Digital Commons@RISD Home > Division of Liberal Arts > Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive) > Special Volumes
Abstract
This article focuses on the aesthetic dimensions of contemporary media created with generative AI, challenging traditional dichotomies of truth and falsehood, real and fake. It draws upon diverse examples including Samsung’s “Space Zoom” images of the moon, AI-driven political imagery, and the randomized aesthetics of Google’s Gemini. Additionally, it examines two artistic projects by Elisa Giardina Papa and Trevor Paglen. The article argues for an aesthetic analysis that goes beyond debates over authenticity, highlighting instead the inherent complexity and weirdness of these digital artifacts by exploring how AI reshapes perceptions of reality. By invoking, among other things, theories of agnotology, it underscores the deliberate creation of doubt and the aesthetic construction of meaning in media landscapes shaped by AI. Ultimately, this study proposes that thinking (more) aesthetically about AI can enrich the understanding of contemporary visual culture, offering insights into how multiple realities and narratives coexist in “our” increasingly mediated world.