Artist Jason Allen came in first in the Colorado State Fair art competition, with a painting titled Space Opera Theater. Nothing could be more banal, except that this video game designer “created†the work using the artificial intelligence program Midjourney, which generates images from textual descriptions. Cheating? No, because Allen had notified the organizers before submitting his painting, which was accepted.
Jason Allen and the Art Debate
The judges themselves were unaware of the method of production used by the artist, but they declared afterwards that they would have awarded the first place to Allen anyway if they had known. Far from being a troll, Jason Allen intended to create a debate around his approach, and debate there was since his painting somewhat shook Twitter.
The word to the artists and to Olga Robak, representative of the competition
"We are witnessing the death of art", "An AI that could take the work of real artists, it's scary", and other such reactions were published following the award obtained by the painting. But let's leave the final word to competition spokesperson Olga Robak, who said this event helps spark "a broader conversation about what we decide what art is, and how to judge it appropriatelyâ€. Source: Chieftain