p•AI•n

Primitive AI Art Generator With Pump Interaction

p•AI•n is a novel AI art system that harnesses a network of 83 Warrior AI’s to generate breathtakingly realistic rock structures. The process is totally pain-free - simply draw an image, instruct our Warriors to build, and pump away to fuel [/feel] their vigour.

The piece is a fictional AI art creation service that responds to and pokes fun at recent commercial models such as DALL•E 2 and Google Deep Dream. The piece depicts an AI network of warrior agents who pick up and throw stones in the environment to create megalithic rock structures based on a user's drawn image. However, the user is required to physically involve themselves in the process by pumping in order to power these men to create these structures.

Modern AI art generation services are often very opaque, hiding away bleeding edge technology and complex learning algorithms as they churn out extremely visually rich and realistic artworks in a process that is both slick and virtually instant. DALL•E 2, for example, only requires a user to describe an artwork with some level of precision and detail, and click a button to produce a series of visually rich artworks within seconds.

p•AI•n as an AI art generation service directly opposes this trend by exposing an ugly and rather obtuse process of AI agents frantically running to pick up stones and throwing them to create its art. While the process is significantly less algorithmically impressive than modern AI art generators, it is put right at the forefront of the piece and elevated to a spectacle of brutish physical might, rather than one of sophisticated intellectual prowess. Furthermore, users also become entrenched in the physical labour of producing artwork as the AI agents in the piece only work as hard as a user pumps.

The user experience of the piece is intentionally cumbersome from start to finish. They have to squat down to draw, then stand up to pump constantly to see their desired output - mimicking the primal motions of the AI agents who also squat down to pick up stones then exert force as they throw giant stones to make megalithic structures.

Showcased at Goldsmith’s University MFA Computational Arts Final Show and subsequently selected to be shown at an AI exhibition, Creative Machine 2022, alongside prominent artists and AI thinkers including Andy Lomas, Memo Atkens, and Libby Heaney, amongst others.