sleep well, misfortune seeker

So, in the last few years since AI art came bounding onto the scene like an over enthusiastic unwanted puppy with 9 legs and 12 tongues, the discussion about whether the stuff generated by AI machines like midjourney is actually Real Art has become one of the main talking points. And I'll be honest, I'm kinda sick of it lol

Because, what is or isn't art is kinda unimportant to me lol...

Don't get me wrong, I think that there is a space to discuss what constitutes art (especially in a world where hacks like Damien Hirst are allowed to throw whatever bullshit he wants at a wall or in a tank and claim he's reinventing what art even means and becoming super wealthy and successful off the back of it... Also it wouldn't be an informal essay by me if I didn't complain slightly about Duchamp and his goddamn fucking fountain pfft... my life's goal is to find and piss in that urinal mark my words), but rather that, particularly when it comes to discussions surrounding AI, I find the focus on whether it is or isn't art not especially an interesting question.

Part of what sparked this conversation was a tweet by youtuber Alexander Avila asking the hypothetical about whether if Van Gogh was an AI Dude Bro today and used AI to generate his Starry Night painting, would that be considered art. Now Avila got a lot of shit for this tweet that was completely unwarranted imo (it's literally just a hypothetical, chill out my dudes), but that being said I don't think criticism of the original tweet (now deleted) is unworthy of exploration.

Because the thing is, whether AI Dude Bro Van Gogh generated the same artwork with AI as the Actual Van Gogh created over a hundred years previous is kinda... Irrelevant lol

An important thing to remember is it's not just about it being a work of art that brings value to it... Famous artworks of the past aren't just famous because they're art, their famous because of the cultural history surrounding them!

And it feels remiss to talk about Van Gogh's Starry Night and not mention everything that makes that work important to us today... The fact it's a post-impressionist piece building on the language and techniques championed by the impressionists in 19th century France, in turn a movement that was a backlash against the stuffy archaic rules of the European art academies and instead focused on more expressive, naturalistic ways of painting! His focus on colour and shape are also massively influenced by the works of artists like Monet and Renoir, alongside the move to more mundane every day subject matters! (which can have Dutch genre paintings and still life paintings to thank them for)

It was a far cry from the highly idealised historical paintings that were still greatly valued in that era, not to mention the fact that a lot of the impressionists, and especially post-impressionists like Van Gogh were heavily influenced by Japanese prints that had begun to make their way over to Europe at this time via trade routes! (if I'm remembering my degree correctly the prints arrived wrapped around Japanese ceramics and the like) Japanese art had a different approach to composition, perspective and colour than Western art, and you can really see the influence of Japanese artists in Van Gogh's paintings!

On top of all of this context, you also need to look at Van Gogh himself. Part of the reason why we love his work still is because of the man himself. You ask even the most casual of art enjoyers what they know about him and I'd guarantee they'd tell you that a) he painted the sunflowers/starry night b) he cut off his own ear (it was only a portion of his ear but still) & c) he only sold one painting in his lifetime (something that I think is often disputed by historians but like... we won't get into that here lol).

The mythology behind Van Gogh as a tortured artist is a big reason as to why we love works like Starry Night. We believe we can feel his emotion, his soul even, in the work he created so much so that it still moves us now in the 21st century. Hell, Vincent and The Doctor is one of the most beloved Doctor Who episodes even by people who hate that era of Doctor Who lol!

It's because he was an incredibly talented man that was fucked over by a world and society that didn't give him the help or resources he needed to succeed, because he was a product of all the revolutionary art movements that had happened before him, because he was a product of international trade that massively influenced the way Western art looked... And like, this isn't even to mention the ways in which medium (oil paints, canvas, etc) came about and meant the very specific way Van Gogh painted was even possible, or how the invention of the camera shaped the whole of the art world and the general purpose of art itself at the end of the 19th century, as well as the ways in which colonialisation have impacted our perspective of what constitutes part of the 'Great Masters' as primarily being a bunch of white dudes... I could go on and on lol

My long and meandering point is is that the context as to why we love works like Starry Night has very little to do with the question of it being art.

So what question do I think we should be asking then?

Well, fundamentally I think a more interesting question about AI art in regards to the hypothetical AI Dude Bro Van Gogh generating Starry Night rather than creating it is whether that new generated version of Starry Night would be received the same way, whether it would be as important to us as a society as that original painting.

And the very simple answer to that is: No lol.

AI has no history in the same way humans do. Like yes it has every image in existence, but it doesn't have the same historical or emotional context of those images... So regardless of whether it can recreate exactly what Starry Night looks like down to the smallest brush stroke, it will never have that same emotional impact on our culture and society as a whole!

In conclusion, stop trying to ask whether AI art is 'real' art, stop posing it like some kinda deep philosophical question because it really does. not. matter.

As an artist the reason why I hate AI art isn't because it's 'Not Real Art', but because it's unethical (stealing images from thousands of artists that have no say in it, as well as stealing jobs from artists), and, crucially, really fucking bad for the environment lol

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