Finding Art In AI?
From what I gather in my reading, photography, much like AI graphics today, was once not considered an art form. When photography first emerged, people struggled to accept that a mechanical device could ever create art. They believed art required skill, time, and most of all, the direct human touch. Since photography could depict the world more accurately than painting, the latter had to reinvent itself. This situation influenced the art world toconsider reality in ways that traditional art and photography could not. After two decades of marginalization, photography was finally embraced as an art form, likely because a new generation had become accustomed to it. We find ourselves in a position in which AI-generated or AI-aided graphics are today similarly challenging the accepted understanding of art. But things are moving faster now, and so acceptance will come swiftly, at least to the masses.
Art stems from an artist’s vision, concept, and intended message. Artists envision their creative expressions, considering elements such as color, lighting, emotion, and visual content. This vision often focuses on evoking feelings or expressing ideas. I’m thinking it is this human creative concept, rather than the means of production, that truly defines art.
At present, AI graphics tools, on their own, lack genuine creative vision and cannot generate inspired concepts. It cannot dream or reflect on human emotions or aspirations, as undirected, it merely produces images based on programming and machine learning. That’s not to say that undirected AI-generated images might not be good, but it’s still the artist’s creative vision, concept, and intended message that drive originality.
Crafting an envisioned image in AI, even from a core photo (as with the picture above), is seldom a one-step process. My experience is that you must build and craft in multiple steps, often not getting the exact results you expect, which requires you to change direction or sometimes start over. In my case, after using AI graphics tools, there is often still fine-tuning by more conventional means.
I’ve barely scratched the surface, and I’m sure to have additional thoughts on the matter as I go.
I have to admit that at this point I haven’t used AI generated images nor have I plans too. That said my mind is open as to whether they are considered “art”, whatever that really means.
Background plays some role in it. As a retired programmer and analyst, the process of scripting an exact language description, a prompt, for an image fascinates me as much or more than the actual image. There’s so much flexibility in the whole process, tho, because unless it’s exacting, you can use the same prompt and get different results. The results can also vary depending on which AI you use. At this point, I’m trying to understand it all.
Good luck on this adventure in creative art. I have not used AI, yet. Yet, having said that, I’m using some of the tools in Lightroom that are AI powered such as masking people or objects from a scene. I have not added anything to an image, yet. I am not sure of my definition of art and maybe that’s how if needs to be. I consider some scenes that nature creates using color, lighting, patterns as art but I’m not sure if there is any emotion or creative concept by nature. Boy, do you have me thinking, pondering, wondering, questioning! That’s a good thing as long as I do not get a headache from it. And, I truly love this iamge. Well seen and processed!!
In my little exploring thus far, I’ve found that there is a whole world of talented, creative AI artists out there, not surprisingly, composed mostly of younger generations. I have my concepts of what is art, and then there is the formal recognition by those who define such things, not always in agreement with my own opinion. But a lot of the work being done using AI, I think, is or will one day be formally recognized as art. There is no stopping it, and graphics is just one of many areas AI is redefining. At my age, it’s not like I’m trying to make a career out of it. But it falls into my area of interest, and I like learning new things. Plus, hopefully, it will help keep the old brain train on the rails. Sorry if I’ve caused you headaches. Usually, I’m accused of being a pain in an area much lower than that. Take care, my friend!