SPOOFED AI GENERATION: A PAINTED PORTRAIT

Self Portrait: From My Dataset, Oil on 3 canvas boards, 2024

Generative AI is the talk of the town, and I am particularly interested in gen-AI image production. 

Fast AI generated 'paintings'! 

Gen-AI image production has provided the vehicle for tech-bros types, opportunists, and wannabes to become 'artists'. After a prompt, the speed of generation induces exclamations about how fast images can be 'created', 'painted'. Yes, I have seen these words used, and yes I have pointed out, for example, that a generated image may have elements of various paintings, due to data scraped from online sources, but this does not make the generated image a painting. Rather, it falls into contested areas of copyrighted image use! Yes, the generated image might simulate textural elements, but again this does not make it a painting, because a painting is a material object, created with actual materials. YES, the clincher is that the gen-AI 'painting' has been GENERATED using algorithms - it has not been created using paint. If the generated image was to be made into a material object, it would need to be printed, and then it would become a print. Then, there's a huge range of print types, from monoprints, limited edition artist prints (lithographs, etching, screen prints etc) to the mass produced prints found in places like IKEA, news agencies, KMART etc. And, of course, the use of canvas giclee prints (not a fan!).

I made all these comments (above) to someone on TWITTER (X), in response to a tweet about their speedily produced series of gen-AI 'paintings' - and - their response was something like "Hey, good points"! It was like a revelation to this person! This is why  artists and art historians with a broad experiences and understanding across multiple creative practices and histories need to engage in current debates about generative-AI image production. 

Is 'cultural product' a better description?

The explosion in generated AI image production is actually extremely interesting, for many reasons (despite or because of my comments above).  I prefer to view the phenomenon as cultural activity, with image outputs as cultural product. I propose that this avoids the binary question - is it art or not? This allows the topic to be opened up to embrace wider cultural and social issues. Teaser - what about the influence of tech platforms on increasingly homogenised visual aesthetics across design, fashion, and yes, art too? 

I'll add here, to avoid being called a technophobe 😁, some generated images, especially if an artist develops their own datasets, can be called art. And, yes, I am aware that there's a range of quality even within the category of art, whether AI assisted, painted, sculpted, digital etc. 

'Art' and advertising
Simply ascribing the term 'art' does not elevate a product, but some seem to think so. The term 'art' has become more like a marketing word for companies developing gen-AI programs. Its reeks of desires to legitimise and elevate their products. This reeking exposes ignorance, opportunism, carelessness. 

John Berger's observation in Ways of Seeing (book and TV show-1970s) that during the mid 20th century famous paintings/art were used to advertise completely unassociated products, such as alcohol and cars, provides a way to critically think about how the term 'art' is used to market contemporary tech products. The 21st century twist is that the so-called 'art' and the tech being promoted are less divisible than in the mid 20th century promotions. This is illustrated in the image below, a photo from a 1967 French magazine, Réalités, that my mother used to subscribe to. A detail of Emil Jean Horace Vernet's painting Bataille du pont d'Acole' (1826) is used to promote a product, Courvoisier Cognac. AND, while the advertisement in effect cheapens art as an advertising motif, please notice that the advertiser places a caption acknowledging the artist, the painting, and the context of the painting. This does not happen with images now scraped from online sites where artists works are posted. The cheapening continues at speed! Ironically, this is at the same time people aspire to be called artists, claiming anybody can be an artist, and that all artists are inspired by other artists, so copying is ok etc! Regarding the latter, the art theory term appropriation is another topic - but for another post! 

From Réalités, November 1967. 

Self Portrait: From My Dataset, 2024

SO, my self portrait, is a painting, an actual painting - a triptych painted over a number of months. It is a spoof of gen-AI processes and outputs. This self-portrait seems to be grappling with how it might emerge. Each piece of Self-Portrait: From My Dataset conveys something about me; my likeness, my personality, my geeky sense of humour. Therefore, each piece is a portrait/self-portrait. Combined, the three paintings are another self-portrait.

The first piece of the triptych makes my 'prompt' 'To paint a portrait of Kathryn' appear like the headline for a fabulous show! Is it a gameshow, a carnival oddity, or....? This is a critique of the importance placed on prompting, now developing into a profession eg: prompt engineer. The middle piece is my image 'dataset', but it includes images chosen for reasons no scoping/scraping algorithm could detect. The third piece is the final 'generated image', but there seems to have been a glitch because the AI has not been able to pixelate a final 'perfect' image. Have correlations from the dataset and statistical probabilities failed to sequence? Or, maybe it was because, over the few months I took to paint Self Portrait: From My Dataset a few insects got stuck in wet paint. While I did attempt to remove them, and repaint areas, I am pretty sure insect body parts may still be embalmed in the paint. 

NEWS

• My commentary piece, "Light-Speed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review", published in Digital War Journal.
  
  
• Visual essay chapter "Imaginational Metaveillance: Revelations in the Drone Age", published in Drone Aesthetics: War, Culture, Ecology  Open Humanities Press. 

BOOK LAUNCH for Drone Aesthetics: War, Culture, Ecology on Wednesday October 2, 2024. Please register through the Centre for Drones and Culture, The University of Cambridge, site 

• Visual essay chapter "Imaginational Metaveillance, Creative Painting Practice and the Airborne Drone", in Drones in Society: New Visual Aesthetics  Palgrave MacMillan.
  
  
• In November 2024, I am presenting at Artificial Visionaries two day workshop, The University of Queensland. Humanitix Registration   
  
  
• In March 2025, a major solo exhibition DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows at the University of Southern Queensland Art Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia. 

Cheers,

Kathryn