Video Abstract
We cannot ignore the impact that AI image generation technology will have on all creative industries, including art. Already, images, videos, and music can be produced through simple prompts, and this process is only in its infancy. Creative professionals and artists will have to take a stand. It is likely that many contemporary artists who are deeply attached to the uniqueness of their physical work will not be involved in this revolution. Digital artists have already experimented with AI image generation, including by creating works made non-fungible through NFTs (digital work authentication systems). What would really mark a momentous change, however, is the possible emergence of a new kind of artist, one who takes full advantage of this technology, elevating it as an art form, an art “extended” by artificial intelligence.
If we imagine then, as we are inclined to do, this passage as a way to defend and save the role of the artist in the AI era, we must make an effort to analyse AI image Generation from a cultural point of view, comparing it with the art world, and subsequently defining a criteria for quality, up to the point of elevating it to an art form.
Generating Art with the AI image generation tool requires getting to the bottom of its revolutionary characteristics, which can be identified in textuality, accessibility, universality, conceptuality, automation, the unreal: these characteristics redefine artistic work.
We will therefore try to explore these concepts, not on a technical level, but by imagining some hypothetical artistic developments, which may in turn represent research directions for “Ars Extensa,” art that uses artificial intelligence as a creative tool.
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