Early Career Research Network Seminars: A Schizophrenic Attitude to Technology: Assessing Generative AI Art in the Light of Historical “Generative Art”?

Aline Guillermet 

Coined by the German philosopher Max Bense in 1965, the term “generative art” refers to early computer art, and emphasises the endlessly creative potential of human-designed ‘code’ directed to produce visually pleasing images. In this context, the rising importance of programming shifted the focus away from the visual outputs, leading to heated debates as to whether the ‘art’ of computer art should be in the code or in the image, and to concerns about the dehumanization of art. How does this historical moment relate to today’s Generative AI – systems apparently able to create wholly new visual content by learning patterns from existing data – and its application to the visual arts?  What are the commonalities and differences between historical generative art, and contemporary Generative AI art? In this talk, Dr Aline Guillermet will take this historical background as a starting point to probe the politics of AI aesthetics in specific examples of contemporary visual arts that display a ‘schizophrenic attitude to technology’ (F. Nake), while also inviting a reflection on this methodological approach. What light can the historical precedent of generative art shed on the contemporary moment defined by machine learning, large image datasets, and black box AI? Is there value in observing the present through the lens of the past, so as to create a sense of distance, and enable theoretical considerations that may survive the increasingly elusive technological present? Or are the historical and technological gaps between the two eras simply too substantial for this methodology to be productive?