Visiting Utropiia

 

The debate about whether AI 'Art' is 'Art' or should be considered simply generative imagery or whatever and its ethics is a debate that will endure for some time longer, (and where the ethics matter is concerned as with all things, so it should). But the fact remains for better or for worse it is here now.
At first, as an artist I railed against it but in the dawning of the futility of that I looked to see how artists could use it as a tool. Some have done so very interestingly, more than simply typing random words into a function box, they have sought a continuous theme or aesthetic and have used the technology alongside traditional methods to sculpt their own worlds. This is illustrated particularly aptly in the case of the Architect of the mind, Lionel May who has combined generative imagery with photo-montage and digital art to breathe life into the dream city of Utropiia ...

In its meandering streets and cafes and hotel rooms I see the ghosts of Film Noir, Tech Noir, German Expressionist cinema, urban pictorialism such as the works of Edward Steichen and Alfred Steiglitz, Dieselpunk, Steampunk and the uncanny liminality of machine art. It takes me to an oneiric Weimar Berlin, interbellum Paris or a jazz-age New York, but as dreamt by a melancholic automaton golem.
There has been art utilising AI imagery/technology that I have previously liked and I have begun experimenting with it myself, but May's Utropiia is the first example that has really plugged into various reward centres of my brain. A comic hailing from Utropiia is apparently going to manifest in the retro-future; I will look out with longing anticipation from the skyscraper rooftops for the airship delivering that ...

Visit UTROPIIA Here

All imagery © Lionel May - The Architect