An image created by AI software has won an art contest at a folk festival in Colorado, sparking debate about the nature of art. The picture was submitted by a man named Jason Allen, who has now made the victory and the picture public on Discord. At the latest when that made the rounds on Twitter, supplemented by a rather harsh criticism, a discussion was started.
The winning image is entitled “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” and shows a scene reminiscent of science fiction classics like Dune. Allen submitted it in the “Digital Arts/Digitally Manipulated Photography” category and only wrote that it was created “via Midjourney” – the AI image generator used.
The “Death of Art”
Image generators such as Midjourney or Dall-E create images based on specifications written as text. In the past few months, a real hype has developed around such software. As Allen explains, he had hundreds of images created in this way for the competition, continually refining the results. Finally he selected the best ones, refined them with software like Adobe Photoshop, enlarged them and printed them out for the competition. He probably didn’t explain that to those responsible for the Colorado State Fair. Anyone who criticizes the work and the profit discredits this part, i.e. the human element, he says.
Popular posts on Twitter criticized that the procedure meant the “death of art”. If not even creative jobs like that of an artist are safe from machines, then even highly qualified jobs run the risk of becoming redundant, it says in a much shared tweet. Everyone expected the criticism, he writes. He knew it would be controversial. But he won’t stop because of that, on the contrary, the win only encouraged him.
Those responsible for the competition told PC Mag that they “now” knew that software created the image. At present, however, the rules would not prohibit this in this category. However, these requirements could be changed. The Fine Arts Exhibition is one of the oldest traditions of the folk festival, which has been held since 1872. Emerging and professional artists in the state are encouraged to enter the contest. The images shown, including “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” can still be viewed until Monday – the latter is also for sale, according to Allen.
Recommended Editorial Content
With your consent, an external YouTube video (Google Ireland Limited) will be loaded here.
Always load YouTube video
I consent to external content being displayed to me. This allows personal data to be transmitted to third-party platforms (Google Ireland Limited). Read more about our privacy policy.
(mho)
