AI-Generated Artwork Gets 1st At CO State Fair, Sparking Outrage: PHOTO

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        Artists Furious After AI-Generated Artwork Comes In First Place At Colorado State Fair Competition
    

        @Sincarnate/Discord
    
By Ben AcostaSep 06, 2022
Ben Acosta
Ben Acosta is an Arizona-based fiction author and freelance writer. In his free time, he critiques media and acts in local stage productions.
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A controversial first place winner in the Colorado State Fair’s fine arts competition has the internet debating the nature of art itself.
Jason Allen, the Colorado-based owner of a tabletop gaming company, Incarnate Games, decided to enter the digital art competition with a piece generated by an artificial intelligence system. The artwork, titled Théâtre D'opéra Spatial, came in first place at the fair.
But not everyone is thrilled with the idea.
@GenelJumalon/Twitter
In the above Tweet, artist Genel Jumalon shared a screenshot of Allen’s post on Discord talking about his win. Allen, going by the name Sincarnate on the chat app, explains how he used Midjourney, an artificial intelligence image generator, by fine tuning settings and a special prompt to generate hundreds of images. 
He then curated the selection down to three images and submitted them to the competition.
According to Jumalon:
“Yeah that’s pretty f**king sh**ty.”A lot of artists were not thrilled with the idea of competing against AI generated images.
I'm not against AI generated art as a tool, but this is not how it should be used, in my opinion. I think it's useful for developers to quickly create project assets such as concept art and backgrounds and such, but it shouldn't be used to push down traditional artists.
— Toybox (@asktoybox) August 31, 2022 

This is the literal definition of "pressed a few buttons to make a digital art piece" 
AI artwork is the 'banana taped to the wall' of the digital world now.
— 🎃 Saphire Shear🎃 (@SaphireShear) August 30, 2022 

\u201cNaw dawg, this ain't right.\n\nhttps://t.co/y7h7hyftYm\u201d
 — Rionotrowe (@Rionotrowe)
        1662419638
\u201c@The_Galactabee @GenelJumalon people like this only think of the monetary incentive, it was like that for nfts too\n\nthe "huge win" is being able to generate dozens of art pieces at once and selling them out to the highest bidder for insane profit\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@TransformARTive @GenelJumalon Gotta love how short lived the era of digital art being recognized and accepted by mainstream fine art venues lasted before literally being able to just press a button actually did come along\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@ichibanhomo @GenelJumalon Yes, but they went the extra effort to choose the best car and tune it. /s\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201cI know there's more important ethical considerations with the AI art that won the Colorado State Fair, but aesthetically, it looks just like every other AI generated artwork. Anyone who spends even 1 day on Midjourney would see hundreds of other images that look exactly the same.\u201d
 — Eric Hart (@Eric Hart)
        1662220310
Allen posted in the Discord channel for users of the Midjourney AI software. According to him, he fully expected the pushback from his win.
He said:
“I knew this would be controversial. How interesting is it to see how all these people on Twitter who are against AI-generated art are the first ones to throw the human under the bus by discrediting the human element!”Allen insists that the human element is essential, as he spent so much time shaping and curating the resulting images generated by Midjourney.
The situation led to debate online about the validity of Allen’s art win.
For the record, I think AI can be a useful tool for artists. The issue I have at hand is someone straight up taking full credit and in this case not properly informing the judges what Midjourney is.

Going forward AI art should have it's own category. pic.twitter.com/6qBzVkfeey
— Genel Jumalon ✈️ ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@GenelJumalon) September 1, 2022 

\u201c@kaseysaus @GenelJumalon It's actually super cool. The exploratory process and guidance by a human is really something unique.\n\nJust cause it's not your niche, doesn't mean it's the end of your world lol. \n\nIf anything, you should learn to utilize it - even if it's just for inspiration.\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@GenelJumalon The AI is not a person, but the person who generated it by typing words into the AI is not an artist. They created nothing. At best, they collaborated. A collaboration they can take credit for because there\u2019s no human on the other end. This should not be allowed. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@luxidea @GenelJumalon if this were true then burning a painting would result in no loss because only the result would be destroyed, not the process. art history is fine, provenance is fine, but never mistake it for the value of art. a mysterious masterpiece has more value than a well-known mediocrity.\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@cecurry @Sanguiphilia @GenelJumalon If the person who generated the art made the AI themselves, that would be a fair analogy.\nWhat actually happened is the equivalent of using symbolab or wolfram alpha to solve that equation; *everything* was done by the computer after the initial prompt was given.\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@Sanguiphilia @GenelJumalon The news article about it said he spent 80 hours trying different combinations of words and Photoshopping the result. He was in the digital edited photography section, so that's probably similar to or more than the expected commitment\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
\u201c@miraka_r @GenelJumalon I just made this in literally 20 seconds.\u201d
 — Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls)
        1661876994
Allen labeled his piece with the notation that he created it with Midjourney, but the judges didn’t know what that meant. Cal Duran, one of the judges, says that after learning the process, still thinks the piece deserves the win.
“I think this art, it had a voice, you know. I think the artist that made it had a voice creating it.”As time moves on, art submissions and competitions will have to decide how they want to handle AI-generated art. The most commonly suggested solution will be for it to have its own category.
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A controversial first place winner in the Colorado State Fair’s fine arts competition has the internet debating the nature of art itself.

