{"id":330,"date":"2024-03-07T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/?p=330"},"modified":"2024-03-31T03:32:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T03:32:42","slug":"review-harold-cohen-aaron-proves-that-art-needs-a-human-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/07\/review-harold-cohen-aaron-proves-that-art-needs-a-human-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: \u2018Harold Cohen: AARON\u2019 proves that art needs a human touch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Three<\/a><\/p>\n

Before online AI art generators like DALL\u00b7E or Midjourney, there was AARON, a software developed by British painter-engineer Harold Cohen. The \u201cHarold Cohen: AARON\u201d art exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art celebrates AARON\u2019s legacy and Cohen\u2019s masterful artistry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cohen began his career as an abstract painter in London before moving to the University of California, San Diego in 1968, where he became <\/span>director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts<\/span><\/a>. While in San Diego, Cohen developed AARON to be a continuation of his own knowledge and creativity \u2014 AARON is a collaboration between artist and machine.<\/span><\/p>\n

The exhibition chronicles Cohen\u2019s development of AARON\u2019s software, emphasizing the creativity of the programming process. The artworks are split into three rooms: \u201cAARON\u2019s Beginnings,\u201d \u201cThe Figurative Phase\u201d and \u201cFlora and Figures,\u201d and include marker drawings, paintings and projections.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cohen first programmed AARON to understand basic compositional rules, such as size, shape and position. The artworks within \u201cAARON\u2019s Beginnings\u201d are reminiscent of a child\u2019s first interaction with art, where various lines and shapes gradually form a cohesive image after practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUntitled [Amsterdam Suite]\u201d demonstrates AARON\u2019s experimentation with lines and shape formation, including rudimentary hatching techniques, scattered zigzagging lines and eclectic shapes across the page. Cohen programmed AARON to consider the \u201c\u2018success\u2019 of a composition\u201d using a robot marker-plotter \u2014 also known as a \u201cturtle\u201d \u2014 to compose each image line by line as if it were drawing freehand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cohen would then fill in AARON\u2019s monochromatic line art with vibrant, contrasting colors, especially bright blues and pinks. These details add a layer of humanity to the piece that AARON cannot provide on its own.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
\u201cMazes\u201d (Jason Alpert-Wisnia for WSN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
One of Cohen\u2019s \u201cturtles\u201d (Jason Alpert-Wisnia for WSN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The room also features \u201cMazes,\u201d two recreations of Cohen\u2019s early \u201cturtles.\u201d The machines use modern Python code to plot abstract lines or figurework across the entirety of the page with just a moving robot arm and a black Sharpie, whose results resemble AARON\u2019s early drawings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Figurative Phase\u201d demonstrates a departure from AARON\u2019s basic compositional skills and into more seemingly multi-dimensional figure artwork. Cohen\u2019s notebooks, on display in the exhibition, delineate the process AARON undergoes in order to decide how to pose a figure as well as display sketches of anatomy references.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStephanie & Friend\u201d is a figure drawing of two women in front of an abstract, colorful background, reflecting AARON\u2019s progression into a more complex composition process. AARON shows an understanding of perspective by having one figure in the background of the work. Cohen then filled the piece in with color, making the artworks in this section the most representative of the symbiotic relationship between Cohen and his program.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
\u201cStephanie & Friend\u201d (Jason Alpert-Wisnia for WSN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The \u201cFlora and Figures\u201d section is a midheaven between AARON\u2019s fully-formed figure pieces and simple line drawings. These works demanded a general understanding of the structure of nature. Cohen input information about size and pattern to introduce AARON to drawing flora.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAARON Gijon\u201d is arguably the program\u2019s most complex work on display. The work shows the machine\u2019s spatial and compositional understandings through the layering of plants in space, and demonstrates a consideration of color theory with AARON blocking in a variety of both dull and neon plants to distinguish between the forms it draws.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a time where our reliance on generative artificial intelligence is increasing, it\u2019s more important now than ever to recognize the value of artist input and creativity in autonomous art. AARON\u2019s success as an AI art program stems from the fact that it relies entirely on the input from Cohen and art theory in order to draw. Despite being machine made, there is still a presence of humanity in AARON\u2019s works, born from Cohen\u2019s collaborative relationship with the machine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHarold Cohen: AARON\u201d is on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art until May 19. NYU students with ID receive free admission.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact Dani Biondi at arts@nyunews.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

This story Review: \u2018Harold Cohen: AARON\u2019 proves that art needs a human touch<\/a> appeared first on Washington Square News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before online AI art generators like DALL\u00b7E or Midjourney, there was AARON, a software developed by British painter-engineer Harold Cohen. The \u201cHarold Cohen: AARON\u201d art [Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bikaner-hotels.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}