The-Island-was-a-World_catalogue-digital

11 showing that a calculated relinquishing of control extended the range of artists' possibilities, enabling them to transcend the limits of what was possible in their time. The "automatic" techniques allowed the surrealists to bring to the surface the content of the unconscious, prohibited in their time. Similarly, by transferring control to the algorithm, early computer artists succeeded in creating variations on a theme in quantities and at a rate that exceeded those that a human artist could produce in a given length of time. Hyper Transformations (1975-76) by artist Vera Molnar 7 is a series of variations on a square. Each picture features changes in the square's size and positioning, gradually changing its contour. Here, too, Molnar picked up the images she wished to work on and chose for display as complete works from numerous algorithm-created images. She even represented some of them as oil-on-canvas paintings, awarding the serial algorithmic output the aura preserved historically for unique paintings carrying the artist's imprint. The potential multiplicity and innumerable variations of algorithmic art are, of course, higher than those of Botticelli's paint-soaked sponges or even the "automatic" surrealist sketches. The latter served both as a stimulant capable of increasing the creative flow, while early computer art involved another factor – the "machine." du Sautoy, the AI researcher mentioned above, conveyed the following insight regarding the potential of "machines" – a figurative name for AI models – to become significant partners in the human creative process: Being creative requires a jolt to take us out of the well-carved paths we retrace each day. This is where a machine might come in: perhaps it could give us that jolt … Machines might ultimately help us, as humans, behave less like machines. 8 In other words, to be creative, we must be shoved away from the regular track we are pursuing. du Sautoy believes that once machines become partners in the creative process, they may have the power to deliver the required jolt, to adopt his turn of phrase. This view does not see machines replacing artists but playing a central role in empowering human creativity. Eliav's The Island was a World represents the subtle dialogue taking place between contemporary artists and generative AI models that seem to challenge, for their part, the very foundations of art. 7 https://digitalartmuseum.org/molnar/hypertransformations.html 8 du Sautoy, The Creativity Code , pp. 5-6