Grant Della Silva

Statement

Recent advances in artificial intelligence force us to question what it means to be an artist, and what art really is. Machine learning algorithms trained on human experience will reflect some portion of that experience - which makes it all the more important for us to reflect upon how precious nature is, upon the mistakes of the past, and upon the future. Is art truly "art" if it comes from a machine? Is the artist the programmer or the machine itself? Does the art come from the organic and historic structure of our cities, or from the tools we have created, or from the wielder of the tools of industrial automation, or from the photographer of the elephant? And does the elephant have a name?

Artworks

A dreamlike elephant emerges from a single piece of wood. This piece was created using machine learning, custom map tiles crafted for artistic merit, and using an industrial laser cutter. The map of Kigali is transformed, losing its structure but perhaps taking on new and deeper meaning. This work does not contain much mathematical content, but that is the nature of modern artificial intelligence - to produce wondrous results devoid of insight. Created in part with data from OpenStreetMap contributors (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/) freely available under the Open Database License (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/). Elephant photo credit to Amar Hussain.