Jason Allen, the Colorado-based owner of a tabletop gaming company, Incarnate Games, decided to enter the digital art competition with a piece generated by an artificial intelligence system. The artwork, titled Théâtre D'opéra Spatial, came in first place at the fair.

But not everyone is thrilled with the idea.

@GenelJumalon/Twitter

In the above Tweet, artist Genel Jumalon shared a screenshot of Allen’s post on Discord talking about his win. Allen, going by the name Sincarnate on the chat app, explains how he used Midjourney, an artificial intelligence image generator, by fine tuning settings and a special prompt to generate hundreds of images.

He then curated the selection down to three images and submitted them to the competition.

According to Jumalon:

“Yeah that’s pretty f**king sh**ty.”

A lot of artists were not thrilled with the idea of competing against AI generated images.

I'm not against AI generated art as a tool, but this is not how it should be used, in my opinion. I think it's useful for developers to quickly create project assets such as concept art and backgrounds and such, but it shouldn't be used to push down traditional artists.
— Toybox (@asktoybox) August 31, 2022

This is the literal definition of "pressed a few buttons to make a digital art piece"
AI artwork is the 'banana taped to the wall' of the digital world now.
— 🎃 Saphire Shear🎃 (@SaphireShear) August 30, 2022

\u201cNaw dawg, this ain't right.\n\nhttps://t.co/y7h7hyftYm\u201d
— Rionotrowe (@Rionotrowe) 1662419638

\u201c@The_Galactabee @GenelJumalon people like this only think of the monetary incentive, it was like that for nfts too\n\nthe "huge win" is being able to generate dozens of art pieces at once and selling them out to the highest bidder for insane profit\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@TransformARTive @GenelJumalon Gotta love how short lived the era of digital art being recognized and accepted by mainstream fine art venues lasted before literally being able to just press a button actually did come along\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@ichibanhomo @GenelJumalon Yes, but they went the extra effort to choose the best car and tune it. /s\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201cI know there's more important ethical considerations with the AI art that won the Colorado State Fair, but aesthetically, it looks just like every other AI generated artwork. Anyone who spends even 1 day on Midjourney would see hundreds of other images that look exactly the same.\u201d
— Eric Hart (@Eric Hart) 1662220310

Allen posted in the Discord channel for users of the Midjourney AI software. According to him, he fully expected the pushback from his win.

He said:

“I knew this would be controversial. How interesting is it to see how all these people on Twitter who are against AI-generated art are the first ones to throw the human under the bus by discrediting the human element!”

Allen insists that the human element is essential, as he spent so much time shaping and curating the resulting images generated by Midjourney.

The situation led to debate online about the validity of Allen’s art win.

For the record, I think AI can be a useful tool for artists. The issue I have at hand is someone straight up taking full credit and in this case not properly informing the judges what Midjourney is.

Going forward AI art should have it's own category. pic.twitter.com/6qBzVkfeey
— Genel Jumalon ✈️ ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@GenelJumalon) September 1, 2022

\u201c@kaseysaus @GenelJumalon It's actually super cool. The exploratory process and guidance by a human is really something unique.\n\nJust cause it's not your niche, doesn't mean it's the end of your world lol. \n\nIf anything, you should learn to utilize it - even if it's just for inspiration.\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@GenelJumalon The AI is not a person, but the person who generated it by typing words into the AI is not an artist. They created nothing. At best, they collaborated. A collaboration they can take credit for because there\u2019s no human on the other end. This should not be allowed. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@luxidea @GenelJumalon if this were true then burning a painting would result in no loss because only the result would be destroyed, not the process. art history is fine, provenance is fine, but never mistake it for the value of art. a mysterious masterpiece has more value than a well-known mediocrity.\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@cecurry @Sanguiphilia @GenelJumalon If the person who generated the art made the AI themselves, that would be a fair analogy.\nWhat actually happened is the equivalent of using symbolab or wolfram alpha to solve that equation; *everything* was done by the computer after the initial prompt was given.\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@Sanguiphilia @GenelJumalon The news article about it said he spent 80 hours trying different combinations of words and Photoshopping the result. He was in the digital edited photography section, so that's probably similar to or more than the expected commitment\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

\u201c@miraka_r @GenelJumalon I just made this in literally 20 seconds.\u201d
— Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls (@Genel Jumalon \u2708\ufe0f ARTapalooza Cedar Falls) 1661876994

Allen labeled his piece with the notation that he created it with Midjourney, but the judges didn’t know what that meant. Cal Duran, one of the judges, says that after learning the process, still thinks the piece deserves the win.

“I think this art, it had a voice, you know. I think the artist that made it had a voice creating it.”

As time moves on, art submissions and competitions will have to decide how they want to handle AI-generated art. The most commonly suggested solution will be for it to have its own category.

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