{"id":517,"date":"2019-01-05T21:31:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-05T21:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hashtagart.blog\/?p=517"},"modified":"2025-03-01T16:54:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T16:54:14","slug":"2018-the-best-of-the-last-year-in-art-and-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hashtagart.blog\/?p=517","title":{"rendered":"#2018 Another Year of Art. #Banksy and #AI paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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#EdmondDeBelamy #AI\u00a0<\/strong>#Banksy. <\/strong>What happened\u00a0in 2018<\/strong> under the hashtag<\/strong> of art<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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NEW YEAR MAGIC GIF BY LOOPS-4-AMBIANCE<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2018 was a weird and wired year. The art and tech people stretched ways of sharing, creating, and selling art, from the digital realm to the real one. I believe that two events could reflect (though, perhaps, in a slightly cracked mirror) the year of 2018. Funny enough, both of them took place on\u00a0art auctions<\/strong>. First, Christie’s <\/span>auction of an AI painting<\/strong>,\u00a0reaching the amount of $432,500. Second, the live<\/em> self-destruction of Banksy<\/strong>‘s Girl with a Balloon,<\/em> right\u00a0after Sotheby\u2019s sold it for \u00a31.04 m. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, what all of these mean?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

MONTY PYTHON GIF. Found on<\/span> GIPHY<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portrait of Edmond Belamy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span>The center of the canvas is occupied by a\u00a0blurred face of a young man.\u00a0<\/span>His pale skin contrasts with the dark background, just as his white collar. \u00a0 Dark marks on his face seem to be the eyes, a shade of a nose, and mouth.\u00a0<\/span>The texture is evident and rough, as the actual painting occupies only the very middle of the canvas.\u00a0<\/span>Who is he? Why cannot we see his gaze, nor any other details? What can his outfit tell us?\u00a0<\/span>Let’s ask the artist. Oh, wait, but the algorithm is not too excited to answer our doubts. At least, that what the people who created it say.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s take a look at how an\u00a0<\/span>AI made artwork sells for $432,500<\/a>, <\/strong><\/em><\/span>as Christie’s declares.<\/p>\n

\"Zrzut
A screenshot of the Christie’s website<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>with the\u00a0article Is artificial intelligence set to become art\u2019s next medium?<\/em>\u00a0The image is a fragment of\u00a0Portrait of Edmond Belamy<\/strong>. <\/em>Image \u00a9 Obvious<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Firstly, it’s not really<\/em> an AI-made artwork. Even though the article on Christie’s website almost yells at you that “Portrait of Edmond Belamy, bought for $432,500, is the first AI artwork sold on auction!!!”, <\/em>it is not entirely true.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Let’s start, obviously, from the very start. Obviously, because it is all about\u00a0OBVIOUS<\/strong>, a company created by three 25-year-old students from France. As they put<\/a><\/span> it:<\/span><\/p>\n

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We are Obvious, a Paris-based collective of artists, Machine Learning researchers and friends interested in AI for\u00a0Art.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Sally Field Netflix Gif<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>by Maniac<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All the technical details<\/strong> of how Obvious did their famous Belamy portrait is\u00a0clearly explained by<\/span>\u00a0James Vincent<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in<\/span> The Verge.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0The base for all AI-made paintings is a so-called generative adversarial network (GAN)<\/strong>. Having an algorithm-generated art<\/strong> is nothing groundbreaking for people who are into it, to the point that there is even an aesthetic type defined as<\/span><\/span>GANism<\/strong>. The fundame<\/span><\/span>ntal code used for GAN-created content was modified by Robbie Barrat<\/strong>, a 19-years-old art and code fan. Not only Barret generated a new code, but also shared it using an open-source license.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Actually, Robbie is more than a “code fan.<\/span>“\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Here are some examples of what his codes do<\/span><\/p>\n

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I reversed the flesh finder and let it automatically operate on the background- while avoiding most of the flesh. pic.twitter.com\/UJJjO31TRp<\/a><\/p>\n

— Robbie Barrat (@DrBeef_) March 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n