Artificial Intelligence and art – part 3

By JARROD WOLHUTER

Kevin Aires is the host of the podcast, The Business of AI Art, which helps business-owners effectively utilise AI art and technology to promote and market their businesses. He has years of experience in video production, live-streaming events and coaching professionals in video production, and has created video content with companies like IBM, Sony and B&Q. Aires has multi-media patents from his time at IBM and runs a group on LinkedIn looking at the effect of AI on business.

“I hear a lot of people say stuff like ‘it’ll never replace human beings’ – it’s already better than 99.9% of people out there, especially in terms of speed. The graphic artists who could match AI would take a day or two to create an image that AI can create in less than a second. 

What is hard, is the creative controls to create exactly the image you had in your mind. The AI has got its own ideas. You say create a snowman in a field – a really simple idea, right? So you’ve got an idea of what that snowman looks like, what the field looks like, what the trees in the background look like, what country we’re in, and so on. And if you don’t specify more than that – it’s going to come up with something that is different to what you had in your head. There is quite a skill in coming up with the right prompts. It’s like a new medium”.

Evelyna Helmer was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois USA, and is currently living and working in Sydney Australia. She has completed several commissions in Australia and USA, and her work is held in collections across Australia, USA and UK.

“What does it mean to be an artist now? Making art is about connecting with the unconscious. Making images mined from data may be accessing the collective unconscious. I don’t think this technological advance is anything that has happened previously. AI is altering the creative process. It raises more questions than answers”.

Thomas Bucich, a New York native and permanent resident in Australia, has pursued his professional career running a multi-disciplinary studio in Art and Design since 1990.  From classical fine arts training at The Arts Students League and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Architectural Design from Parsons School of Design in New York City, Thomas’ career has spanned the architectural interior and fine arts markets in New York and Sydney.

“It’s pretty amazing. It’s ground-breaking, and it’s very divisive at the moment. It’s polarising.

I’m an artist, but I’m also running an art gallery; I’m on both sides of the desk. The argument is the same as one-hundred years ago with photography and the value of photography not being as much as an oil painting. People arguing against AI art would have been arguing against photography one-hundred years ago.

I work in wax and stone; I also do bronze castings; mixed media works. I’ve been photographing these super-tactile materials and I’m uploading the digital photos into an AI program. It’s generating these digital works that are really beautiful”.