Machine Hallucinations - Coral - Generative AI Data Painting A (Print), 2021
Refik Anadol
Round Gallery
Blue and White Speculation, 2021
Sarah Meyohas
B R I N T Z + C O U N T Y
AI has quickly become an omnipresent tool—for research, writing, image generation, and more. In the art world, this shift has had a polarizing effect: embraced by some, rejected by others.
At times, the use of AI has led to controversy, as with the much-opposed, though hugely successful, auction, “Augmented Intelligence,” Christie’s first-ever sale dedicated to art made with AI. The auction, held in February and March 2025, featured works by early pioneers of the technology, such as a piece from the 1980s by Harold Cohen, as well as contemporary artists making names for themselves within the space, like Refik Anadol, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, and Sasha Stiles. Prior to the auction, nearly 4,000 individuals, including many artists, signed an open letter urging the auction house to cancel the sale. The letter claimed that AI models were trained on copyrighted material, and therefore exploit human creativity without consent. The auction house, however, proceeded with the sale, claiming that AI is a tool that has enhanced the featured artists’ existing practices, not unlike, say, a new paintbrush. And when push came to shove, the auction generated nearly $730,000 in sales, well over its $600,000 projection.
We asked the following artists—ranging from those embedded in the space, like Anadol, to those further afield, such as Arthur Jafa—how they think AI will change art as we know it. Throughout their answers, there was an undercurrent similar to the argument Christie’s made: For now, it’s a tool, but one that wields exponential power.
Refik Anadol
Known for: pioneering AI art with a groundbreaking 2022 installation at MoMA
“AI has already begun to expand the boundaries of what we call art [by] challenging traditional notions of authorship, perception, and even materiality. I always say that AI is a collaborator for me—one that allows me to visualize the invisible, transform data into memory, and rethink creativity itself. In our studio, we use AI to engage with vast datasets—environmental archives, museum collections, biometric patterns—and reimagine them through immersive experiences that are constantly evolving. This approach doesn’t replace the human dimension of artmaking; it augments it, offering new lenses through which to explore the collective imagination.
“Looking ahead, I believe AI will continue to transform the aesthetic language of art as well as its infrastructures: how works are created, shared, preserved, and valued. Ethical questions around data sourcing, algorithmic bias, and ecological impact will be central to this transformation, and artists must be part of shaping those conversations. If approached with care, AI can offer a new frontier—one where we create dynamic systems of meaning.”
Arthur Jafa
Known for: powerful moving image works exploring Black identity, culture, and experience
“I remember when my brother showed me the first ChatGPT a few years ago. It’s incredible how quickly it went from something from science fiction to being everywhere. But I was never intimidated, nor even that interested in most of what people are talking about. I’m not saying [AI is] not real and the fears aren’t warranted, but the whole idea that scriptwriters in Hollywood are terrified they’re gonna start using AI to write scripts—it’s like, well, you write the kind of scripts that AI can write. 99.9% of what’s being done is so generic, AI might as well do it. But I’m not worried about no AI writing my shit.
“It’s a tool like any other kind of tool. As far as I can tell, nobody’s done anything with it that couldn’t be done before. It’s just that some things can be done more quickly, more efficiently, than they’ve been done before. It’s kind of like this is the first kid on the block with an electric guitar: What they’re playing is not amazing. It’s just louder. And everybody’s going to have it.
“I’m not saying the fears aren’t founded, but the level at which most people are working, it is completely irrelevant for artists—maybe it’s less irrelevant if your future is working in a factory. Look at how quickly ChatGPT images started to look the same. It’s generic. It’s the definition of least common denominator elevated to so-called ‘aesthetics.’ And it’s not aesthetics. A lot of this AI stuff is just bullshit, honestly.”
Sarah Meyohas
Known for: the 2015 crypto project Bitchcoin, plus cutting-edge film, holography, and works made with the help of custom AI models
“AI has barely touched artistic practice itself—from what I observe, it remains largely peripheral to how most artists actually work. What it has transformed is image culture, social media, [and] the broader visual ecosystem that surrounds art. When the world around art changes so dramatically, when AI dominates every conversation, we inevitably view existing artworks through this new lens.
“The real impact isn’t on art but on the art world’s relevance. Images are not art; images are images. We shouldn’t conflate the two. Art operates as a self-reflective cultural practice, distinct from mere image production. But when AI floods the market with endless visual content, essentially devaluing every image on earth, it colonizes the visual landscape in ways that compress art’s territory. The channels through which art moves become clogged with machine-generated content.
“This compression matters because art’s economic model depends on our ability to identify authentic creative labor—whether that’s recognizing the particularity of a brushstroke or the sophistication of a conceptual framework. When we can no longer distinguish between an image generated in two seconds by an advanced model and one created through sustained human effort, that identification system breaks down. The premium placed on recognizable human creativity erodes. Art will shift in response, as it always does, but its new forms may feel radically different—not because the practice itself has changed, but because the context in which we encounter and value it has been fundamentally altered. What emerges may be art that deliberately emphasizes its distance from the hallmarks of generated images, or conversely, art that finds new ways to work within and against these compressed conditions.”
Marilyn Minter
Known for: hyperrealistic, subversive paintings and photographs that explore themes of beauty, consumerism, and the female body
“AI is a new tool. It makes me think of the earliest forms of photography. So many of the first photographs aped the paintings of the time. Famously, [19th-century French painter] Paul Delaroche said, “From today, painting is dead,” when he first saw a photograph around 1840. At the time, photographers were portraying people in togas and posing them with Grecian columns, copying allegorical paintings, making still lifes, and so on, because it was the only way they knew how to make art. Until artists like Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz came along and created photography as we know it today. Right now, people are just starting to play with AI. Someone is going to be the Alfred Stieglitz or Man Ray of AI, but right now, they’re aping what we currently think of as art. There’s so much potential. Who knows what’s going to happen.”
WangShui
Known for: hypnotic videos, paintings, and installation art made in part with machine learning
“AI can be a psychedelic for artistic production, capable of circumventing anthropocentric perception and establishing new pathways to more distributed networked flows of creativity.”
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Known for: pioneering legendary media art and exploring technological surveillance and AI, among other topics
“Art is made by artists using the tools of their time, and artists use the tools of their time to talk about the issues of their time. So, it is appropriate to have artists use AI for connectivity to a global, digital community. This creates a language of complicit, connective understanding. AI has been around for the last 40 years under different names, or disguises, but there is now a new opportunity to participate in our constantly evolving, continually hacked, and revised meta-universe—seeking not closure but expanded aperture, tolerance, and live connectivity.
“It is always the same when a new technology comes into culture. When Microsoft Word became available, people said it would be the end of libraries, for instance. AI is a search engine and tool. It has no sense of humor and no senses of metaphor. It can be helpful, just as Photoshop is helpful, and it will probably change the range of works and ideas going into a more globally conscious community. But it will not take over or be our master. I think of Maria in [the 1927 movie] Metropolis: Her fear was what enslaved her. We need not be slaves to any program, especially ones we invented. I wish us all the best not only for the future but for the belief that we will have a future.”
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/LgQCOcU
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