/imagine : posthuman tragedy and the aura of AI-produced art

Abstract

‘[P]rofound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful,’ proclaims Paul Valéry, the French poet and critic, in 1928 in the short essay ‘La conquête de l’ubiquité’. He was writing, both perceptively and presciently, about the transformative impact of technology upon the arts. ‘Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established,’ he observes, ‘in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours’. He sensed that the biggest changes were yet to come: ‘We must expect innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art’ (Valéry 1964: 225). [Excerpt]