DALL-E is an AI art generator, creating images from text captions. This new form of digital creation is specifically being used to make NFTs, however if calls in question the idea of AI made art developing to the scale of human made.
Developed by OpenAi, the software was developed to generate digital images from natural language descriptions and was revealed in January 2021 in a blog post made by the company.
AI art and DALL-E, a name made up of WALL-E from the self-titled Pixar movie and Salvador Dali, have put into question modern art curation as well as what it means to be human. Are AI generated art soulless menageries of information or are they themselves artistic expression of the engineers behind them?
In 2019, some of these pieces were acquired by significant auction houses and placed in well curated collections. On Wednesday the 6th of March that same year, Sotheby’s sold its first artificial intelligence-produced piece during its daytime contemporary art auction in London. The Mario Klingemann piece, ‘Memories of Passersby I’ (2018), generates an endless, shifting array of portraits on two sizeable digital panels.
Night Café is an online platform following this same principle, although not as developed. The use can insert keywords, both objects and art styles, for the machine to output an artwork, typically of abstract nature.
One major argument regarding these AI generated works has been the reduction of human emotion that is the reason fine art exists in the first place. Although creating conceptual images based on ideas may be fine, in terms of actual art pieces, made to be appreciated, where does AI-made work stand? When looking at interpretations of humans, they often sit within the uncanny valley, with faces that don’t quite resemble people.
The evolution of this type of work is an interesting one to keep an eye on, beckoning in questions about what fine art is in the 21st Century.
