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ARTificial Creativity

Artificial intelligence is on the rise, even in art. How does the art world react to it? Do artists embrace or reject AI? And does this development devalue art?

On the search for answers in Vienna this is a multimedia story about the integration of artificial intelligence into the life of artists.

Scandal at the art auction “Augmented Intelligence”

Christie’s Rockefeller center galleries in New York has provoked heavy criticism. The 14-day long event, starting on the 20th of February 2025 intends to sell art pieces by renowned names such as Refik Anadol, Claire Silver and many more. What makes this auction so notable is that they are going to sell pieces made by AI - to the displeasure of over 5,700 artists.

In an open letter they call for the cancellation of the sale. The artists claim that AI models are trained on copyrighted work without having a license and that the Christie’s encourages mass thefts of human artists' work by hosting the auction.

We ask that, if you have any respect for human artists, you cancel the auction.

5,845 artists

What even is AI art?

AI, short form for Artificial Intelligence, are systems that are trained on vast amounts of data. They’re able to recognize patterns, solve problems and create content that seems human made. It is used in more and more areas of our daily lives such as medicine, public administration or schools and universities.

Artificial intelligence has been introduced in creative spaces as well. It can write stories, draw pictures and even compose songs. So, every form of art that uses AI tools in its creation process can be called artificial intelligence art.

Traditional art VS AI art

What does the Art Community think about AI in general?

Source USA 2025: tripleareview.com

0%

of people don’t believe AI-generated works should be called “art”

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of artists believe AI will negatively impact their income

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of artists fear current copyright laws are outdated for handling AI art

$0.000

The price of the most expensive AI-painting was created by artificial intelligence.

Portrait of Edmond Belamy, 2018, created by GAN (Generative Adversarial Network). Sold on 25 October 2018 at Christie’s in New York

What Artists think about Text-to-image AI tools?

Source: playform

One US-survey with 509 participants reveals just how artificial intelligence is impacting their artistic process, from idea generation to final work

What is your experience with Text-to-image (T2I) technology? answered: 509, skipped:0

Do you find current T2I technology useful to your work? answered: 492, skipped: 17

How do you show your T2I creation? answered: 499, skipped 10

Looking deeper

History of AI

Human and machine collaboration in creative spaces can be traced back to the 20th century when artists experimented how they could use computers to create art. One of the most well-known projects of the time is AARON, an early AI program designed by Harold Cohen that produced physical artwork. Nowadays AI can make highly complex art pieces. This is made possible by crucial developments in the field such as deep learning and neural networks, which allows artificial intelligence to make decisions in a manner similar to a human brain.

Art and AI in Vienna

Artificial intelligence art hasn’t skipped Austria.The viennese tourist board for instance has used it for publicity purposes: They replaced people in Klimt paintings with cats.

For curious people who want to learn more about artificial intelligence there are informative events such as a live prompting session at the Wien Museum.

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The gallery Base AT4 in the 7th district in Vienna exhibits works of local artists. Some of them use artificial intelligence for their pieces, among them Ana Vollwesen. Her AI-supported prints revolve mostly around societal issues.

Another artist who incorporates AI is Anna Pelz. The 27-year-old sees artificial intelligence as an opportunity to try out new things and wants to change AI for the better.

"Nothing else to do"

As we see in the Christie’s case, opinions differ on the use of artificial intelligence in art. There are artists who excitedly incorporate it in their work, others see it as a threat.

Looking at the current discussion one could think that history repeats itself here. In the past many new technologies have been met with fear when t hey were first introduced. For example, one of the arguments made against photography was: “When photography becomes perfect, artists will have nothing else to do”. Now, looking back we know that this didn’t happen.

The conversation certainly poses some very important philosophical and ethical questions about the role of art and artists in our society. Who owns the art? What even is creativity? These are topics Johannes Grenzfurthner thinks about.

When I used ChatGPT for the first time, I thought that nothing is going to be like it has been before.

Johannes Grenzfurthner

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence has become a powerful tool in the world of art, expanding creative possibilities and challenging traditional notions of authorship and originality. While AI-generated art can enhance human creativity, automate boring tasks, and push the boundaries of artistic expression, it also raises ethical and legal concerns as we see in the example of the Christie’s auction.

Ultimately, AI in art is a double-edged sword. While it democratizes creativity and accelerates production, it also forces us to rethink artistic authenticity and value. One thing we can be sure about is that AI won’t suddenly vanish from creative spaces. It is going to stay and artists are the ones who have to decide what to make of it.

Sigrid Debois Reuss, Anastasiia Shpylka, Mehriban Karimova, Viktoriia Polshyna, Anna Recla

Mentor: Yvonne Widler