The magazine MAQ September 2018 MAQ Magazine November 2018 | Page 176

Elgammal argues the CAN has developed its own aesthetic style. "The machine was framed to follow the aesthetics it sees in art history but not generate art that follows existing styles," he says. "Each artwork it generates is an answer to this dilemma."

Critics contend that algorithm-produced art focuses on style at the expense of socialcontext, meaning and purpose – that a masterpiece needs more than style to be a masterpiece.

But Elgammal says there has always been resistance to new technologies in art. "What these critics always forget is that there is always a human in the loop, but the role of the human and machine is varying. The machine is now becoming a creative

tool which can explore and choose its own compositions, colours and other elements of art, within the frame that is set by the human. This is very much what happened when photography was invented – it was not considered as a form of art until the 20th century. Indeed, photography changed the very definition of what art is."