I have both a feeling of fear, yet also excitable ALLURE in contemplating the mad possibilities of LENSA app, and everything it symbolises. Wariness in terms of the implication it has for us visual artists, and of course the broad concern of complete subjugation to A.I! But also…. excited-ness in the limitless possibilities it could mean for our conscious experience of the world.

 

Firstly, my fear — what will happen to those individuals born with the temperament suited to all those things that are so often features of an artist: less adeptness conforming and working within prevailing societal systems, but a great, heightened propensity for imaginativeness, creativity, sensitivity, observation, ability to dedicate long and obsessional amounts of time to their artistic practice and honing of their skills. Could there be insidious societal impacts for individuals robbed of their use and their outlet?  

The creative impulse that acts as the catharsis for not only the individual themselves, but wider society. 

(Furthermore, there is the controversy that the app STEALS the work of others. Though from what I have seen of its portfolio via friends letting it transform them, LENSA for the moment has intimated styles that are not particularly groundbreaking or noteworthy in the canon and are rather generic portraiture styles of kitsch artists.) 

 

On the other hand, perhaps this is an overly conservative attitude.

One could regard such things as LENSA as being the collective human effort having progressed so far that we can now instantly turn you into a painting. 

Is denial of this simply delaying the inevitable — inevitable progress?

(Though one could argue, is all progress good? Just because we CAN invent something, should we? That could be like saying is NOT inventing a weapon of mass destruction delaying the inevitable too? Though a destructive weapon’s effect is more obvious and instantaneous…. the possible destructive effect of LENSA may be insidious…. But still I suppose, death is inevitable, everything has to die!!!)

 

Recently I have been questioning — has the Western canon of art as we know it been exhausted and come to its natural conclusion, before it is born again and reinvented? It has died on the inside, and artists are now birthing impotent mules, evident in the contemporary arts as we know them being in an awful state of derivativeness. One could argue denial of things such as LENSA to maintain manual art creation via the human hand, will simply be dragging out something that is already dead, beating a dead horse!! Now comes time for a new medium. A.I art / art in collaboration with A.I. Old forms that slowly died away like classical music, poetry, silent films they still live on and are appreciated today — albeit by cultural aficianados, but its minority "high brow" appeal in fact makes it even more special and coveted by some. Maybe human made art is not killed off by A.I, but extra elevated!!

 

(though this could be that the death-defying subversive artists out there whom are poorer are not being represented! . Instead of all this facile talk of "diversity" and "representation", where only artists whose work is obviously political, which in the end turns the political into only a means to an end anyway, I am still a fan of the system of PATRONAGE. Wealthy oddballs taking a mad risk on revolutionary unknowns. Such things as artscouncilfunding are horribly bureaucratic and systematic; its forms more suitable to the goody-two-shoes jobsworths kind ….. more than truly subversive radical artists kind (many of my great artists friends must often pay someone to help them with the application process so they can word and organise their vision appropriate for the systematic sensibilities of the artscouncilpeople). Imagine the mad passionate visionary legendary artists of history who's expression is in the spirit and the body forced to sit down and go through forms requiring them to forecast how their work will develop in the rigid confines of artcouncil criterium "how will your work affect the larger community?" "what is your 6 month plan for the development of your work" as if you can forecast such a thing!. Much great art is born in RISK-TAKING and an unorthodox bizarre approach!!!!! Personally I do have plans for my work, however I simply know that destiny and the universe will direct its course like earth directs the river. The method of many of the great artists of history would simply not be acceptable to the people whom oversee these forms, and I can't totally lambast them because they have a limited fund so I suppose they have to be discerning I just think patronage is better I need to find a patron lol. Or even if it does light some spiritedness in the person at the desk, they are limited by bureaucratic convention and rules). 

 

Everything dies, and is born again incarnated in a new form. 

There is something exciting about being able to instantaneously immerse yourself in a totally new visual form/universe. 

