Bennett Miller @ Gagosian

Today I went to Gagosian gallery to see an exhibition of new prints by Bennett Miller produced using a DALL•E image generator.

Here is a description from the show materials:

The works on view in New York emerged after a five-year period in which Miller researched and shot a documentary film about the technological crossroads at which we now find ourselves.

Having interviewed numerous figures involved with artificial intelligence (AI), including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the San Francisco–based developer of DALL•E, the artist began using the software to reflect on the nature and progression of shifts in the ways we understand representational artwork.

The striking results engage the history and format of photography to pose questions around the contingent and enigmatic nature of perception, reality, and truth — an enquiry made newly urgent by revolutionary innovations in computing.

DALL•E, a portmanteau of Salvador Dalí and Pixar’s robot character WALL-E, is a “neural net” that employs a deep-learning algorithm trained to translate written prompts into high-fidelity images.

It was launched in 2021 by OpenAI, the company also responsible for “large language model” ChatGPT, which performs a comparable operation with text.

As Miller’s project acknowledges, such generators already exert a pervasive and not-uncontroversial influence on education, media, and commercial art and design, complicating debates around authenticity, appropriation, and style to a degree not seen since Postmodernism’s 1980s heyday.

IMO, the images ARE interesting in that they are photographic in appearance, but not photographs. To me, it is still unclear whether this is an important new area for artistic expression or a stunt that drafts on the current excitement around AI.

You can see the show images here: https://qrcgcustomers.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/account1500892/35675756_1.pdf?0.048432061341736166