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Sahin, Merve "Tracing the History and Theory of Conceptual Art and Technology: the Case Study on Harold Cohen." Master of Arts
, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), 05/01/20
Keywords/Fields of Study : creativity, conceptual arts, art and technology, art criticism, harold cohen, history and theory, formalism, clement Greenberg, jack burnam, cybernetics, language, Aaron, drawing, coloring, visual imagery, semantics, syntax, mysticism, Alan Turing, mimick
Abstract: AARON is a computer program designed by the Abstract Expressionist painter Harold Cohen to generate original artworks at the booming time of research on artificial intelligence – namely the post-war era. This thesis creates a case study, examining the career of Cohen to formulate the road he took in relation to the history of conceptual art by working with an artificial language to create visual imagery. The introduction of science and technology into the arts was fundamentally a conceptual work: an idea that was initially coined by Edward A. Shanken with the methodological vocabulary of Jack Burnham. The ontological investigation toward the essentialist notions of formalism led Cohen to find original solutions to the basic problem of painting that is voiced by the influential art critics Michael Fried and Clement Greenberg. Cohen’s motivation to learn computer programming, and create AARON gives art history and criticism an example of a post-formalist artist who was investigating conceptual notions through the lenses of art, science, and technology. Cohen is one of a few artists who set the goal to AARON to be an autonomous entity without its creator — the way to that was through teaching the machine to emulate or mimic human behavior. However, teaching a machine drawing and coloring is a non-trivial activity compared to teaching the machine to play chess, due to the action of art-making being a subjective and creative behavior. AARON is a cybernetic artist who can be qualified by having the observable behavior of creativity such that it can learn from mistakes, create a memory of reflection, and produce by itself a new way of art-making.
Department: History and Theory of Contemporary Art
, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI)
Advisor(s): Meredith Tromble, Frank Smigiel (Reader), Vanessa Chang(Reader)
