The Future of Art in the Age of AI

“A poem should not mean but be.” (Archibald MacLeish)

In our lingua-centric culture, there is a tendency to want to translate every meaningful experience into a well-formed string of words (sentence). “What does this poem/painting/partita mean? What did we learn from this experience?”

This tendency is exacerbated by pedagogues who tell us that something is real only to the extent that it can be represented in language. In reality, some aspects of human experience lend themselves to linguistic representation and others don’t. 

When language functions as Representation we call it prosaic; when it functions as Art, we call it poetic. Confusion stems from the fact that language plays a dual role. On the one hand, it is our culturally chosen medium of explication; on the other, it is its own artistic medium.  

In its purest form, we call ‘linguistic art’, poetry (or verse). But poetic language drives other art forms as well: for example, drama and choral music. Further, the poetic use of language can transform even the driest explication into an artistic masterpiece (Moby Dick).

Imagine you are the new Schopenhauer. Your magnum opus might be titled, “The World as Art and Representation”. Good news! You can skip the writing part. Everything you need to say is in the title.

To understand the significance of this duality, we need to turn to Heidegger…of course! He defines Art as that which shows you something new about the world. Language can do that (poetry)…but so can music, painting, dance, etc. 

What can we say about the world? It is ever new (Art) and always the same (Representation). Representation must then be the antithesis of Art. One can only ‘represent’ what is already conceived, so what is ‘ready for representation’ is never new and therefore cannot be Art. A ‘poem’ cannot mean anything…and still be a poem!

Together, Art and Representation function as Penrose Tiles. They perfectly template one another and together they can cover an indefinitely large surface without any pattern ever repeating. It is fun to be alive after all! (Thank you, Roger)

But back to MacLeish. A poem should not mean but be. What would be an example of a poem that means something? Verse that could be translated into another medium (e.g. prose) with no appreciable loss of content (information). 

Consider the fine art of translation. A poem that is merely ‘translated’, conserving its denotative content, is no longer a poem. But in the hands of an Ezra Pound or a Seamus Heaney a poem can be translated into another poem with its own fresh ‘aha moments’. 

Recently, I received a newsletter from Rob Howard, Founder of Innovating. He was discussing AI generated art in general and Coca-Cola's AI-generated Christmas ad in particular. Is AI generated ‘art’ any good? Can it be? Is it even Art? How will AI impact the broader Art world? 

His questions answer themselves. He writes, “Anyone can now make nearly Hollywood-quality video with a text prompt!” A text prompt! No drawing, no filming, no voice over. And quality? Check! But Art, no! An AI generated ‘painting’ can never, ever be Art because it merely reproduces information that pre-existed in the prompt. Concept precedes execution. Therefore, nothing new can be attributed to the art work itself.

If the execution of all ‘works of art’ in all media (image, sound, etc.) is subcontracted to AI Bots, at least as we know them today, then we will be condemning ourselves to the be world’s first ‘art-free civilization’, which is an oxymoron.

Or are we? The fact that novelty will no longer emerge through the execution of ‘a work of art’ does not preclude the possibility that new things will happen, new discoveries be made, or that people will experience what’s happening in new ways. 

Today, painters are translating their visual ideas into code (i.e. prompts); likewise composers with their musical thoughts. This artificial state-of-affairs cannot continue for long though. Soon artists will have to learn to think, and create, in code. Prompts will be the new medium of artistic expression, and all artists will need to learn to think in code.

Have you ever mastered a foreign language? For the longest time, you translate what you hear back into your mother tongue; likewise, you compose your answers in English before you deliver them in perfect French.

Then one day you don’t. You can speak and hear without the need of an internal translator. You think in French now. (You, not me, quelle domage!) On the other hand, my AI Bots are innately multilingual. In fact, if I type more than a few French words in a row, my Bots assume I’ve renounced my American citizenship and relocated to the EU. Silly Bots! Now I’ll need to spend my time persuading them that I’m still the same old Okie from Muskogee (Merle Haggard). Or perhaps I’m just feeling carbon entitled. 

I don’t mean to minimize the situation. Moving from finger paints and the recorder to ‘code castles in the air’ will not be an easy transition. We will need a new mindset, and it will require a huge epigenetic adaptation. But the alternative is far more daunting: the disappearance of human culture and civilization as we know it…because there is no civilization without novelty and no novelty without Art.

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