Image via Discord
Some controversy has been stirred in the art community after an art piece generated by an AI software won a state competition. The image was created using a text-to-image generator.
Game designer Jason Allen entered the piece that he titled “Theater d’Opera Spatial” in the “Digital Arts/Digitally-Manipulated Photography” category of the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition. The artwork was created using a popular software called Midjourney.
Vice initially covered the win by Allen and a Twitter post about it became viral. Many seem to be divided along strong lines, with many claiming the use of AI to create the art was deceptive, citing concerns that people may not understand how text-to-image AI generators work. However, Allen defended his use of Midjourney.
Allen told The Pueblo Chieftain that he “wanted to make a statement using artificial intelligence artwork. I feel like I accomplished that, and I’m not going to apologize for it.”
Text-to-image AI systems have blown up in popularity as of late, with users imputing a text prompt. Then, the AI generates an image based off of the text and its training data. These AI work by mining for visual patterns and training on billions of image pairs and text descriptions.
Midjourney, the software used by Allen, is a very popular one, as it is more robust than other services out there. It’s accessible via a Discord server where users show artwork off and share tips on how to create better images.
On Discord, Allen posted a statement about his winning of the competition, saying that: “I’ve set out to make a statement using Midjourney in a competitive manner and wow! I could not be more excited about having won with my favorite piece.”
Allen did enter the competition and in his entry said that he had used Midjourney, but he did not explain what the software was. He also said that he told people at the show that he created it using AI and that “I made the prompt, I fine tuned it for many weeks, curated all the images.” He also stated that he did perform some Photoshop work that was “at least 10%” of the total work.
The rules of the competition he entered described the category as “Artistic practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process.”
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