What does the rise of AI models mean for the field of generative art? NFT artists and curators weigh in

Total NFT trading volume has fallen a staggering 97 percent from its peak in 2021, but the crypto-art horizon may claim one bright spot: the medium and market for generative art.

On December 1 at Art Basel Miami Beach, the form takes the spotlight at the Tezos and Fxhash exhibit, “Performance in Code: Deciphering Value in Generative Art.” Emerging generative artists such as Ivona Tau and Tyler Boswell will be featured, and visitors can create their own generative NFTs.

The exhibition follows the opening of Refik Anadol’s solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where generative art is given a major museum exhibition. On display are the artist’s latest computer-driven architectural installations, created by inputting data taken from MoMA’s own archives – everything from the photographs of Hans Haacke to paintings by Cézanne and Van Gogh – into code that generates chance-based waves and geometric shapes.

Such institutional recognition follows respectable, if cautious, market interest. Throughout 2022, large auction houses Christie’s, Phillips’s and Sotheby’s has held generative art sales, with the latter’s April auction bringing in a combined $2.3 million. Art Blocks, the platform founded by Erick Calderon (aka Snowfro) who has been largely responsible for popularizing generative art on the chain, has also performed remarkably well, despite the crypto bear market: its market capitalization as of September 2022 exceeds $841 million.

But even if generative art can cope with the failing NFT market (plunging lately fueled by FTX’s spectacular crash), the recent integration of AI technology could be indicative of further changes in the field.

Vera Molnar, (De)ordered (1974). Courtesy of Phillips

Generative art emerged as far back as the 1960s, led by pioneers such as Vera Molnár and Herbert Franke, who used systems-based design thinking to construct random and iterative works. The form has found new life on-chain with practitioners such as Snowfro and Dmitri Cherniak implementing creative coding and algorithms to generate variations with each and every function of a smart contract.

“What these artists all have in common,” said George Bak, a collector and art consultant, was their “unwavering dedication to chance and control, a kind of cybernetic serendipity.” According to Bak, who organized a generative art auction at Phillips earlier this year, the form is still one of the least understood and appreciated genres within new media art. While the market may be slow to embrace generative art, he added, institutions have not.

Janek Simon, Meta Folklore sculpture, based on data and AI, 3D printing, courtesy of the artist and Raster Gallery Warsaw.

But lately, the rise of AI generators like OpenAI’s DALL-E has made generative art newly accessible—and even acceptable. To Janek Simon, the Polish artist whose Synthetic folklore project saw him use AI to recreate various ethnic traditions, the new AI models are a game changer, and whose “meta-folklore” sculptures based on generative principles will be shown next month at Nada Miami in the booth of Warsaw’s Raster Gallery, says that “there are at least two eras in generative art: before and after AI,” Simon told Artnet News, pointing to AI programs that DALL-E, Midjourneyand Asynchronous Art, with which he has experimented. But wHat actually makes AI art interesting, he added, “isn’t just projects that use glitches and cheesy features. If you really want to get into it, AI and generative art, you have to learn to code.”

Refik Anadol Machine hallucinations: Nature dreams at Galerie König, Berlin. Photo: Roman Maerz.

Generative artists like Simon also hesitate to see AI as a threat to human creativity or artistry, because they are attuned to innovative technology. “It would be super hard for AI to come up with an idea like putting a urinal on a plinth,” he said, referring to Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 ready-made, Fountain.

Cherniak, whose latest generative art collection was created in collaboration with the estate of László Moholy-Nagy, echoed this sentiment. “I believe that we live in an increasingly technical world, with increasingly powerful technological tools, and humanity will always exhibit some form of creativity,” he told Artnet News. “It makes perfect sense to me that as these tools become more accessible and the general public becomes more technologically inclined, they will use automation and code for creative pursuits.”

With or without market interest, the field of generative art appears to be developing rapidly, aided by a plethora of new tools and software. Besides Anadol’s showcase at MoMA, Pace Verso, the Web3 arm of Pace Gallery, has recruited a number of top generative artists via its partnership with Art Blocks. Most recently, in October, the pair released Loie Hollowell’s first NFT project, a set of 280 generative sculptural abstractions.

These developments, along with an institutional push, could likely clear a long-term path for digital art and NFTs. “The machine provides opportunities to find new forms of expression that the artist adjusts based on their vision,” said the digital art curator Aleksandra Artamonovskaya. “For some the machine is just like the brush, while for others the symbol is the medium – the canvas for creation.”

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