“The Canadian manufacturer decided to refresh the artistic excitement”

Kommersant FM columnist Alexander Levi tells how neural networks generated images of the iconic soup can in different painting styles.

Many people know the taste of Campbell’s brand soups. I am sure that even more people are familiar with them precisely as an object of pop art by Andy Warhol. This is perhaps the most effective soup advertisement in the world so far, not to mention the most classic red and white can.

The Canadian manufacturer decided to refresh the artistic excitement that has lasted more than 60 years with the help of artificial intelligence tools. The brand’s owners demonstrated what could happen if Campbell’s jars inspired creators in various areas of fine art. All works within the framework of the Campbell’s pAIntings campaign are published on the manufacturer’s page in the “unfriendly” page.

At the time of writing the program, the feed contained a dozen and a half pictures generated by neural networks. The hypothetical authors of these creations are not named, but in the images it is easy to discern prominent representatives of specific movements. Even a person who is familiar with painting only from museum exhibitions can easily see signs of a possible work by Jackson Pollock in a Campbell’s jar, painted in the style of abstract impressionism.

And every other unit of the resulting content is interesting, also because a can of soup is not always appropriate on a specific canvas. As, for example, on variations on the theme of cubism, which was one of the first to be published. I can’t even imagine whether Pablo Picasso would have undertaken to paint canned food, but with neural networks it is precisely this that stands out unsuccessfully against the background of quite appropriate other elements of style.

It is ironic that among all 15 works, the inscription of the title by artificial intelligence failed only in the painting that imitates realism. A jar of something Smoafele came out on the electronic canvas. Although, if you consider that it was not written by a person, but by a neural network, then the error simply screaming at the viewer just emphasizes the artificiality of the work, its absence in reality. Isn’t this realism?

To be fair, there is no inscription at all on the already mentioned generation in the style of abstract impressionism. There is only a silhouette of a can. It is not clear what is inside it or what it comes from. I hope these features of the flaws will reduce the possible concerns of creative people about artificial intelligence.

In the end, I just want to quote Andy Warhol: “The reason I paint this way is because I want to be a machine, and I feel that everything I do and do as a machine is what I want.” do”.