The Importance of Art in an AI Design World

“Modern art is sh*t! My kid could do that!” has been the standard insult aimed at most modern art for decades. This is now more true than ever. Not because the art is oversimplified to the point of being childlike. But because, with AI, any kid can now make absolutely anything look incredible.

As soon as a child can type a prompt, they can create unique visuals which would have taken a Renaissance artist a lifetime to master. So, what now? Have we completed Art??

Since artists were first able to recreate accurate representations of real life, the goal has not been to make things that look convincing. The goal has been to spark an emotional reaction. To resonate, to make you feel something.

How many movies can you name where the sequels have more impressive visual effects than the original, but they leave you feeling flat? There is nearly three decades between Jurassic Park (1993) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), but I know which one I’d rather watch.?

As making something look amazing becomes easier and easier, the key components to creating standout work stops being about execution and starts being about the core foundations of strategy, insight, narrative and originality. These are the big differentiators. All of which are designed to create one thing, an original experience. ?

Last week, my wife and I went to Rome and it blew my mind. The whole place was incredible. On our last day we went to St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. I have obviously seen pictures of it before and presumed that it would be kind of like St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Only with better food in the cafés outside. How different could it be?

It turned out to be indescribably different. Once we were inside, it was so vast that my eyes never fully adjusted to the sheer scale of the place. I couldn’t get my head around it. Not just the vastness, but also the grandeur of the artwork in every direction. I just stood there, looking upwards, unblinking, with my mouth wide open and a stupid expression of what I can only describe as “awe” on my face. I didn’t want to take a photo, I didn’t even want to be seen taking my phone out of my pocket, as I knew a photo could never recapture the experience of it. I just wanted to try and somehow absorb the feeling of being there and remember it. Like trying to bottle a sunset, so that I could store the emotion for when I need it again one day.

Thinking about what AI would say about this place, reminded me a lot of the iconic scene from Good Will Hunting. Where, sitting on a park bench, Sean tells Will about why Will’s critique of his painting is so un-earned.

“So, if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.”?

And that is the point of art. That is the intention of design. There are times in our lives when we need to feel deeply. When we go through a break-up, when we lose a loved one, when our emotions are over-run by something out of our control. That is when we turn to art. To find meaning, to find solace, to somehow speak to our soul. Music, movies, paint, poetry? Whatever form it may take, there are times when we need art to be there for us. A truly great song is not great because it sounds convincingly professional. It is great because it resonates with us on an intensely personal level.? ?

The opportunity of AI, for us as creatives, is not to make something convincing or familiar, in a faster and cheaper way than before. A child can now do that. The whole purpose of this incredible, constantly evolving, tool, is to enable us to turbo-charge our ability to make something genuinely new and deeply resonant. Something that will make us feel. Something that will make us stand in awe, staring upwards, with our mouths wide open, hoping that we will remember this feeling forever.