Creative—Critical—Constructive
—Collaborative—Computational:
Towards a C5 model in Creative AI
by the Creative AI Lab
Mercedes Bunz
Daniel Chávez Heras
Eva Jäger
Alasdair Milne
Joanna Zylinska
January 2023
creative-ai.org
The Creative AI Lab is a collaboration between
Serpentine's R&D Platform and King’s College
London’s Department of Digital Humanities. The
Lab serves as a site of inquiry into how best to
facilitate, theorise and historicise creative ML
practices, taking artistic research seriously as a
contribution to knowledge creation and technical
development. The Lab is both a research unit and
an active site of curatorial experimentation.
Creative AI Lab 2
Summary
This position paper analyses creative activity enabled by
machine learning (ML) and recognised under the banner of
‘Creative AI’. The theoretical discussion is anchored in critical
reflection on the activities in which the authors have been
involved as part of the Creative AI Lab, a collaboration between
the R&D Platform at Serpentine and King’s College London’s
Department of Digital Humanities. The paper proposes a C5
model (‘Creative—Critical—Constructive—Collaborative
—Computational’) bringing together technical research and
conceptual inquiry, while shifting focus from artefacts to their
wider contexts, processes and infrastructures. It also outlines
directions for future research.
Introduction
Over the last decade, artists working in different media have
intensified their exploration of AI technologies, focusing on AI’s
potential as a creative instrument, nonhuman collaborator and
subject of social critique. In what follows, we want to discuss
the problem of artistic and creative practice as enabled by
AI—principally ML—while outlining new directions for future
research. This discussion, we suggest, needs to consider
a number of conceptual questions with regard to cultural
production:
→ What changes have the use of AI technologies brought about
in the field of art practice? Do we need to revise our conceptions
of artistic production, creativity and research in response?
→ What value does artistic research, in return, bring to AI
research & development (R&D) in adjacent academic fields?
Should we strive for artistic research to have systemic impact?
→ How does the use of generative algorithms alter creative
processes and the embodied experiences of artists?
→ How is the role and agency of the artist altered at a time
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when many artistic productions are the result of a partially
‘black-boxed’ human-machine collaboration?
And from an institutional perspective, ask:
→ What role should cultural and research institutions play in
the AI ecosystem?
→ Do we need new capabilities from our cultural institutions to
support the development of art practices that interrogate, and/
or build with, AI?
→ What new alliances, across both legacy and emerging
organisations, might be conducive to fostering these
capabilities?
→ How might such new alliances and capabilities be
sustainably resourced?
Importantly, for us a theoretical discussion of these questions
is anchored in the critical reflection on the practical activities
in which we have been involved as part of the Creative AI
Lab. Building on the Lab’s existing collaborations, we want to
propose a ‘C5’ model for Creative AI practice and research as a
more enabling approach to working at the cross-discipline of
‘Creative AI’. Mobilising critical inquiry with creative production
and technical expertise, this model entails developing
horizontal, noncompetitive networks of alliance between
academic and cultural institutions dealing with creativity, ML
and AI.
Creative AI Now
The term ‘Creative AI’ comes from the technical community,
which uses it to refer to the application of machine learning
and other forms of AI for artistic purposes. The art world,
in turn, prefers terms such as ‘AI art’ (Zylinska 2020) and,
less frequently, ‘ML art’ or simply ‘media art’, while cognitive
scientists talk about ‘computational creativity’ (Ploin et al.
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2022:10-11). Our own adoption of ‘Creative AI’ as a label for the
work of our Lab, and for the proposal entailed in this paper,
treats it as an umbrella term, while foregrounding the technical
and processual aspects of creative activity involving the wider
family of AI technologies. It also signals that, as part of our
project, we are examining more than the artefacts and that we
are also focusing on Creative AI as a research field.
Despite its relative novelty, Creative AI has already stabilised
into a substantial subfield populated by practitioners who
break down traditional disciplinary boundaries. This subfield
is a ‘loosely defined … movement’ that is related to ‘previous
computational artistic practices such as cybernetics art,
artificial life art, and evolutionary art’ (Audry 2021:21)—as well
as data visualisation practices in design. Given the high level
of technical expertise required in producing and accessing at
least some of the artistic outputs produced in this vein, Creative
AI has led to a further destabilisation of ecosystem roles, such
as artist, curator, technologist (engineer/programmer), theorist
and producer.
Within the current Creative AI practice two dominant yet
overlapping strands can be identified: a visually-driven one
and a ‘situated’ one. The first strand can be characterised by
artists interrogating new stylistic possibilities of dreamlike
generative worlds, as well as data visualisations which
surface and scrutinise the algorithmic tendencies of AI. Here
the ‘internal’ workings of the ML are the primary subject of
scrutiny. The second ‘situated’ strand is driven by ML tools
being integrated into broader artistic ‘complex systems’ which
function beyond the production of visual or textual artefacts.
