Slides for a panel at University of San Francisco on July 11th http://www.scaruffi.com/leonardo/jul2016.html

1. When A.I. makes art,
is it still Art?
University of San Francisco
July 2016
1

2. A Simplified History
of the Visual Arts
from 1916 to 2016

3. 3
This is an Artwork
• Paul Strand
“Abstraction, Twin Lakes,
Connecticut” (1916)

4. 4
This is an Artwork
• Marcel Duchamp
“Fountain”
(1917)

5. 5
This is an Artwork
• Kazimir Malevich
“White on White” (1918)

6. 6
This is an Artwork
• Man Ray
“The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse” (1920),
a sewing machine wrapped in an army
blanket

7. 7
This is an Artwork
• Josef Albers
“The City” (1928)

8. 8
This is an Artwork
• Paul Klee
“Ad Parnassum” (1932)

9. 9
This is an Artwork
• Robert Rauschenberg
(1951)

10. 10
This is an Artwork
• Franz Kline
“High Street” (1956)

11. 11
This is an Artwork
• Barnett Newman
Abraham, 1949

12. 12
This is an Artwork
• Jackson Pollock
“Blue Poles” (1952)

13. This is an Artwork
• Frank Stella
(1959)

14. 14
This is an Artwork
• Yves Klein (1928, France)
“Anthropometries of the Blue Period” (1960) “Leap into the Void” (1960)

15. 15
This is an Artwork
• Andy Warhol
“25 Marilyns” (1962)

16. 16
This is an Artwork
• Shigeko Kubota
Vagina Painting" (1965)

17. 17
This is an Artwork
• Bruce Nauman
“Self Portrait as a Fountain” (1966)

18. 18
This is an Artwork
• Henry Moore
"Oval with Points" (1970)

19. This is an Artwork
• Christo
The Reichstag (1971)

20. This is an Artwork
• Lynda Benglis
(1974)

21. This is an Artwork
• Marina Abramovic
“Imponderabilia”
(1977)

22. 22
This is an Artwork
• Tracey Emin
“Everyone I Have Ever Slept With”
(1995): A tent internally pasted with
the names of all the sexual partners
of the artist.

23. 23
-
• Andrew Zisserman (2014): visualizing what a
neural network is learning while it is being
trained

24. 24
-
• Andrea Vevaldi (2014)

25. 25
-
• Andrea Vedaldi (2015): visualizing what a
neural network is learning while it is being
trained

26. 26
Is this an Artwork?
• Alexander Mordvintsev’s "Inceptionism“
(2015)

27. 27
Is this an Artwork?
• Alexander Mordvintsev’s "Inceptionism“
(2015)

28. 28
Is this an Artwork?
• Leon Gatys and Alexander Ecker’s "A
Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style“ (2015)
Leonid Afremov Neural Network

29. 29
Is this an Artwork?
• Joris Dik : a new 3D-printed “Rembrandt”
portrait (2016)

30. 30
Is this an Artwork?
• Donya Quick (2015): automated music
composition

31. 31
Is this an Artwork?
• USC’s A.I. (2016)
“And from the other side of my apartment/
An empty room behind the inner wall/
A thousand pictures on the kitchen floor/
Talked about a hundred years or more”

32. 32
Is this an Artwork?
• Deep Dreams auction (2016)

33. 33
Is This an Artwork?
• Blaise Aguera y Arcas, principal scientist at
Google (2016):
"We're on the edge of a new
frontier in art and creativity —
and it's not human”

34. 34
Who is the Creator?
• And why should you get credit for your
artwork?

35. 35
Who is the Creator?
• Who should take credit?

36. 36
What is really different?
• What did the art collectors buy at the
DeepDreams auction? The output of a
neural network is a digital file, which can be
copied in a split second. The only way to
guarantee that no other copies will be made
is to physically destroy the neural network.

37. 37
What is really different?
• The art was sold for a few thousand dollars,
which is a tiny fraction of the cost of the
GPUs used to run the neural network.

38. 38
What is really different?
• Who appreciates human art? Humans.
• Who appreciates machine art?
David Hickey Lucy LippardRosalind Krauss Frank PopperBrian Sewell Arthur Danto Philippe Daverio

39. 39
What is Art?
• The way that a neural network can be “hijacked”
to do art may help understand the brain of the
artist.