Table Of ContentAI ART
Machine Visions
and Warped Dreams
JOANNA ZYLINSKA
MEDIA : ART : WRITE : NOW
AI Art
Machine Visions and Warped dreaMs
Joanna Zylinska
The MEDIA : Art : WrItE : NOW series mobilises the medium of
writing as a mode of critical enquiry and aesthetic expression. its
books capture the most original developments in technology-based
arts and other forms of creative media: ai and computational arts,
gaming, digital and post-digital productions, soft and wet media, in-
teractive and participative arts, open platforms, photography, photo-
media and, last but not least, amateur media practice. They convey the
urgency of the project via their style, length and mode of engagement.
in both length and tone, they sit somewhere between an extended es-
say and a monograph.
series editor: Joanna Zylinska
AI Art
Machine Visions and Warped dreaMs
Joanna Zylinska
OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS
London 2020
First edition published by open humanities press 2020
copyright © 2020 Joanna Zylinska
Freely available at:
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contents
acknowledgements 7
ai (and) art: an introduction 11
1. a so-called intelligence 23
2. The ethics of ai, or how to
Tell Better stories about Technology 29
3. Why now? ai as the
anthropocene imperative 39
4. ‘can computers Be creative?’:
a Misguided Question 49
5. artists, robots and ‘Fun’ 57
6. The Work of art in the
age of Machinic creation 65
7. Generative ai art as candy crush 75
8. seeing like a Machine,
Telling like a human 87
9. Undigital photography 105
10. an Uber for art? 117
11. From net art and post-internet art to artificially
intelligent art – and Beyond 129
12. ai as another intelligence 137
Future art, art’s Future: a conclusion 145
(art) Gallery of Links 155
notes 161
Works cited 165
acknowledgements
everal events gave impetus to the emergence of
s
this book. The 2017 edition of the ars electronica
festival in Linz, austria, held under the banner
of ‘ai: artificial intelligence / das andere ich’, served
as its original inspiration – and provocation. i am
extremely grateful to the organisers for the invitation
to present at the festival symposium and to see the art-
works, many of which featured, or engaged with, ai. i
am also much indebted to daria parkhomenko from
the LaBoraToria art & science space in Moscow,
for asking me to speak about the renewed interest in
ai in art as part of the conference ‘daemons in the
Machine: Methods for creating Technological art’,
held at the British higher school of art and design in
March 2018. Last but not least, the opportunity to serve
as a jury member and keynote speaker at the awards
ceremony for p3 prize, focusing on collaborative and
interdisciplinary developments in the field of post-pho-
tography and organised by Fotomuseum Winterthur
at The photographers’ Gallery in London in May 2018,
allowed me to crystallise the skeleton of my argument
acknowledgements 8
that went to on become this book, while also planting
the seeds of the visual project which accompanies it.
sections of the book have subsequently been tri-
alled at the royal college of art, prague’s FaMU, the
University of applied arts in Vienna (die angewandte),
Ben Gurion University of the negev, Vassar college,
international photography festival photoszene cologne,
Berlin’s internet and digital society conference re:
publica, University of Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery,
pratt institute, Trinity college dublin and Tekniska
museet in stockholm. i am grateful for all the invita-
tions, the generous engagement with my work in all
of those places – and the new ideas and directions all
those visits sparked off.
i am very grateful to the artists who have gener-
ously shared their work with me, in particular Katja
notivskova, Leonel Moura, Guido segni and Mike Tyka.
i owe a special debt to Mario Klingemann for his elo-
quence, patience and generosity of spirit in engaging
and humouring me at the various platforms we have
shared over the recent years, especially when i raised
issues with ai-driven art. My biggest debt of gratitude
is to the legion of amazon’s MTurk workers, whose ‘arti-
ficial artificial intelligence’ – as amazon unironically
puts it – is responsible for the more critical direction
this book has ended up taking.
Many individuals have helped me develop and fine-
tune the ideas contained here. i would especially like to
thank Giovanna Borradori, Tomas dvorak, nea ehrlich,
Beate Gütschow, alex Grein, Greg hainge, anne Kaun,
