Which Part Art? s

By Erik Bakke, Executive Director of International Student Services

Helen Molesworth, in discussion of the 2005 exhibition she organized, “Part Object Part Sculpture,” addresses the conceptual art piece and readymade of 1917 by Marcel Duchamp (a urinal flipped on its back and displayed as a work of art), “I remain fascinated by the tricky nature of Duchamp’s readymades—objects transformed into art, but not quite. They always retain their original identity or function. This is why many people refer to Fountain in a casual way as ‘the urinal.’ For me this is an acknowledgment that the work is part art, part not—part object, part sculpture.”

This discussion is helpful in addressing whether AI-generated images are art or not.

We can start with an image generated by Microsoft Bing (“powered by DALL-E”) using the following prompt:

“Create a conceptual work of art for the year 2027 and place it on the campus of Menlo College, showing the Bowman Library in the background.”

With Bing, not only does Menlo get a new library (thank you, 2027 centennial campaign donors), but there is something (some floating books over a fountain with some other sculptural looking objects) that could be built and that people could say, “Oh, that is art in front of the library.” But, of course, it is just a proposition of an AI following a prompt. In the end, it is Part AI Part Art.

Another consideration is whether the prompt itself and Bing’s response are less art than other conceptual instructional art and their manifestations.

Yoko Ono in her book Grapefruit gives instructions to be completed as works of art. One page of instruction starts with the capitalized text “PAINTING TO BE STEPPED ON.” More text follows, “Leave a piece of canvas or finished painting on the floor or in the street.” The date is the last bit of text on the page, “1960 winter.”

Ono’s piece can be complete without the instructions being followed. In a similar way, the art in generating AI images is perhaps in creating the prompt. If you can read the prompt, the work does not need to be enacted in order for it to be art. Then again, an artist’s, or a reader’s, or an AI’s realization of the prompt is its own thing—it is a reification of what was abstract. When Bing’s AI makes a concrete image of an idea that an artist suggests, the product is Part AI Part Art. No need for a polemic, but you yourself can compare Bing’s version to Ono’s realization of her own instructions—and then you can make your own instructions.