Computer art

Is it possible for a computer to create art? Many have tried and many more will follow, installing algorithms to produce random images. However, is it possible for a computer to produce art without any human input at all? Technically no but my laptop met one of those strange conditions generally known as serendipity. Last night was extremely cold here and I didn't shut the lid as I normally do. This is what I was faced with this morning. After a keyboard failure 2 weeks ago this guy is going to keep me entertained until the very end. The screen is in constant but slow evolution so it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

I've seen art produced by elephants blowing paint through their noses, and monkeys throwing paint (among other things) against a canvas. I've seen art that included human body parts. There is a lot of art created by history's most brilliant minds, such as DiVinci, and art created by crazy institutionalized people who have lost their minds. Some art is highly technical, others are wildly abstract.

I see no reason why a computer couldn't produce art as well.

I think when we seek to define art for the sole sake of defining it, we might as well start burning books, too. You can't put boundaries on creativity, no matter how you may or may not agree with it.

My laptop did something like that when I left a USB lid on the keyboard and closed the lid ! The screen never recovered !

I'm going to answer, "no" to the original question because I consider art a human, creative endeavor. Emphasis on "human" and yes, before someone asks, I do mean to the exclusion of other species.

Computers "produce" they do not, to my way of thinking, "create".

Oxford dictionary: Art

[h=3]noun [/h]The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power:

WayneF said:

Oxford dictionary: Art

noun

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power:

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So this eliminates any other creature living on the planet from ever creating a work of art? This will come back one day to bite the OED on the bum.

WeeHector said:

So this eliminates any other creature living on the planet from ever creating a work of art? This will come back one day to bite the OED on the bum.

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A lot of humans seem obviously excluded too. (the "producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power" part).

WeeHector said:

So this eliminates any other creature living on the planet from ever creating a work of art? This will come back one day to bite the OED on the bum.

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I would suggest that anything can produce something but it takes a human to consider that production as worthy of artistic merit.

Here's something I've produced using my computer and a tethered D7100:

Jonathan said:

I would suggest that anything can produce something but it takes a human to consider that production as worthy of artistic merit.

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So can you explain the merit in a human being buying a Photoshopped photo of a straight piece of canal with a flat landscape behind it where all the factories have been removed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhein_II.jpg

Does it become a work of art simply because someone paid $4.3M for it or would it still be considered a work of art if it had sold for $4.30? Does the artistic merit of a work increase as the price goes up or are there just too many rich people in the world who don't know how to spend their money?

WeeHector said:

So can you explain the merit in a human being buying a Photoshopped photo of a straight piece of canal with a flat landscape behind it where all the factories have been removed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhein_II.jpg

Does it become a work of art simply because someone paid $4.3M for it or would it still be considered a work of art if it had sold for $4.30? Does the artistic merit of a work increase as the price goes up or are there just too many rich people in the world who don't know how to spend their money?

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No I can't explain, and I don't want to. That is all a purely subjective assessment that is a complete and utter waste of my limited energy to discuss. The worth that a human decides to place on a product is entirely their call and I have better things to do than to discuss it in the abstract. What I do know, because I spend time in these circles, is that nothing has any monetary value until it has been bought. Thus, if your family had owned, since it was painted, a Vermeer and it had, therefore, never been valued (i.e. bought and sold) it would command no real price whatsoever (but an implied price, yes) until its real market value is established following its sale and purchase.

This unending debate about nothing is why I refuse to get sucked into typed debates. Face-to-face, by all means, but it is impossible to judge what is truly being posited in a two dimensional world such as this.

WayneF said:

Oxford dictionary: Art

noun

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power:

Click to expand...

It doesn't say that it must be a human that expresses or applies it though.

in my mind, the definition of art is:

a piece of or collection of pieces that deviate from the norm and allow a person or people to exist by doing something utterly meaningless, regardless of what the creator(s) tell you, but that has a propensity to bring pleasure, joy or thought provoking emotions to at least one person, which may be solely the creator(s) of said pieces.