Artificial Intelligence Art is a current trend in the world of art that is gaining popularity day-by-day. The concept is based around the idea that machine learning algorithms are capable of producing original images as output, when appropriately trained using large computational resources on a vast amount of image data. These machine learning algorithms are based on the technology called General Adversarial Networks or GANs in short.
It is beautiful how technology has advanced to the point where it is able to engage in art creation. So, are we entering the new era where robots are going to completely replace human artists? The answer is probably no, at least in the near future. AI algorithms, with appropriate training, are indeed able to generate original images, however a lot of the output, even with a lot of training, is either noise or art that believe me you would not like to see as AI lacks the human soul to do what humans are capable of. So, this is where human involvement comes in. There needs to be a team of people who understand art and are able to select and classify only the best images. The next step once the paintings have been classified and named, is to use a different group of AI algorithms to increase the resolution of every selected image to allow for the best quality of paintings.
What Role will AI play in African art?
Art is the expression of human creativity. Art has always been central to self-expression in Africa. Works of art contribute an ever-greater share to economic development and high-value growth as African artists attain greater recognition globally. The AI trend is what matters and this depends on how early or long African Artists be at its cutting edge. It will be too late if African Artists wait for it to be relevant to them. We think AI comes with new opportunities that African artists have not explored yet.
Techniques such as DeepDream and style transfer have enabled artists to interpret their subject matter with a new aesthetic. Artists from Africa and the diaspora make use of natural language processing tools to share multigenerational stories, reimagine traditional literature and explore representations of Blackness.In addition to using the technology for artwork creation, artificial intelligence serves as a subject matter for artists, who investigate relationships between local cultures and AI as well as visualising possible AI entities.
Artists from Africa and Black communities globally treat AI as an aesthetic, tool, entity and technology, highlighting its faults and limitations, reimagining African cultural heritage and sharing futurist visions as well as deeply personal narratives. Alongside this artistic activity, the continued investment in the continent, community-led educational projects as well as the democratisation of the art market through NFTs mean that the future for artists working with machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision presents plenty of opportunities to make their mark in global AI art.
Here at ArtExpress we believe that AI will continue being with us as an art platform or art community and that is why we are researching and fine-tuning our own AI models to create datasets that are deeply involved in the creation, consumption and in showcasing African Art and African Artworks.
To use our AI chat model in the bottom right corner of this page simply give your instructions to the AI and it will create and show you the images.
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