The embedding of AI and ML within simulations, video games,
sensory apparatuses and countersurveillance systems mirrors
the technology’s wider societal deployment, where AI becomes
more embedded in the wider work, rather than being the focal
point of the artist’s attention. Works produced as part of this
second strand are frequently aligned with Marshall McLuhan’s
dictum about art being ‘an early distant warning system’
(McLuhan 1964). While public and curatorial attention was
initially captured by the first strand, i.e. generative practices
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and their bold visual aesthetics, the rise in institutional
expertise has recently led to this second strand of ‘situated’
works receiving more critical response.
These varied artistic and technical practices have provoked an
extensive theoretical and art-historical discussion (Zylinska
2020; Audry, 2021; Zeilinger, 2021). Starting from attempts to
conceptualise the operations of the creative, curatorial and
technical practices facilitated by AI, the discussion has also
expanded to extant philosophical debates around authorship,
agency and creativity. Theoretical work taking place in this field
has gone beyond the specific subject matter of art practice,
with scholars studying the epistemology (Bunz, 2019; Parisi,
2019; Weatherby & Justice, 2022), ontology (Fazi, 2020; Amaro,
2021), aesthetics (Manovich, 2018) and ethics (Ricaurte, 2019;
Dubber, Pasquale & Das, 2020) of machine learning more
generally, returning to these fundamental problems informed by
the intellectual contributions of artistic research.
The relatively new subfield of Creative AI is itself constantly
evolving, in line with the ongoing technical developments and
societal issues. Most recently, it has been transformed by
adjacent technologies (e.g. blockchain), which have had cultural
impact on artists working with AI. Tracking, understanding and,
at times, enacting these changes is part of the Creative AI Lab’s
agenda.
The Creative AI Lab
Founded by Bunz and Jäger in 2019, the Creative AI Lab is a
collaboration between the R&D Platform at Serpentine and
King’s College London’s Department of Digital Humanities.
The Lab serves as a site of inquiry into how best to facilitate,
theorise and historicise Creative AI practices, taking artistic
research seriously as a contribution to knowledge creation
and technical development. Conceived as a ‘space of action’
(Spatz 2020:26), the Lab is both a research unit and an active
site of curatorial experimentation. This approach acknowledges
and enacts the necessity of theorising art practices not only
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as they are received at the front-end of artistic production by
its audience, but also during the processes of research and
development. In this way, the Lab aims to go beyond the study
of artefacts to focus on the ‘back-end’ environments that have
enabled their production.
The Lab’s primary focus is on the ways in which artists and
designers are adopting, adapting and remaking AI processes,
building their own datasets and reaching into the ‘grey box’ of
AI technologies. These technical activities engage closely and
critically with the technology itself, testing new approaches
and challenging assumptions about the labour processes
involved in e.g. labelling data or programming new tools. The
Lab not only studies such work but also facilitates it through
providing curatorial and technical production support to
artists. With a focus on building the curatorial infrastructure
within Serpentine, it works with artists on both the conceptual
and technical side of R&D processes (Brouwer 2005; Ivanova
and Vickers 2020). The aim is to enable the production of new
prototypes for technical processes and an overview of industry
tools (Arrigoni 2016), which could contribute to the creation of
artworks as well as be deployed in other institutional contexts.
The Lab’s mission is also to develop a critical literacy that can
help cultural institutions approach AI technologies as advanced
and multilayered media. While reliant on the highly specialised
theoretical work needed to untangle issues such as ‘distributed
authorship’ (Ascott 2005; Zeilinger 2021) involved in artistic
research, the Lab does not shy away from the challenge to
communicate complex technical and philosophical concepts
to a wider audience. Similarly, the Lab brings audiences and
practitioners into the conceptual development of media
theory and practice. Some concrete outcomes of our work
in the Lab involve training audiences, students, researchers
and institutions in how AI works in a broader sense, as well
as exploring specific algorithmic techniques, processes and
infrastructures used by artists along with publishing academic
papers, public-facing written work, a database of Creative AI
tools, and several artist commissions.
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Key to this output has been a desire to situate the power and
labour relations underpinning the production of AI technologies
in the creative field and more generally. From the perspective
of the Lab, art-making has a special role to play in this process
because it can help us get closer to the algorithmic logic we are
all increasingly living under. Our critical pedagogy ultimately
aims to contribute to the development of fairer and more
democratic technical and social systems by way of an informed
and hands-on public. To this end, the Lab’s goal is also to lobby
for a shift towards a production and exhibition model that
acknowledges collaborative effort in AI art-making—and that
extends creative attribution to technical roles.
We are now at a stage when we are ready to launch a new
phase of the Lab’s work and outline some broader directions for
research into Creative AI.
A C5 Model for Creative AI
Drawing on the nexus of disciplines and fields of expertise—
from art and design through to art history, cultural theory,
philosophy, cognitive science, computer science, and, last but
not least, engineering—in both the conceptual and practical
aspects of its agenda, Creative AI needs to explicitly embrace
and articulate an open-ended orientation that characterises
art practice. Given that art (and, indeed, any other cultural
practice) is not produced in a vacuum, there is a need to
balance technical expertise with socio-cultural engagement
in any project whose aim is not just to research but also
map out Creative AI futures. With this, we are mindful of the
poignant question raised by Sofian Audry: ‘How can [artists]
work creatively and independently with a technology that has
been aggressively privatised and is increasingly reliant on an
industrial complex based on social media and advertising?’
