When approaching a new artistic medium like AI, it’s essential to consider the evolution of photography. Over its nearly 200-year history, photography has transformed from a mechanical process into an integral part of contemporary art, shaping how we perceive the world. This transformation mirrors the journey AI art is undergoing today. For Paris Photo 2024, Fellowship presents three critical bodies of work, deepening our exploration into what AI art is and what it can become. These works, from Trevor Paglen and Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, highlight one of the most dynamic periods in generative AI art, revealing the interplay between human creativity and machine learning.
Trevor Paglen’s Evolved Hallucinations is simultaneously an artistic and scientific investigation into GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) models. By organizing his work into corpuses, classes, and neurons, Paglen exposes the limitations and biases of AI image-making systems. His exploration of the AI "black box" invites viewers to reflect on how machine learning translates data into imagery, raising questions about the relationship between human perception and machine vision.
Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst’s Infinite Images, created in collaboration with DALLE-1, examines themes of labor, art, and utopian landscapes through early text-to-image technology. Developed during the pandemic, this series reflects their experimental process as they pushed the boundaries of what early AI tools could achieve. The resulting images are eclectic and raw, representing a pioneering moment in AI-generated art. As the artists describe, “We can’t emphasize enough how surreal the experience was... it felt like we were holding a secret.”
Herndon & Dryhurst’s xHairyMutantx continues their inquiry into AI’s role in cultural production. Presented at the 2024 Whitney Biennial, xHairyMutantx is an interactive text-to-image model inviting the public to engage with AI-driven image creation. This work underscores the collaborative potential among artists, machines, and audiences, demonstrating AI’s evolving role—not just as a tool, but as an active participant in shaping artistic expression.
Through these seminal works, Fellowship continues its curatorial mission to examine how AI, much like photography, will transform the way we see the world. Our exhibition at Paris Photo 2024 invites viewers to explore the relationship between these two mediums and engage in the broader debate surrounding AI’s impact on artistic creation.