Will the painting come to life? We could soon sit inside and see our environment as impressionist brushstrokes — talking face to face with an impressionist portrait? Talking to your friend but their mouth is a conglomeration of Lichtenstein dots buzzing around! 

You could walk around with a filter on your glasses and change styles at will: one moment rendering the weather storm around you from default reality to a TURNER PAINTING of …. mad elemental brush strokes. Then an abstract or surrealist painting deconstructing the world into psychedelia! 

Those painters then become our early coders for this new simulated reality.

Picasso, Lichtenstein, Frida Khalo, Tamara De Lempicka, Salvador Dali — maybe will not be forgotten at all, but the forefathers, Gods, DEIFIED designers of our new world. 

 

If you think back, photography (momentarily) threatened to kill painting. 

Images could now be replicated exactly, therefore the need to replicate and depict real life images via paintings was made redundant. 

But the invention of cameras seemingly killing some aspects of painting’s purpose is what gave birth to the rise of impressionism: the style in which you can viscerally see the texture of the brush strokes. The brush strokes blatant, as to show it was a painting opposed to a photograph, and showing the enduring beauty of painting even though photography threatened to usurp its purpose. In fact even more with the advent of photography, one realised painting did not serve only the purpose of image replication, but for exploration, imagination, sublime and abstract visions…… rendering and representing the world in a whole new visual universe whether cubism impressionism surrealism or abstract expressionism. 

 

Photorealistic painting nevertheless still came back in fashion at various points as somewhat of a niche, as people still are impressed by virtuoso human skill and mastery to create the unimaginable. Though it would not be to some’s taste due to the critique of lack of imagination, formulaicness, robotic coldness. Forms such as impressionism and surrealism are no doubt far more popular to the general public than photorealism or purely abstract painting. Which makes sense to me: photorealism is so real and polished that it can be missing the heart and soul of seeing that it’s a painting and missing imagination, and the purely abstract can be so abstract it is unrelateble. Impressionism and surrealism are inbetween both of these, depicting form still yet transformed by artistic imagination and experimentation; and people can see the discipline and technique of it (skill being much derided by modernists — however skill represents both the rarified, and of dedication to honing craft which is a form of honouring and homaging the subject — since you’ve put time into it, it means something. Something that takes only a few seconds bleurgh bleurgh sick on the canvas is more like disrespect feeling. You put time into things you care about. Though of course disrespect can be an emotional expression too and of course there are works that happen spontaneously but I feel that that sudden "spontaneous" happening of a work had much more to it than meets the eye such as a life dedicated to art or a strange person who has always felt displaced all that emotion building up inside suddenly SPLALT BLUERGHHHHH their karmic momentum is expressed on the canvas... tragedy of their misunderstood life rendered poignant and beautiful in a piece of art. Also I do like Jackson Pollock) . 

 

The question is, A.I. promises to be so all-encompassing. Now, the LENSA app can turn the photo in to what looks like a painting.

If A.I can be truly be all-encompassing, what other "purpose" could we find? 

Or will it be our destiny to live in simulation?

All the signs point to simulation, as we currently make gestures to it and reference it unconsciously in our culture’s current simulating of gender performances,..................... 

 

Watching Pinnochio yesterday, it occurred to me simulation is a hundred if not a thousand if not a million years in the making. 

Simulating a little boy to console his heart. 

In the films we make, the stories we fabricate, the faces we make, the lies we tell, the sex we have evoking moves we’ve seen in films or pornography, pornography itself, dance choreography, conversation itself: we are in essence "simulating" things. 

 

If as the scientists say, our environment truly is in grave danger, surely virtual simulation is the way to go — since it will be too straining on the strained environment to take a rib of the tree or slither of the bark and create a Pinnochio.....

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Though some of this may sound doomy, I think it's very exciting too we'll see what happens......will we be living in ethereal lightness of the digital (making the physical body even more sacred?)

Though it scares me too of course!!!!