Walked into a gallery in Portland last weekend and half the 'digital art' was just AI prompts with no edits.

The artist told me they spent 15 minutes on each piece, and you could tell... no layers, no brushwork, nothing real. Are we actually calling that art or just marketing?

2 comments

2 Comments

dylan26512d agoMost Upvoted

Hold up, I gotta push back a little on the "no skill" part. Typing a good prompt actually does take some skill, just not the kind we normally think of with art. You gotta know composition, lighting, and color theory to get something that doesn't look like a melted nightmare. But the big difference is you're skipping the whole process of learning to draw or paint, which is where the real craft lives. It's more like directing than making, if that makes sense. Still feels hollow compared to something with actual brushwork behind it though...

jessel3512d ago

Oh man, the "15 minutes each" part hit way too close to home. I was at a similar thing in Seattle a few months ago, same vibe. Guy had like 30 pieces on the wall, all these "dreamlike landscapes" and they literally all had that same AI smooth texture, you know? No brush strokes, no happy accidents, nothing that makes art feel alive. I asked how he made them and he straight up said he typed some words into Midjourney and hit print. Called himself a "digital artist" and everything. It really makes you wonder what we're even celebrating here. Like, I get that tools change and that's fine, but when the whole point is that you spent no time and put no skill into it, what are we actually looking at? It's just marketing at that point, same way a fast food ad is marketing and not cooking. There's no craft, no learning curve, none of the messy human stuff that makes art interesting to look at. I walked out of that gallery feeling kind of annoyed honestly. Felt like I was being sold something instead of being shown something someone actually made.