We are creative people and our people currently have, theoretically, a conflict with creative A.I. programs. We believe that this conflict is like any other conflict in human society, just a misunderstanding.
Creative A.I. is an extremely useful tool for people who know what to do with it... That is, for artists. So this semi-anniversary edition of metamorphoses is a collaboration between visual light artists and creative A.I.
We used several creative A.I. programs (which we won’t name here, just as they don’t name the artists they draw from) and generated dozens of variations. Up to this point, everyone does that — but it’s not enough.
So then we took these variations, cut them into pieces, added our own elements, and refined the final versions compositionally, chromatically, and conceptually. These will then be transferred onto the final surface using washable paint and spray paint, with the finishing decisions made directly on the wall.
Because the creative space is not a place for conflict, but for collaboration and healthy competition. We want to demonstrate that using a creative A.I. program makes you an artist in the same way that buying a camera makes you a photographer. In other words, it’s a starting point… but there’s still a loooong way to go.
And an artist who has already put in that loooong, loooong work will always produce a result that, for us, is more creative. More thoughtful. At least, that’s how we see the situation.
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We live in an age of advanced information. Everything around us moves at the speed of light, and it is difficult to give our attention to someone or something without “missing the opportunity” to interact with something else. At least, this is how it feels from our perspective, as humans.
And in this era, we have inherited from those before us, from the time of the Industrial Revolution, the concept of “saving time.” Following their model, we created machines and programs capable of performing work faster or more efficiently than humans, so that people could focus on the beauty of life.
Now, nearly 40 years into the Digital Era, we believe that as a society we have forgotten the original purpose of automation and the development of artificial intelligence. The strongest argument we can offer is that among emerging faux A.I.s, some of the most popular are “Creative A.I.” systems, such as MidJourney or DALL·E. These provide quickly generated art based on images uploaded into their databases. To an untrained viewer, they do exactly what an artist does — only faster and exactly as the user wants it [artists are not usually that obedient :))]. For someone like me, the writer of this concept, the difference between an A.I.-generated product and one created by a C.H.I. [Creative Human Intelligence (artist)] is extremely easy to recognize. With training, however, and with these tools being used by people educated in the arts, they could evolve into true cyber artists within the next 10–20 years.
However, we have not returned to what we forgot when the entire process of automation began over 100 years ago.
The main goal was to automate repetitive and dangerous labor so that humans could enjoy life. The first group of people who should have been helped by the emergence of A.I. should have been creative individuals — yet we went in the opposite direction. Because being helped does not mean having someone else do faster the thing you love to do, so that you, as a human, can work more or sit idle and consume. Being helped means having your life supported by A.I., so that humans can travel, create, think, and socialize.
That is why Metamorfoze ’24, even while appreciating technological progress, believes that collaboration with technology is more beneficial than dependence on it. We want to value C.H.I.s just as much as A.I.s and imagine a future in which they can coexist, rather than annihilate each other over something as small as the commercial market.
And to prove that we, the C.H.I.s, want to be friends with Creative A.I.s (while still being the masters), each artist will begin their work with the help of a Creative A.I., but will bring their personal contribution to complete it and translate it onto the wall. We do this by imagining creative activities in the near future.
We will also create a mini-forum in which to debate the advantages and disadvantages of creative A.I., with a focus on the results that can be achieved by an artist using these tools compared to a person without artistic affinity.
