AI-Produced Artwork Sells for $433K
Allyssia Alleyne, CNN writes that "Edmond de Belamy" has made history as the first work of art produced by artificial intelligence to be sold at auction. The slightly blurry canvas print, which has been likened to works by the Old Masters, sold Thursday for $432,500 - dramatically exceeding its original estimate of $7,000-$10,000- at a Christie's auction in New York.
"Christie's continually stays attuned to changes in the art market and how technology can impact the creation and consumption of art," Richard Lloyd, international head of prints and multiples at Christie's, said in a statement before the auction. "AI has already been incorporated as a tool by contemporary artists and as this technology further develops, we are excited to participate in these continued conversations. To best engage in the dialogue, we are offering a public platform to exhibit an artwork that has entirely been realized by an algorithm."
While the print is signed "min G max D x [log (D(x))] + z [log(1 -- D (G(z)))]" after a section of the algorithm's code, it was conceived by Obvious, a Paris-based trio fascinated by the artistic potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Though none come from an art background, friends Pierre Fautrel, Hugo Caselles-Dupré and Gauthier Vernier first started experimenting with art and machine learning last year."We saw algorithms were capable of creating new images, and we were astonished by the potential they had," Vernier said.
To produce "Edmond de Belamy" and the 10 other portraits in the "La Famille de Belamy" series, Obvious fed a two-part algorithm 15,000 images of portraits from different time periods. After reviewing these submissions, the first part of the algorithm began generating its own portraits, trying to create original works that could pass as man-made.
Acknowledgement and thanks to:: Allyssia Alleyne
Jan. 16, 2019