random guess. Which is correct, because art is whatever it means to YOU. We were looking at a mirror all along. Life-changing, really. As in, never again.