In the finalisation of our exhibition piece, I revisited the idea of authorship in AI art regarding our exhibition curation.

Ambrosio speaks to how AI art ‘suggest[s] a human touch’ in its presentation (Ambrosio 2019). For me, this then prompts questions surrounding how the AI learned. If it has learned to create or emulate art based on all the art that has come before it, it feels like stealing to take ownership for the artwork as it learned from real people.

However, when speaking of authorship, I am reminded of Patricia Piccinini, a real woman who employs other real people to execute her works for her (Teffer 2021). I find the comparison between Piccinini and AI art confusing. Ambrosio outlines how ‘The digital versions of [AI Artist Ai-Da works] were transferred on canvas and overlaid with oil paint by artist Suzie Emery’ (Ambrosio 2019) and yet they are accredited to Ai-Da, dismantling the clarity Piccinini affect where the mind behind the work is real author.

Anyway, despite questioning much of this before, we were confronted with these questions again in the construction of our exhibition. They were instrumental in creating a shared vision of Codae the planet, and yet does this mean it needs to be included?

In tying back to the idea of history curatorship, we decided that AI is an effective tool for planning, but we wanted to be the authors of all the works in the exhibition as we did not want any blurred lines regarding the authenticity of our work.

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References:

Ambrosio C, 2019, ‘Unsettling robots and the future of art, An AI-driven artist’s exhibition hints at, but never fully explores, the ethics of algorithms’, Science, 365(6448), pg 38–39.

Teffer N, 2021, ‘Patricia Piccinini 1965’, National Gallery of Australia’, Available at:
https://nga.gov.au/knowmyname/artists/patricia-piccinini/#top, Accessed: 04 June 2023