Recoding Art

In this carefully composed film, the camera appears to wander casually through the Van Abbemuseum in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. Along with the artworks, intriguing phrases and keywords appear, sometimes in images, sometimes in audio, spoken by Lisa the computer.

Digital media researcher Gabriel Pereira and visual artist Bruno Moreschi decided to present 654 works of art from the Van Abbemuseum to seven commercial artificial intelligences, which were trained to interpret images. The AIs prove primarily to see the artworks as products. “Our list of results looked like an IKEA shopping cart,” the researchers say. This creates a sobering and entertaining game of words and images that takes you out of your comfort zone. “Much like art, Artificial Intelligence often offers us the unexpected. We’re searching for these moments.”

But wait a minute—wasn’t the AI trained by people? Moreschi and Pereira then show up with an unexpected trump card. What happens if they play the same game with human intelligence?