There have been many articles about artificial intelligence. Caught between the fear and fantasy about what AI can and may do, on one side, and the technical demands of programming and the displacement of human activity, are those articles that illuminate this new zeitgeist.
What do I mean by that?
Recall the anxiety over the introduction of digital cameras. It was a new technology. It was part of the zeitgeist of miniaturization, of optics, and of integration with a similar revolution in communication technology.
That anxiety also framed the resistance to digital images in art institutions. This anxiety was magnified by digital artists who were able to manipulate these photographs in many more ways than existing analog photography. And faster, too.
I took issue with this anxiety several decades ago. I pointed out that the local county fair was exhibiting these new-fangled digital images while the local museum dedicated to photography refused to show them. Not until there was a new museum director was there a change. And then the revolution happened. The next exhibit included digital art photography — although no such mention was made on the title cards.
So, here we are again. There’s a new kid on the block — generative AI (GAI) art. Not all of these new images are photographic in appearance, but of those that are, the concerns of human authorship abound. That follows these images into copyright: the human authorship is a mystery, if it exists at all, and therefore fail in the current quest for copyright protection.
There has also been resistance from non-GAI artists. Some plan on using a new program called Nightshade to mislabel the metatags and change the pixels in ways that confound the use of their images in the datasets on which the AI platforms are trained.
This is where the many local county fairs across the country can contribute to understanding and exploring how to integrate this new art-making tool into art future, if not art history.
Going back to my experience at my local county fair, the space for exhibiting digital art was at first segregated from traditional photography. We were allowed into the same building and on the same floor. But we had a separate room.
Over several years, especially with the advance of digital camera technology and the use of editing software, the separate room approach no longer made sense. Instead, new categories were added to allow for creative divergence from what was normally thought of as a real photograph. The title tags for those images reflected how the image was crafted. That may not have mattered to the thousands of visitors to the photography exhibit. After all, a compelling image is a compelling image.
We have now returned to a similar question. Should GAI art be included into the county photography show, and the broader art exhibits? Oftentimes, these exhibits are presented with discussions about the crafting of the exhibited art and photography. The many dilemmas surrounding GAI art can be debated while a separate wall for such images can illuminate this new direction in artmaking.
That seems like a plain vanilla suggestion and yet, it delves into the fears and fantasies about what art and photography is and may be. Think of the fear of deepfakes. Think of the uncertainty over whether the human element in the image is merely a text prompt. Think of the trampling of art and photographic styles that took decades to develop and refine. Think of the skillsets that these new “photographers” and “artists” lack, while the images they claim as owning are simply a derivation of a super large computer program with a super large set of someone else’s images.
Are there alternatives to these fears and fantasies? Many of those artists whose skills include digital editing and creativity are already exploring this “next hill” in the evolution of artmaking technology. The county fair exhibits are ground zero for showing the results and thinking about where art is going.
This is a fast-moving development throughout our many institutions. Museums will be behind the acceptance curve. Art galleries, driven by pecuniary motives for unique works of art, will also hesitate. So, let the county fairs become the place where experiment and argument can engage this emergent platform for artmaking and art appreciation.
Joe Nalven is a San Diego-based digital artist. He is the author of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (Thompson, 2005). He has also written about the future of AI.
