"Real" Art
November 2022 · Web · Installation · Commission/Exhibition
Context
"Real" Art was created in collaboration with Louvre Abu Dhabi and was part of a weekend installation there. The initial prompt provided to us was, "What does it mean to be human?". This was a time when conversations regarding AI art, DALL-E, ownership etc. were quite prevalent. In the context of this situation, we decided to create a project that would explore whether people could even sense the presence of a "real" human artist in artworks anymore.
Concept
The concept revolves around presenting two images to a user side-by-side. One of them present at the Louvre Abu Dhabi as of now and another that was generated by an AI image generator (DALL-E). After selecting their answers, the cards containing the image would flip. The AI card would reveal the prompt used to generate the image. The real card would reveal the name of the artwork, artist and year of creation. The users could also see a voting tally at the bottom, to see how they compared against other users.
AI Image Generation
This part of the project had some unexpected challenges. As seen in the initial renders in the screenshots above, the AI would have glitch artifacts, issues with human limbs or minor details in nature would be wrong. Researching the schools of art, the painters and their styles, the subjects etc. helped us get to prompts that would render a similar picture.
Technical Implementation
The front end is created using Next.js. It was created to be displayed on a large touchscreen display along with multiple iPads spread across the site of install. The backend involves a Firebase storage saving the number of votes each painting has garnered along with the rest of the painting's metadata. There are then API calls being done using Next.js to handle retrieval and incrementation of votes.
Exhibition
After installing the project in the Louvre Abu Dhabi premises, we started inviting people to take the quiz. We'd explain what the project is, what AI art is and then let people take the quiz. Throughout the quiz and after the quiz we'd generate discussions among groups of people regarding how they are telling the AI artwork apart from the real artwork, the ethics of AI art and what does the future of the art landscape look like with the introduction of AI.