Mark Derho
Tech and Gear

A Brief History of Mechanical Automation and Artificial Intelligence in Art

Explore AI art’s evolution from 1960s machines to today’s powerful AI tools, uncovering creativity, ethical debates, and the future of art and technology.

Mark Derho

A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence in Art

The history of Artificial Intelligence in art goes back further than many might imagine - including myself. AI art can trace it roots to the 1960s and even all the way back to visions of mechanized creativity in ancient egypt. Early AI art experiments, sparked by the broader fascination with artificial creativity, set the stage for the digital art boom we see today.

Gallery of Resident Magazine Art by Mark Derho: 12 images made for use in Resident Magazine articles.

Ancient Dreams of Machine Art

The idea of machines capable of creating art isn’t new. Early visionaries like the ancient Greeks and figures such as Daedalus and Hero of Alexandria imagined mechanical creativity, and inventors throughout history aimed to make these dreams a reality. 

Aoelipile - the first steam engine by Hero of Alexandria
Heron of Alexandria, or Hero of Alexandria, (flourished c. ad 62 , Alexandria, Egypt), Greek mathematician and inventor. He is remembered for his formula for the area of a triangle and for inventing the e, the 'Aoelipile' - the first steam engine, which, in his design, was a forerunner of the jet engine.
Google
Henri Maillardet's Automaton resides at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA.
In the early 1800s, Swiss mechanic Henri Maillardet designed the Draughtsman-Writer, an automaton capable of drawing complex images and writing poems. 

The 20th Century: Foundational AI Art Machines

The mid-20th century brought a surge of machine-driven art experimentation, starting with artists and inventors like Gordon Pasks, who created the MusiColour machine that responded to musical inputs with light displays. 

Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland.

Jean Tinguely followed with kinetic sculptures called "painting machines," where users selected colors, and the machine created unique art. These inventions laid the groundwork for AI art's evolution.

Harold Cohen’s AARON: Pioneering Computer-Generated Art

The 1960s and 70s marked the beginning of modern AI art with Harold Cohen’s AARON. Created to explore machine drawing, AARON produced endless abstract images using coded patterns. Exhibited in 1972, AARON initially made simple black-and-white drawings, but Cohen spent decades enhancing its capabilities, allowing it to paint in color and even make brush selections independently. Although AARON could only work within Cohen’s unique style, it demonstrated the potential for AI-driven creativity.

This exhibition traces the evolution of Harold Cohen's AARON, the earliest artificial intelligence (AI) program for artmaking. Leaving behind his practice as an established painter in London, Cohen (1928–2016) conceived the software in the late 1960s at the University of California, San Diego, and named it AARON in the early 1970s. 
Whitney Museum, Feb. 3rd - May 19th 2024 Exhibition
AI-Enhanced Art/Design for Resident Magazine

2000s: Generative Art’s Rise and Influential Projects

In 2014, Ian Goodfellow and colleagues at Université de Montréal created a type of deep neural network that could learn to mimic the statistical distribution of input data including images. Named generative adversarial network (GAN), it comprised a 'generator' to create new images and a 'discriminator' to decide which of these images was successful. This represented a major evolution from algorithmic art because the network could learn to create any given style by analysing a big enough dataset.

A major contributor to the interest in GAN models was Google's DeepDream. Emerging in 2015, it used a convolutional neural network to identify and enhance patterns in images using algorithmic pareidolia, resulting in images with a dream-like look.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANsModels) : A Breakthrough in AI Art

As coding became more accessible in the 2000s, artists began exploring generative art in new ways. Karl Sims used AI in the early 90's to create evolutionary animations, winning awards and inspiring others. Scott Draves’s project, *Electric Sheep*, allowed users to influence evolving fractal animations. With the creation of public databases like ImageNet, artists and developers could train AI models to catalog visual data, leading to advanced machine-learning techniques that power today’s AI art generators.

In 2014, the introduction of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) represented a pivotal step. Developed by Ian Goodfellow, GANs consist of a generator creating images and a discriminator evaluating them. GANs enabled the recreation of specific artistic styles based on dataset analysis. 

For example, the *Next Rembrandt* project used GANs to mimic Rembrandt’s style, generating a new painting as if by the artist himself. GANs also led to *DeepDream* by Google, creating surreal, dreamlike visuals.

Blurring the boundaries between art and technology, The Next Rembrandt is a 3D printed painting, made solely from data of Rembrandt’s body of work. It was created using deep learning algorithms and facial recognition techniques. Capturing the zeitgeist of 2016, it went round the world and back again. We look at the story behind the painting that has won over 60 advertising awards.
medium.com / @DutchDigital

Citations and References

About the Author: Mark Derho

My Dog Luno as Green Dog

Mark Derho is a seasoned expert in the Internet industry with over 25 years of experience in NYC's software development, digital marketing, and advertising sectors. A certified Google Partner, Mark specializes in content creation, AI chatbot development, open-source software, modern website design, and SEO/SEM marketing. He leads PR Website Agency and lives in Puerto Rico with his dog, Luno.

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