- Aug 17, 2017
- 1,610
An artwork created by Paris-based art collective Obvious using artificial intelligence has been sold at Christie's auction house in New York for nearly half a million dollars. The AI painting, titled Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, sold for $432,000 (£337,000) – more than 40 times the estimated selling price of $7,000 to $10,000. Christie's became the first auction house to put an artwork generated by an algorithm under the hammer when the abstract portrait was sold by the company's New York branch.
Sold in an original gilded wood frame, the portrait depicts a man dressed in a dark frock coat with a plain white collar showing underneath. The work looks unfinished, with indistinct, blurry facial features and large areas of canvas left blank. The work has been signed with the mathematical formula of the algorithms used to create it.
Obvious created the work using the Generative Adversarial Network algorithm (GAN) and information from 15,000 portraits. Comprised of a two-part algorithm – the generator and the discriminator – the system was fed a data set of portraits painted between the 14th and 20th centuries. The generator created new images based on this set, while the discriminator reviewed all outputs, comparing the product of the algorithm with the pieces painted by human hands until it couldn't tell the two apart. Once the computer algorithm had generated the image, this was then printed in ink on canvas.
Source Christie's sells AI-created artwork painted by an algorithm for $432,000
Sold in an original gilded wood frame, the portrait depicts a man dressed in a dark frock coat with a plain white collar showing underneath. The work looks unfinished, with indistinct, blurry facial features and large areas of canvas left blank. The work has been signed with the mathematical formula of the algorithms used to create it.
Obvious created the work using the Generative Adversarial Network algorithm (GAN) and information from 15,000 portraits. Comprised of a two-part algorithm – the generator and the discriminator – the system was fed a data set of portraits painted between the 14th and 20th centuries. The generator created new images based on this set, while the discriminator reviewed all outputs, comparing the product of the algorithm with the pieces painted by human hands until it couldn't tell the two apart. Once the computer algorithm had generated the image, this was then printed in ink on canvas.
Source Christie's sells AI-created artwork painted by an algorithm for $432,000