(2001:44). Such technology is not just used in advertising
and entertainment industries; it also frequently serves as a
technology of war: be it on the (mis)information front, as part of
surveillance operations, or as deployed in actual war machines,
from drones through to planes and tanks.
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Avoiding any simple binaries evident in the moralistic-sounding
‘AI for good’, and any naive attempts to merely overcome a
technological bias, we want to put forward an engaged critical
reflection on the AI/ML technologies and their sociocultural
underpinnings as part of Creative AI’s agenda. Through this
approach, we argue, a more responsible position on designing
the future of Creative AI can be developed. This approach may
also involve building resources for artists and designers who
are curious to work with AI but who are yet to develop the skill
set needed, as well as for institutions interested in building the
infrastructures that can support the production of Creative AI
works. The focus on the ‘back-end’ of Creative AI, pioneered by
the Creative AI Lab, needs to be extended to the study of both
technical and social environments. Repurposing the framing
of the C4 communication model, (‘Command—Control—
Communication—Computer’), with its orientation towards
mission accomplishment based on the cybernetic logic and its
original military associations, we propose to adopt a C5 model
for Creative AI, a model which is, in its very premises, ‘Creative—
Critical—Constructive—Collaborative—Computational’.
Drawing on the existing practices in collaborative art, open
source and knowledge exchange, the C5 model supports
an ethics of cooperation that involves building horizontal,
noncompetitive and research-driven alliances of institutions
and stakeholders interested in Creative AI: museums and
galleries, universities and art schools, technology and media
companies, NGOs. The increasingly fragile funding landscape
for the arts in many parts of the globe, whereby technology
companies are the new art patrons, means that those
companies are increasingly involved in setting the agenda
for the creative field. This, coupled with the requirement for
extensive technological support and innovation, means that
no single artist or institution can ‘win’ at Creative AI. Like other
similar organisations, our Lab has to consider negotiating when
and how to work directly with industry in the new landscape of
public-private partnerships in the name of both epistemic and
economic innovation.
With the C5 model, we want to propose a move beyond
any single-goal mode of thinking to support a sustainable
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alternative for an open-ended Creative AI as a practice, a
network of research and development spaces, and a framework
of concepts. In a recurrent manner adopted from second-order
cybernetics, this C5 model can itself in time become part of
the practice of Creative AI, seen as an attempt to build not
just new artefacts or new technologies that support them, but
also new ways of working, thinking and making AI, and making
things with AI, collectively and collaboratively, artistically and
computationally.
As part of this model where the ‘back-end’ gets more attention
than the artefact, a systematic dismantling of the myth of ‘the
artist’ as a stand-alone genius, standing above, or aside from
the world, needs to be enacted. Today’s artist, as argued by
Tereza Stejskalová, needs to understand that ‘she is not anyone
special nor is she doing anything special but is, in principle, like
any other social network user who makes manifest the (crisis
of) emotions, relations and labour which sustain life itself’
(2021:101). This recognition can shift the attention of Creative
AI work from individual accomplishments and solutions, to
the collaborative construction of consensus and a horizon for
joint political action. In this respect, artistic research projects
can offer blueprints, or at least lines of flight, for different
configurations of aggregated human-machine intelligence,
beyond the ‘optimal’ models which remain the goal of tech
industries (Vallor, 2021). Creative practice can thus serve as a
space for the working out of alternative metrics and values—
beyond optimisation, efficiency or profit.
Conclusion: Questions for the Future
The C5 model for Creative AI that stands for an approach
that is ‘Creative—Critical—Constructive—Collaborative—
Computational’ brings together technical research and
conceptual inquiry into AI art, while shifting focus from
artefacts to their wider contexts, processes and infrastructures.
Encompassing an examination of creativity as an emerging
property that arises from the complex interactions between
humans, machines and their technosocial milieus, we recognise
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the need for a culturally-driven reflection on the value of those
collaborations their outcomes. Future areas for Creative AI
research that can borrow from, and expand on, this model
include: (1) the reconfiguration of culture as a domain of not
just human-made meanings but also machinic calculation;
(2) positioning art-making as a testing ground for embodied
models of AI and ML; (3) the shift from machine vision to
machine perception as a mode of sensing the world through
data; (4) the emergence of synthetic data as mode of artistic
production; (5) the critical negotiation of claims regarding the
emergence of artificial consciousness. Through this, Creative
AI can serve as a space for rekindling old alliances between
art and science—on both micro and macro, algorithmic and
institutional levels—and for exploring new connections
between knowledge domains and spheres of activity.
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Acknowledgement
The first draft of this paper was presented at EVA 2022 London: a conference
of the Computer Arts Society on 4-8.07.2022 and published in the conference
proceedings, doi: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.20.
