AI painting sparks outrage
I am a defender of modern art. I don’t seek it out or pretend to understand it. All I really do is ruin trips to museum trips by taking them too seriously. One of the fun parts of a museum is laughing at all of the white canvases or otherwise meaningless lines. I can’t engage in that fun because I have a suspicion that there’s something to all of it that I don’t understand.
One modern art piece that I do find pretty amazing is a sculpture called “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp. Most people would know it as ‘the urinal’ because that’s what it is. Instead of the bathroom, this urinal is rotated 90 degrees, signed, and kept in a glass case for people to admire. “Fountain” is still talked about to this day because, as the first piece of conceptual art, it shook people’s perception of the art world so much. In today’s online world, “Fountain” would be referred to as bait. It was put out into the world to trick people into rage and conversation.
If a piece has a sufficiently moving backstory, then it could reach a vast audience no matter how abstract it is. That is the case of “Unfinished” by Keith Haring. Haring was a famous graffiti artist who died tragically during last century’s AIDS epidemic. He started making one of his usual designs, but left most of the canvas blank. Even people who don’t like modern art can see the meaning in the big white space left by his diminishing ability. It is heart-wrenching.
That brings us to X.com user @DonnelVillager, who posted one of the greatest pieces of internet bait of all time. Their post reads, “The story behind this painting is so sad! [crying emoji] Now using AI we can complete what he couldn't finish! [heart emoji]” Attached to the post is a AI-rendered “complete” version of Haring’s “Unfinished.” This post provoked a massive outrage.
Since Elon Musk has started paying people for engagements, the social media site X (formerly known as Twitter) has been filled with people churning out mindless AI content in an effort to eke out as many views as they can. It’s not totally unreasonable to think that @DonnelVillager could have been sincere, but they seemed not to be. They appeared to be trying to provoke people and it worked better than anyone could have anticipated. Many people shared a similar sentiment that even if this was sincere, it was still offensive. What is certain is that this post moved the conversation about artificial intelligence forward by getting lots of people interested.
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke said, “I don’t think the task of art is to reassure people or to offer answers to these questions, but rather to pose them in such a way that people feel encouraged to engage with them.” As AI becomes a bigger and bigger force in our world, it is only right that it’s represented somewhat in art. @DonnelVillager’s post is such a transgression of what we believe art should be that we can’t help but feel something about it.
By Luke Morris