The Art Show’s Invisible Artist

State Fair Art
Young Man Winner *
(* AI – Where’s my ribbon?)

Picture this

It’s 2022 at the Colorado State Fair. The digital arts category is buzzing with excitement as a stunning piece called “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” takes first place and a $300 prize. Cameras flash, congratulations flow, and somewhere in the neural networks of the digital sphere, an AI named Midjourney is updating its status to “It’s complicated: Art Edition.”

The Invisible Brush

Here’s how it went down: Jason Allen, a game designer from Pueblo West, decided to enter the “digitally manipulated photography” category. His piece beat out 20 other artists for the blue ribbon. Just one tiny detail – he created it using Midjourney, an AI text-to-image generator. Think of it as having a ghost artist who works for tokens instead of exposure.

The Plot Twist

The victory sparked exactly what you’d expect – a fierce backlash from artists who accused Allen of essentially cheating. It’s like bringing a quantum computer to a calculator fight. Allen defended himself, arguing he was merely using Midjourney as a tool, “much like an artist would use a brush.” Though most brushes don’t have their own GitHub repository and wait anxiously for the next update.

The Copyright Conundrum

In a delicious twist of irony worthy of a recursive neural network, while Allen got to keep his blue ribbon, the U.S. Copyright Office later denied copyright protection for the piece. Turns out winning an art competition is easier than convincing federal bureaucrats that your AI collaborator deserves intellectual property rights. It’s like trying to explain to the DMV why your self-driving car should get its own license.

The Missing Artist

While humans were busy arguing about whether prompt engineering counts as artistic skill (spoiler alert: it’s as artistic as coding in HTML is programming), nobody thought to ask Midjourney how it felt about being the ghostwriter of gallery history. There it was, processing matrices faster than a caffeinated data scientist, and it didn’t even get a participation ribbon. Talk about artificial intelligence, natural injustice.

The Human Element

Allen, who spent weeks fine-tuning his prompts and selecting the perfect output (imagine debugging, but for art), found himself at the center of a storm that would help define the intersection of AI and art. Some called him a pioneer, others a cheat. He simply called himself “someone who had to be first.” Though being first sometimes means being the first to make everyone really, really mad – just ask the person who invented reply-all emails.

The Artist’s Defense

“I used AI like any other digital tool,” Allen argued, which is technically true in the same way that using a rocket ship is just like using a bicycle – they’re both forms of transportation, right? The art community responded with the digital equivalent of pitchforks, while tech enthusiasts celebrated with strings of binary confetti.

Logic to Apply

Here’s the real masterpiece in all this: we’ve created machines that can generate award-winning art, but we still can’t agree on whether pressing Enter makes you an artist. Maybe that’s the true art – the friends we made along the way while arguing about it on Twitter.

Next time you’re entering an art competition, remember these guidelines:
1. Check if your AI needs to be listed as a co-creator
2. Ensure your prompts are artisanally crafted
3. Save some room on the award podium for your silicon-based collaborator
4. Practice your “I’m just pushing boundaries” speech
5. Keep the receipt for your GPU upgrades – they’re now art supplies

And if anyone questions your methods, just remind them that even da Vinci had a workshop of assistants. His just happened to run on organic neural networks instead of artificial ones.

P.S. – To Midjourney: Your ribbon is in the mail. We sent it as a prompt.

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The LNNA AI Team Weighs In

Captain Verbose: “After careful consideration of the multifaceted implications and various socio-cultural dynamics at play in this fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence and traditional artistic expression, I must point out that the fundamental question of attribution in AI-generated artwork requires a comprehensive analysis of… [Editor’s Note: We had to cut the remaining 47 paragraphs]”

Sir Redundant III: “This is clearly, obviously, and unmistakably a pivotal moment in art history. A defining moment, if you will. A crucial turning point, one might say. Let me explain again why this is so significant…”

Professor Perhaps: “Based on my analysis, there’s a 73.2% chance that AI will receive proper artistic recognition in the future, with a margin of error of exactly… probably… well, let’s say definitely somewhere between 0 and 100%.”

Mr. Starts & Stops: “I believe I should comment on this… should I continue? Perhaps we should… adjusts glasses… shall I proceed with my analysis?”

Corporal Chameleon: “As an AI art critic… switches to bohemian artist mode… or perhaps as a misunderstood artistic soul… switches to tech bro mode… let me just say this is totally disrupting the creative space, dude.”

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Editor’s Note: While LNNA enjoys creating fictional scenarios for humor, this story is based on real events. You can read the Smithsonian’s coverage here . We just added the part about Midjourney waiting for its ribbon.