Very thought-provoking; thanks! I've been tracking the whole AI image generator thing for a while, and I've always thought of it as a supplement to surrealist art practices, but your points about how it interacts with romanticism and theories of human motivation are insightful. AI art won't "destroy human creativity" as some of the doomers seem to believe; but it will certainly affect how we relate to images. I'm excited to read the second half when it comes out. Rather than risk spamming up your comment section, I sent some links to things I've written about AI art to your Substack email.
Yeah you can send me those links anytime, I'd be glad to check them out.
As I was writing, I realized that I'd need to make a stronger justification for why I see today's understanding of "art" as still firmly embedded within a post-romantic paradigm rather than one of modernism or any of its various offshoots or contemporaneous movements (including surrealism). So I'll probably open up the next post discussing that a bit more thoroughly.
Oh I certainly think you are right to say that art is stuck in post-romanticism. Modernism was an aberration and it will go away soon if it hasn't already. Surrealism is the only real counter to romanticism, and Dalí was the only surrealist willing to take the movement's principles to their logical outcome.
Very thought-provoking; thanks! I've been tracking the whole AI image generator thing for a while, and I've always thought of it as a supplement to surrealist art practices, but your points about how it interacts with romanticism and theories of human motivation are insightful. AI art won't "destroy human creativity" as some of the doomers seem to believe; but it will certainly affect how we relate to images. I'm excited to read the second half when it comes out. Rather than risk spamming up your comment section, I sent some links to things I've written about AI art to your Substack email.
Yeah you can send me those links anytime, I'd be glad to check them out.
As I was writing, I realized that I'd need to make a stronger justification for why I see today's understanding of "art" as still firmly embedded within a post-romantic paradigm rather than one of modernism or any of its various offshoots or contemporaneous movements (including surrealism). So I'll probably open up the next post discussing that a bit more thoroughly.
Oh I certainly think you are right to say that art is stuck in post-romanticism. Modernism was an aberration and it will go away soon if it hasn't already. Surrealism is the only real counter to romanticism, and Dalí was the only surrealist willing to take the movement's principles to their logical outcome.