The digital artwork \u2018Image Empire\u2019 is set to launch at The National Videogame Museum later this evening, and asks if AI is transforming creativity or quietly replacing it.<\/p>\n
With over nine months in the making, \u2018Image Empire\u2019 focuses on the impact AI is having on creative industries up and down the country, through the lens of image making and video games production.<\/p>\n
Artist and researcher, Dr Alan Warburton was the mastermind behind the piece, seeking the artwork to \u201cgenerate meaningful arts-industry-led dialogue amongst anyone working professionally or creatively with games VR, or software-based media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having worked in animation and visual effects since 2010, Dr Warburton\u2019s engagement with AI has grown gradually over ten years.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cInstead of watching AI from afar, I actually try and use the tools and find out what they can do, and I critique them and I share that critique in my video essays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do identify that there are ways that it\u2019s being introduced that are not particularly kind, or considerate, or\u00a0intelligent, and can effect creative industries in really bad ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Warburton described the artwork as a three-minute animated film on the rapid expansion of AI technologies across the world, reflecting the blurring boundary between the real and virtual.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe project is an animated folk tale in the tradition of the 20th century public information film that tried to raise awareness and understanding of diseases, road safety, food hygiene or civil defence risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cImage Empire tries to do the same for our age of contemporary AI-generated media.\u201d<\/p>\n
The artwork is unique in being one of the first art commissions designed for release on the platform LinkedIn, seeking to start a conversation with creators.<\/p>\n
Image Empire has been created in collaboration with The National Videogame Museum, the Open Data Institute, and with commissioners The Space and Cambridge University\u2019s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.<\/p>\n
The National Videogame Museum is the UK\u2019s only museum dedicated to video games. <\/p>\n
John O\u2019Shea, the Creative Director & Co-Ceo of the museum said: \u201cThe National Videogame Museum is honoured to commission Image Empire \u2013 a pioneering new digital artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n