Summary
The paper discusses the invention of cameras and how it disrupted the artworld. Painters no longer focused on realism since they deemed it the domain of photography and instead focused on abstraction. With the popularity of AI, questions have risen whether works produced by AI technologies constitute as artwork.
Reflection
I found the article to be great since it discussed the evolution of painting over the past few centuries. I had always wondered why so many of the new paintings were abstract (and didn’t make sense to a casual person with no art related degree) when paintings over a century ago had so much more realism. The author carefully discusses how the art world changed over the years, how artists were forced to change their style, how art was and is perceived today and how technology like AI will affect the field in the future.
The article doesn’t quite have a research method but rather discusses the evolution of artwork and how it has been affected by technologies like cameras, computers and more recently AI. The article uses an evidence-based approach to come to conclusions and discusses various alternative opinions. It provides examples of famous artists and uses quotes by them to demonstrate how technology had affected them. I appreciated that the article had a realistic approach towards AI and did not treat as a black-box that is capable of intelligently designing artwork without any human input.
The paper does not relate closely to my own project. The article is related to creativity and art while my project is more related to collaboration. The similarity between the article and my project is the use of technology to either create art or in my case, collect data from users.
One issue that the author seemed to have mentioned but did not discuss in detail is the loss of skills because of technology. Historically, over a period of a few centuries, artists had developed skills to create art that looked real. This led to the creation of masterpieces that are still coveted today. Ever since the camera was invented, prevalence of realism in paintings diminished which in my opinion is quite unfortunate. Artists switched over to surrealism not out of preference but due to lack of opportunities. There may be a time in the future where similar changes will be made to the artworld where artists are forced to switch to a new type of art style. This to me seems similar to an extinction of art which is a cause for concern.