Art Talks Invited Speaker – Beyond Algorithmic Genericism
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With the recent renewed interest in art generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is timely to re-explore the body of knowledge and critique around art made by algorithms. Since computers were first adopted as art machines a number of enduring criticisms have reoccured over the decades, often with different names, but ultimately similar conceptual foundations. Essentially they relate to issues of authorship (who is the author when an “intelligent” machine is involved in the art making process?), autonomy (how much of the decision making and creative judgment is absolved to the machine?), authenticity (can creative acts or outputs made by machines ever be authentic?) and intention (is it right to think of machines as artists?). As AI technologies are increasingly fetishised by technologists and artists, a renewed debate around these criticisms has reemerged. In this talk I want to specifically address the issue of algorithmic genericism: how can algorithmic art practices escape the spectre of being generic to the algorithm itself? How can a practice be informed to recognise the issues of authorship, autonomy, authenticity and intention and move beyond algorithmic genericism?
