Is It Art Yet?

 

AI Noir

Anyone on the planet can now generate art and music, but would it be Art writ large, as it has been defined historically throughout the ages?

In one of the lectures of the late art historian Kirk Varnedoe he posited (in the context of the sometimes confounding minimalist work of Robert Morris, Carl Andre, and Donald Judd) the analogy of the kid in the backseat asking, ""Are we there yet?" Or, in our case, "Is it art yet?" To the general public, Judd's stainless steel and acrylic boxes look like nothing we have known art to be. But they certainly are, even if you don't agree. Some AI music will rise to this level, but we aren't seeing it as such at the moment. There's no philosophy yet to call it a Movement. AI is not being used in avant-garde ways, but it certainly could be. I see the potential for it.

In a somewhat happy accident in a recent random generation based on lyric wordplay, it generated dummy nonsense lyrics, which I thought was really interesting. Art is in the spotting of it when it happens. It shifts the focus away from music as an "inside" element to an "outside" element. I prefer the inside but it's interesting that you could operate creatively on a spectrum between inside and outside. But I'm wary because people tend to like the outside because it's easy to suss without effort or deep thinking or reflection. The producer in an AI production is noticing where things are interesting. In terms of coming back "inside" you can use real instruments against the AI generations.