AI Am I? Alexander Reben

"AI Am I?”

Reben will present his series ‘"AI Am I?” which comprises works created by an AI and have then been produced in real-life, by the artist or others. The series subverts the traditional method of art production where a creative idea is conceived by a human and is then rendered using technology, instead the series represents a true human-machine collaboration. Reben will also be dropping an NFT in conjunction with the exhibition on the Superrare platform during the show. All NFTs minted by Gazell.io are certified by Verisart.

Gazelli Art House founder, Mila Askarova says “Alexander Reben has been working with both Gazelli Art House and Gazell.io since his Gazell.io digital artist in residence placement back in August 2019. Earlier in the summer we presented Reben’s AI tapestry series in our Gazelli Art House exhibition ‘Let’s Talk About Text’. It is exciting to bring his solo exhibition physically into our new Gazell.io Project Space this year.”

The process for creating the ‘"AI Am I?” works starts with a series of carefully curated “start texts” that are fed into a text generation AI called GPT (one of the largest and most advanced artificial neural networks), which then outputs text including a description of an imaginary artwork, along with analysis of that artwork and other supporting text. Examples of the works created by the system include; Zippers (1964), a work which presents a series of “haphazard” red zippers on a canvas by the imaginary Dutch artist Isabellaide Ufferbrecht, Do Not Insert Swab Into Ear Canal (2003) by “Brayshon Erris” featuring Q-tips dipped in acrylic paint on a canvas and My Kid Could Do That! (2018) created from cutouts of Artforum.

Reben comments “I hope the project will help people see that AI is still at its very earliest stages of developing a sense of creativity. I want people to understand that AI is still very much a tool that helps humans make decisions, rather than being a replacement for human creativity.”

The project highlights the fact that today everyday life always involves some kind of AI; the natural and artificial worlds are beginning to blur. The series represents how we can implement AI for positive and creative uses, how computational creativity can augment human creativity. "AI Am I?” provides a view into a future where machine learning algorithms are used to generate artwork and novel ideas.

About Alexander Reben:

Alexander Reben is an artist and MIT trained roboticist who explores humanity through the lens of art and technology. Using “art as experiment” his work allows for the viewer to experience the future within metaphorical contexts. Reben’s artwork and research have been shown and published internationally, and he consults with major companies, guiding innovation for the social machine future.

Alexander Reben’s work probes the inherently human nature of the artificial. Using tools such as artificial philosophy, synthetic psychology, perceptual manipulation and technological magic, he brings to light our inseparable evolutionary entanglement to invention which has unarguably shaped our way of being. This is done to not only help understand who we are, but to consider who we will become in our continued codevelopment with our artificial creations.