Mechanised Art is Making Major Waves

The world of art is one that encourages provocation. From as far back as humanity can be traced, we have been known to produce artworks. The 2020 discovery of the Sulawesi warty pig painting in an Indonesian limestone cave added a few tens of thousands of years to archaeological record books. Professors Maxime Aubert and Adam Brumm were part of an international team that discovered the painting what has been approximated to be 45,500 years since it was rendered on the stone walls of the Leang Tedongnge cave. However, with all this rich history, developments in means of making art have not ceased to arise, only now there’s an extra participant the world is set to learn more about. [ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type="show" ihc_mb_who="1,2,3,4" ihc_mb_template="1" ] Machine-generated artwork has long been the subject of debate. Questions arise regarding its classification as art when laid out alongside the product of human labour. Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t, however, the daunting ghost in the shell of science fiction to some inquisitive artists who have embraced it beyond pastime use. One such artist is Nigerian photographer Malik Afegbua whose disruptive works move to challenge the technological lag known to plague the continent. Infrastructural deficiencies, outdated government policies, and education and expertise gaps have been cited as some of the multiple reasons behind Africa’s technological lag. UNESCO-TWAS noted 47 of the 54 independent states of Africa as lagging in science and technology, including Botswana. With the proliferation and popularity of AI-generated art, even the most miniscule lag in its accommodation renders artisans in danger of missing the proverbial bus. In an analysis on the application of an African perspective on to the development and regulation of self-driving cars for the Third World Approaches to International Law Review, Jake Okechukwu Effoduh writes that such a perspective “in this discourse on self-driving cars is relevant for its regional adoption and absorption, and it could also provide a more holistic, responsible, equitable, and accountable appreciation of the technology.” This opinion is once more based in evidence from programme trials that evidenced how AI had assumed racial biases based on the information it has been fed to work with. In the African context, Effoduh offers, the development of these technologies without considering the cultural norms and livelihoods of Africans breeds a form of exclusion that will cost more to repair than it would to preempt it. As such, Afegbua’s breathtaking image series titled ‘Fashion Show for Seniors’ – featuring machine-generated photographs of elderly Africans in heightened fashion – offered the world an opportunity to imagine how Africans might apply AI to represent themselves. Garnering over 100,000 likes on social media, the series is seemingly limitless. While Afegbua, being an integral part of the production process, differentiates his works from those generated through social media extensions such as Lensa App or Hotpot, or programmes like Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and Craiyon, it doesn’t exempt his work from receiving critiques about AI endangering the production ecosystem that would otherwise be involved in realising the final images. Mechanisation is a part of the development of all technologies. The electrical car would be nothing if not for multisector discoveries and advancements that have moved motoring from steam engines to hydrogen vehicles. As such, it makes it impossible to educe the questions posed by the inevitable ubiquity of AI in the art world – including conversations on intellectual property rights and their violations. Whether it is using an extension to generate one of the millions of Facebook and Instagram avatars or investing in multi-programme creation of unique artwork, there is no denying that AI art is here to stay. Some players have already moved as far as developing prizes for AI art – such as South African firm, Zindi, that hosted the ‘African AI Art’ competition in 2019 ahead of the AI Expo Africa held in Cape Town. Perhaps this is the opportunity that some have been waiting to turn a simple, fun act, into something life-changing. The ‘new world’ of art awaits but not at the expense of age-old, traditional forms and practices. [/ihc-hide-content]

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Mechanised Art is Making Major Waves

Whether it is using an extension to generate one of the millions of Facebook and Instagram avatars or investing in multi-programme creation of unique artwork, there is no denying that AI art is here to stay,

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Mechanised Art is Making Major Waves

Whether it is using an extension to generate one of the millions of Facebook and Instagram avatars or investing in multi-programme creation of unique artwork, there is no denying that AI art is here to stay,

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