Annotation 2

The most interesting part of the reading for me was the sections of the first chapter that told of Harold Cohen’s AARON. It is ironic that we had this reading assigned because it coincides with the research I have been doing for thesis class. I have been searching for several weeks for an answer to the question “what makes art, art and what makes design, design”. My research has turned up many different answers and opinions. I found myself believing that it was the artist intent that made the art. This brings into question who is the artist in the situation of Harold and AARON. Was AARON the artist because the program was actually creating the work or was Harold the artist because he had laid the guidelines for the program to function? Harold had not told the program exactly what to draw. The program simply followed the rules laid before it and came up with a different picture each and every time. A human artist functions very similarly to the way the computer program does. To me art and design are one in the same. They are linked by one common thing and that is emotion. Emotion is something that I don think a computer could ever express.

It is my opinion that the computer is not the artist because it cannot express emotion and has no fore thought about what it will draw. An artist plans his or her piece and thinks about the idea they would like to express. Until a computer is capable of thinking on its own then there is no question that the creator of the program is he artist. While the programmer may not be actually drawing they did have the original idea of the program in the first place. I think it is possible that even when a computer is capable of free thought it will still be as a result of a program and his or her original idea. So possible what makes the artist is the idea that the art work is based on. That also brings up the point that if art is based on an original idea hen to be an artist does one even have to display their art in any for other than having the idea inside their own mind. It is a very confusing subject that has so many facets.