Art is human ... or is it?

Gizem Karaali

July 8, 2024

AI art from around the web. On the left: "Woman with poppy flowers" by WhimsyPixs. On the right: A variation on "The Watcher" by Karou Tamada.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter who lived and died. His many works have been reproduced and sold all around the world. I grew up under the sight of a reproduction of his "The Kiss", and when I learned that he had been influenced by Japanese aesthetics, I somehow felt justified in my inclination for his art. 

However, Klimt died in 1918, more than a century ago. And so naturally he stopped painting. Until recently. Today folks who find Klimt's style appealing may also find the FaceBook Group Gustav Klimt AI interesting. I like Klimt and I also love red poppies, so when "Woman with poppy flowers" showed up on my FB feed (see the image on the left), I was mesmerized. I am of course not an art historian, nor am I an accomplished artist or even a sophisticated connoisseur. And I am sure there will be many people who love and appreciate Klimt with a keener eye than I who will not enjoy this work. But I definitely did. 

Just like I enjoyed the variation on "The Watcher" by Karuo Yamada, which showed up in my FB feed a few weeks later (see the image on the right). I loved the quiet glamor of the scene, the curve of the geography that reminded me of parts of the Bosphorus, and the silhouette of the cat nestled under the tree watching it all taking it all in. 

Then today I got to thinking. Both artists who created these works call their niche "AI art". But what is AI art? It is, as far as I am concerned, art created by a human agent engaging with an artificial intelligence agent to co-create some artifact that satisfies some human itch to express oneself, to introduce something beautiful or meaningful to the world. Does this rhyme with your understanding?

A colleague the other day said that they were not there yet with AI art; to them it did not feel like art. So of course the natural followup question is: what is art? Wikipedia defines art as "a diverse range of human activity and its resulting product that involves creative or imaginative talent generally expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas." And at the center of this is the word "human". But there is also the phrase "technical proficiency" in there, and how to use AI to create what you are envisioning fits under it, I presume. And how much of the creation is the human doing in AI art? I am not sure. I assume there is likely a spectrum, and the boundaries are blurry. 

When I teach my course on math and art, we explore some samples of animal art, that is, art created by animals that are not human. A good sample can be found at this webpage on Art by Gorillas. You might question whether Koko the gorilla is aiming to express herself when she is painting, or you can also wonder if she is intending to create art. But is all art about self expression? Through human history, art has played many different roles and satisfied many purposes, and self-expression does not seem to have always been at the forefront as it is today. And we still do not have a good understanding of the inner lives and minds of gorillas to dismiss their work as not art. 

So I am again at a point where I have more questions than answers. I seem to be converging to a pattern of exploring and inquiring but never really arriving at a conclusive point. Oh well. This is a blog post after all. If it made you think, if it made you wonder or smile, then it has done its job. If not, then there is always next week!