Oxford: An AI-art View
On 24th July 2019 St. Edmund Hall hosted a one of a kind exhibition “Oxford: An AI-art View” showcasing artificial-intelligence created artworks accompanied by a video demonstration of the development of each piece. Attended by over two hundred visitors, the exhibition aimed to raise the question of whether humans will always be unique in their ability to create works of art, considering the ever-closer integration of the Arts and Sciences.
Developed as a by-product of my on-going MSc thesis, the AI-agent algorithmically captures the essence of iconic Oxford landmarks from images on social media then reproduces these as Impressionistic ‘digital paintings’ using the Machine Learning system Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs).
Put simply, imagine there are two agents: a cop and a con. The cop’s role is to differentiate whether an image is real or fake. The con’s role is to create as many fake images as possible in order to finally fool the cop. There is a constant struggle between both parties to beat their opponent, learning as they interact. It is this competition that eventually leads to the creation of these digital artworks.
To those that question whether a computer program can create Impressionistic artworks, I’d ask them to consider this image, AI’s rendition of one of Oxford’s most iconic landmarks: the Bridge of Sighs. There are many irrefutable differences between a photograph and the piece you’ve just examined. The shading is perhaps the most obvious, the sunlit trees emerging from the blackened background, the bridge rendered in mustard-like tinges as opposed to the pale-yellow it is in actuality, I could go on… Given that Impressionism is at its core a movement concerned with capturing the essence of a thing rather than an accurate representation, especially in terms of the shifting effect of light and colour, by those parameters I’d argue the AI has most definitely been successful.
To accomplish this the AI has learned (or you could argue, taken inspiration) from over 50,000 images from different social media platforms to understand and replicate what Oxford looks and feels like.
The following (aforementioned) video chronicles AI’s development of each piece, accompanied by the St. Edmund Hall choir.
To my great delight the exhibition was well reviewed not just by those in the technical community but also by those from a fine arts background.
Here are some of the comments received:
Amazing work! The idea of “digital impressionism” is very fascinating to me, and I think very original from an artistic standpoint. I’m looking forward to see where this takes you! Very exciting intersection between the sciences and arts!
So imaginative! I love projects which combine art & science, they create synergies which are often unreproducible and state-of-the-art! All I was thinking about where the inspiration for the project came from. More exhibitions, please!
The pictures look like paintings from the ancient era- ironic given that its created by AI. Absolute mind-boggling stuff!
Thank you for reading, if you have any questions or feedback I’d be delighted to hear from you :)
