Defacing the Mona Lisa and DALL•E’s Horrifying Netherworld of AI-Driven Art

What makes life worth living? What kind of cake does the Mona Lisa prefer? What does a chair made of avocados look like? 

Art, in its many forms, seeks to answer all of the above. And for years, humans have enjoyed a near monopoly on creating it. But things are changing — and fast. Here, we take a look at people, our penchant for environmental destruction, and our even stronger proclivity for creating technology that may one day wipe us from the face of the earth — but not before creating next year’s fall lineup on Netflix. 

First, what makes life worth living? We begin with a meditation on Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, spurred by the release of the first ego-melting images from the James Webb Space Telescope. What should we feel? Nihilism or reaffirmed humanism?  Either way, we should probably start taking care of our humble cosmic abode. Or at least that’s what some plucky guerrilla environmental art-activists think over in the Old Country (Europe). 

Speaking of Europe, what kind of cake does the Mona Lisa prefer? A few months back, one guy dressed up like grandma over at The Louvre and found out she never touches the stuff — the hard way. In an attempt to warn and admonish us of our planet-killing ways, the man physically attacked the famed woman with that weird half smile, smearing cake across her bulletproof shield. He did it in the name of the environment, as did a group of like-minded eco-Marxists who glued themselves to a couple of paintings at The Royal Academy in London a few weeks later. Methods of communication aside, they raise a decent point: Why make art in a world that might not be around for future generations?

Which brings us to our final question (and another one): What does a chair made of avocados look like? Moreover, what does an “emo sausage roll… waiting for a bus that might never arrive” look like? The answers to these queries and more are deftly proffered by the latest AI-craze to hit the internet, DALL•E — an AI art program that scrapes the world’s content to produce hellish visions of the digital subconscious. So what hath DALL•E wrought? Are artists out of a job? It’s not clear yet, but we’ve certainly got some ideas.

Join us, and give this one an ear-gander. Heck, who knows how much longer this show will be hosted by humans at all. 

JOURNOS is produced by Heather “Eagle Ears” Wilson. Illustration by Stephen Jackson.