To be or not to be Art

John Cox recommended that I turn my comment on his Top Story Party Crasher into an article. Who am I to argue? He’s the one with the Top Story, lol. (Well deserved, I might add.)

John poses a number of questions concerning AI in the creative or artistic process using Duchamp’s “Fountain” as a vehicle for discussion. Duchamp contends that since he is an artist he can take an ordinary object such as the urinal pictured above, give it a name & call it art, thereby making it so.

John applies this reasoning to the writing process, begging the question,

“…what if I’m using an AI poetry generator and provide it with specific instructions and after it generates one hundred different poems, I select my favorite or mix and match lines and then post it on Vocal, am I a poet or something lesser? A discerning reader perhaps?”

An extremely good question, in my estimation.

He then advances a question some of us have been asking of late when comparing writing or comments produced by human beings to those produced entirely by AI:

“But what happens when we can no longer tell the difference?”

Allow me to preface my remarks by naming an assumption I make concerning art. All artistic expression consists of a minimum of three elements: the artist/creator/writer, the work itself, & those who receive/view/read the work. I would suggest this remains true even if the work is not shared as the creator of the work will almost certainly continue to consider & reflect upon their work once it is completed.

To me (as the recipient of the piece), what makes Duchamp's "Fountain" art is the meaning with which he infused it by naming it so. If I were simply to pass by such a bit of porcelain discarded in a dump, I would likely consider it no more than trash. The fact that he has chosen, displayed & named it, however, infuses it with meaning. As such it transcends its basest of origins & abandonment as refuse & becomes an invitation to his mind & commentary upon his craft, the world of art, & the world itself.

The same is true for the written word. The text may read exactly the same, but knowing its origin infuses it with a vast & varied range of meaning depending upon that origin. If I know that it was simply produced by AI given a specific set of inputs, I might find it interesting, perhaps even entertaining. But for me it would possess no heart or soul beyond the generic gleanings from our collective zeitgeist (something which is not without worth in & of itself).

Knowing that John has chosen this poem after rejecting ninety-nine previous outputs would create another level of meaning to it. Knowing that he selected the specific words & phrases that captured what he was wanting to convey from a host of generated possibilities adds yet another level of meaning. Should that understanding of origin prove to be wrong (or even simply not sufficiently nuanced), that may very well cause my impression of the work (& myself) to shift, perhaps even begin to grow or blossom.

If AI should happen to develop to the point where it can help unlock human potential & the secrets of the heart, if it should become so good at its "craft" that it has the power to move, impassion, dissect, build up, destroy that which is false, embolden all that is good & true, etc., I shall not see that as anything ominous. The portion of art's equation which involves the recipient or beholder will remain the same.

The greater concern for me lies with our failure as recipients to discern, especially that which is true & good from that which is false & wicked. (Understanding that, as with beauty, truth & good lie in the heart of the beholder. For me, I would boil that down to the one constant found in every single last one of the world's major religions, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," the Golden Rule.)

For example, someone viewing Duchamp's "Fountain" may find in it a call to arms against any public funding for the arts (or even as a call to tear all public urinals from their places of installation), while others might find in it a call to rise from our baser instincts as it might concern public discourse, artistic merit, or even public amenities. Such is the power of art.

In another case, we might consider the art of rhetoric as championed by Aristotle. An accomplished rhetorician has the power to champion causes & inflame our passions, but only if we who hear them allow it. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lifted up & ennobled our spirits to a higher calling (as most would agree today), but a huge number of those who heard his words found themselves enraged & did all within their power to silence him. In a very different manner, Adolf Hitler used his rhetorical skills to enrage a nation, plunge the world into war, & inflict his "final solution" on Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, etc. in such a manner that most of the rest of us beholding his "art" said, "Never again."

The issue for me lies not so much within the artist & their work but within the discernment of those who receive it. Are we willing &/or able to hear, see, taste, touch, smell & otherwise sense what the artist is trying to convey such that we might respond to it as is appropriate?

For me, it’s not simply a matter of being able to tell the difference. It’s a question of whether or not we have any clue what we should do with it.