Key-points from Do Machines Make Art?:

Can we really consider any art to be purely machine generated?

"Whatever happens is still result of the human being, having put it in motion."

Most of us will work with machines to make art rather than let them take the lead, but it is in the latter instances that the authorship of the piece can become blurry. These sorts of discussions are tricky, as you can end up going down a rabbit hole and argue about whether photographers are truly artists (it only requires pressing a button, right?), if digital art is as equally valid as traditional (brushes, colours, blending tools, etc. are provided for), and even if we can consider Mother Nature an artist, with her vast creations deemed beautiful by many. Even if artificial intelligence is capable of creating a poem, or making a sculpture with the help of gravity, it still requires a human-created algorithm to succeed. Giving a machine the credibility of design also means accepting that it can make decisions individually. Take chess-playing robots as an example; the reason why they can beat other players is because they have been wired to take every situation into account, and they have been given this task by a software developer. In this scenario, is the algorithm (aka the machine) making the decisions or the person who designed the algorithm? Nothing can be completely independent, and as the video states: "Everything is interrelated, the result of a complex web of associations, actions, and effects."

What is it that we find so compelling about art made by machines?

When we admire a creation, we also take into consideration and praise the artist's devotion to the project. There is a story behind the art, with influences and aspirations that have led the creator to make what is in front of you. This past with development is hard to define in art made by machines, as they technically do not have a memorable past to draw on. The video presented the following statement which encapsulates the general idea as a whole: "The value that art has is the value that we place on it." We find AI art fascinating, as it is unusual and comes from a contradictory source, but this can also be applied to other scenarios. Take Woody Allen as an example, with his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, which was a massive scandal in the 90s. Although many called the situation sickening, he has still managed to continue directing and there will always be those who are mesmerised by the strange and support his work no matter what. This connects to art made by machines as we seek the good and accept the peculiar as part of the artwork.

For me, the art made by AI that I find most interesting are the autonomous poems. As an example, I want to include my favourite stanza from the sonnet created by Charese Smiley and Hiroko Bretz’s software system:

The large cabin was in total darkness.
Come marching up the eastern hill afar.
When is the clock on the stairs dangerous?
Everything seemed so near and yet so far.

Behind the wall silence alone replied.
Was, then, even the staircase occupied?

Artists Who Make Machines (Do Machines Make Art?)

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