On 11 Nov 2004, at 20:28, Amy Alexander wrote:
> this was the point of my AARON story: the value of AARON is in the fact
> that it paints just like its daddy. it doesn't paint like "a human" it
> paints like a *specific* human: the one who programmed it. so it makes
> this point exactly.... like some humans who purport to be independent
> thinkers but are in fact overly-influenced by the opinions of others,
> AARON may make individual decisions "independently", but it's clear
> where
> it gets its mindset from.
It's also affected its author's mindset: Harold Cohen wasn't a
figurative artist. And he now says it's a better colourist than he was.
So whilst it's very much Cohen's (interestingly so), over time it's
become more of a collaborator than an overly impressionable student.
I think that AARON works as a kind of existence proof for Cohen's
cognitive science ideas about art, which do seem to have been ahead of
their time. It also, unintentionally, works as a psychologically
interesting series of images that say something about Harold Cohen (and
the world he's looking at). Much more than most contemporary art says
anything.
- Rob.
Received on Thu Nov 11 2004 - 21:58:08 GMT