PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Purkrábková, Noemi
TI  - Images that Hang Together
DP  - 2025 Jul 15
TA  - ArteActa
VI  - 8
IP  - 1
IS  - 25711695
AB  - Both parts of the term "artificial intelligence" present us with certain expectations: first, that what we encounter is pure artifice; and, second, that it should be judged against norms of individual "human intelligence" - often depicted as exceptional yet inherently elusive. This has frequently resulted in a focus on the "purely machinic" nature of images (co)produced by generative algorithms. Such outputs are either praised as enchantingly alien (surprising, eerie, radically non-human) or dismissed because of their quantitative, computational nature (from Hito Steyerl's "statistical renderings" to Dieter Mersch's critique of algorithmic [un]creativity). Similar binarism informs many debates about generative media, which often revolve around whether algorithms can match, surpass, or in other ways approximate human creative outputs. And while we continue to ponder if and how humanist categories of intelligence, creativity, imagination, or thinking can or cannot be ascribed to machines, generative materials have become ubiquitous.