Garden of Aiden

The artwork Garden of Aiden (2018) by artist Jeroen van der Most combines elements of Old Master artworks with creatures generated by artificially intelligent computer systems (like the birds in the bottom-left and right).

With the artwork, Van der Most documents the evolution of creativity, which was once thought to be uniquely human, but through AI transforms into a human-machine cooperation. At the same time, the art piece explores a more distant future. One of a world in which the roles of humans, animals and AI might be turned upside down.

Over the years the artwork was covered by media like the Dutch TV program Tegenlicht and presented at 30+ international conferences, cultural festivals and virtual gatherings. Illustrating the development of creative AI and explaining its impact and potential future consequences.

The AI based imagery in the artwork was generated using a so-called GAN system trained on thousands of bird pictures. The artist combined the AI output using digital image manipulation software with fragments from artworks by Old Masters Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Hans Savery de Oude, Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot, Jan Wijnants and Roelant Savery. Next, algorithmically created schematic visualizations of the structures of current AI deep-learning systems, by artist and researcher Terence Broad were added to the composition.

Real size: 160 x 80 cm. Techniques: digital image manipulation, algorithmic / neural network powered creation, traditional painting techniques.

The video at the top is a short clip from an interview with Van der Most by the Dutch TV program Tegenlicht (march, 2019).