In modern art, the story and the experience are more important than the art object. AI can easily replace the artist. What remains is the human artist as performer, a symbol in his own art world, telling the story that the audience appreciates.

Recently, in a Dutch newspaper there was an interesting article about Artificial Intelligence, AI, replacing the artist by Yuri van Doesum, a student teacher of Visual Arts and Design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Amsterdam. The subtitle of the article is “In modern art, the story and the experience are more important than the art object, sees Yuri van Doesum. AI can easily replace the artist”.

In modern art, the story and the experience are more important than the art object. AI can easily replace the artist

Here is the (AI) translated article:

It is an uncomfortable truth that the art world prefers not to emphasize: great artists such as Rembrandt and Ai Weiwei (the Chinese artist with the appropriate first name) did not carry out much of their work personally, but outsourced it to students and assistants. This undermines the myth of the master hand and makes the contemporary rise of AI in art only logical. Is it the hand of the master that counts, the creative vision or the promotion?

AI not only creates masterpieces indistinguishable from those of human artists, but also invents whole new styles and improved concepts. Modern artists are attaching their names to AI-generated works without even touching a brush or chisel. As a result, art becomes an extension of the trend, where the artist’s name functions as a brand, disconnected from physical labor. However, how long will you continue to appreciate that, now that you can create groundbreaking works yourself?

In modern galleries we see works of art that range from playful to downright infantile, with names from influential artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. With this trend, art shifts from intrinsic value to a marketing-driven narrative. The experience of the story and the experience have become more important than the art itself. It is a small step towards a world in which AI invents and produces art, while human artists only attach their names to it.

We are in an infinite space in which all art variations exist. Countless variations on a single theme can be imagined and generated in an instant. The code of human creativity and originality has been cracked, as a set of variables. Every individual work loses value, because being unique is no longer special. Painting a hyper-realistic fried egg (as Tjalf Sparnaay does) remains clever, but how much value does it add to the infinite amount of already existing images? Now that all combinations and variations are already available, yet another collection of stripes and colors has no added value.

Crafts and manufacturing processes lose their value if they are particularly easily replaceable and accessible to everyone. Appreciating such processes is like a long journey to camp somewhere: the pain and discomfort that alternates between pleasure and wonder during such a holiday makes the entire exercise worthwhile – especially afterwards. Now technology navigates you to your destination without any idea of ​​the places you visit. There will always be romantic fools who go without, but the old-fashioned world traveler is virtually extinct. Not to mention typesetters, pigment makers and canvas stretchers.

The artist is no longer the one who works with his hands, but everyone who uses his name and story. The traditional artist is redundant – art has been democratically fragmented among an audience that no longer values ​​technical skill and craft. What remains is the human artist as performer, a symbol in his own art world, telling the story that the audience appreciates.

AI may make the artist unemployed, because the role of the artist adapts to the demands of a modern, technology-driven society. The future of art lies in the symbiosis between man and machine, where humans as performers and brands set the new standard.

Only a few weeks ago, I wrote a story ‘AI Liberating Artists‘ about exactly this topic. And, if you regularly follow my writings, then you may agree, that the article by Yuri van Doesum could have been written by me (I didn’t). Here’s what I wrote recently in my article:

The essence of art in the age of AI will be, instigated by the artwork, the human sensation of personal connection between the human ‘artist’, the human ‘beholder’ and the realities they create to shape themselves. The story that goes with the artwork will play a decisive role in creating the sensation of personal connection in their shared world, harmoneously combined with a universal sense of what it means to be a human, giving us a place in the cosmos.

I rest my case. Yuri van Doesum, and I, we agree. And, by the way, long time ago already, I talked about what Yuri calls “an infinite space in which all art variations exist“. Then, I called it the Artinuum, strongly related to the Artiverse.

Exit artists and art as we know them, enter the new “Artista Narrans” performing “Ars Narrans“! One might call it a revised version of narrative art without the focus on craftsmanship.

So what …

Well, I fully understand if you might think this story sounds a bit like wanting to make my point in proofing that know better, that I understood it all earlier. A bit, maybe.

But, really, I want to learn a lesson from all of this. Becoming an acknowledged artist, nowadays, requires totally different skills from the good old days. Forget about handcraft skills. The new requirement for recognition seems to be being a “performer, a symbol in your own art world, telling the story that the audience appreciates”.

That is, the creator of mind models, realities that shape ourselves, the artist and his audience.