More and more, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a role in art. Lately, OpenAI published the DALL-E algorithm. It can be used to generate imagery based on written text. Eg. you type “a landscape with trees and a blue sky” and it will generate images with … a landscape with trees and a blue sky. Also, you can upload any image, and the software will generate variants of your image.

The latter is exactly what Case did with his original “Study for Poppies” image.

Now, the obvious question this raises is: is it still art. The generated images are not very bad or very un-artistic. One thing is striking, though. The software also transforms Case’s signature, as if it were an integral part of the scene depicted. It does transform it into characters – most of the time – but it does not ‘understand’ that it is a signature.

Case’s conclusion, so far, is that these transformed images can be a helpful tool for artists who want to generate ideas based on an original artwork.