This week on Monday our class was lucky enough to visit the ‘This Hideous Replica’ exhibition at the RMIT gallery which featured an array of pieces that either were made by AI, talk about AI, or use AI in some way to create the piece.

A piece that caught my eye was called Debris Faculty by PlastiCorpUs, and featured an array of photographs lying in a scattered arrangement on a long table. At first I didn’t realise it, but as I walked along the table and looked at the photos, I realised that the photos all had another photo lying or placed right next to the other, and that they were of the same thing, but taken from another angle, or inverted. I was quite confused on the meaning of this but after thinking for a while, I thought that I did not need to know a definitive answer, and that artwork is designed to speak to each individual person who comes across it, differently. What I felt from looking at this artwork was that it was showing me what humans are capable of and what AI is not. And that is the idea that humans can actually see things and produce an image of that one same exact thing at any moment in time, from any angle they want, and it will always be that one physical, real thing. Whereas, AI will produce an image of one thing, but will never really be able to produce that same image ever again because it is not real. If we ask to generate something but from a different angle, it may be able to generate something that appears like the original image, but it is a completely different image, and will never be the exact same. Even if it is in the slightest coding difference, it will still never be able to capture a real moment as humans can do.

Another piece I quite liked was something I didn’t want to look at originally but as I was leaving, thought I might as well take a quick look. It was called Printed Bound Publication by Sean Dockray and consisted of a row of books lying on a shelf. The one I am discussing was called ‘Seeing Like A Computer’. It was a simple book with one image on every page, and on the other side, would be a 1-6 line caption that AI had generated for the image. For example, there was one of a group of teenagers chattering happily outside with each other, and the caption next to it was “4 people, people sitting and outdoor”. Every page was the same, a beautiful image of people living their lives, and a caption, “2 people, indoor”, or “1 person”. Flipping through the pages I started to feel sad. I felt sad that there were these beautiful moments captured of life and happiness or sadness, real emotions that were labelled so plainly. Of course, a more advanced AI will be able to come up with far more detailed descriptions of images, however it still feels off to me as an AI will see an image and can only describe what it sees physically. It can not read emotions or imagine a situation as humans can.

I enjoyed going to see this exhibition, and highly recommend checking it out! I think I learnt a lot, even if it was not what a piece was trying to tell me, I think it is the purpose of any art to make a person think and connect with something in a unique or individual way. That is how art continues to be created.