In the Quantum series, artist Matteo Urbani invites us to explore the fascinating union between interconnected ecosystems through his extraordinary professional and academic path. Born in Teramo, Italy, and graduated in nuclear energy engineering, Urbani made a bold choice in 2016 when he decided to dedicate himself to the art world. After taking a break from his job, he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, the city where he has lived and worked since 2019. The Quantum series is a profound reflection on the dynamics of technological means in the collective imagination, which aspire to bring social, cultural and scientific improvements but require increasingly large resources to support their development. This artistic journey examines the implications of artificial intelligence, revealing an iconographic reification of nature. Urbani’s work does not provide definitive answers but, rather, asks how can the art world influence this new medium. The interview.
How did you start incorporating artificial intelligence into your creative process and what were your first steps in this direction?
The introduction of digital media in my artistic research, and in particular of artificial intelligence (AI) visual generation tools, has at its root three fundamental factors. First, my approach to artists who were precursors in the use of AI: from the American Trevor Paglen to my collaboration with multidisciplinary artists Roberto Beragnoli and Alessandra Condello, among the first in Italy to be part of the OpenAI artist program on the DALLE2 platform. The second factor is the flexibility of the AI tool, which can decline on different visual domains, such as videos and images, but also on sound and text writing. Starting with this flexibility, which also translates into faster execution speed, is then laced the third aspect, namely that of installation prototyping. In this way, AI allowed me to accelerate certain artistic planning mechanisms, such as 3D modeling, by quantitatively acquiring a greater range of formal solutions than in the classic design of my installations. I first became familiar with the new medium and created a solid technical basis, on which I later adapted my artistic research.
Quantum Series: Flower
Can you describe a specific work of art you created using artificial intelligence? What role did technology play in its development?
The first work devoted entirely to visual generation with AI was the Quantum series, which started initially as an experimental project and then became a full-fledged iconographic research on the topic of hybridizations between complex and interconnected ecosystems, speculating on machine-to-machine vision processes. Quantum’s thinking is based on objectifying the data provided by the AI system by going to act on the actual changes that result from its collection, such as the exploitation of primary resources and natural elements. This involves an irreversible interconnection between digital information, information infrastructure, human systems, natural environments and biological ecosystems in an exaggerated temporal present. In these cases, therefore, the AI tool has itself become part of the artistic process, because it not only takes on the functional aspects of a creative output as, for example, the generation of an image, but it is able to objectify these interconnections according to a logic that is free to expand into an amorphous cloud of data. The result can no longer be directly linked to a cause-and-effect logic. This means that even if we start with descriptive and notionistic inputs about whether we want to get one image or another, what we then get at an iconographic level will mostly depend on how the machine connects the information within its networks rather than how we try to address it. In this way we can visually play with both the gap between input-output but also explore new visual horizons, which in the case of Quantum become morphological changes in an area.
What challenges have you encountered in using artificial intelligence in your art, and how have you dealt with them?
The difficulties are not so different from a new installation material or a digital program. Moreover, the learning curve of the tool can be scalable within a few days once you becomes familiar with the parameters used in information processing, depending on the platform used. The challenge posed to artistic research is not contained in the medium itself but on how the horizon of one’s artistic reflection can gain value through its use. If a painter needs a new brush one of the reasons for buying it might be that he or she wants to achieve a brushstroke that has different shades than those achieved with other brushes. The challenge is to have a vision of the experimentation I am carrying out. Declining this challenge on generation with AI therefore means accepting a data processing over which one does not have full control but which at the same time can become part of a machine-given visual rejection and part of the artwork itself. Initially I tried to counteract this generative learning bias given by AI, but over time I accepted it as an intrinsic element of the system, thus going for a design complementarity between the goal I set out and the medium used. In this way, the final work acquires value both from the artistic research itself and from the specificity of the tool used, in this case AI.
Quantum Series: Herd
How does artificial intelligence affect your creativity and artistic process?
Usually the artistic process requires the modeling of a concept starting from a theoretical/abstract basis and then translating it into its pragmatic counterpart. In the case of AI, my approach to creativity presupposes a kind of archaeological action on the data. I mean that if the artist already has clear in front of him the horizon of his experimentation, at the moment when AI comes into play there is a need to carefully dig into the territories of a digital cloud that is not directly accessible but that has within it visual masses that have to be unearthed, cleaned up and eventually archived. This computer archaeology allows for a range of options, from more raw, amorphous results to cleaner, more detailed ones, through intermediate ranges that, as mentioned earlier, can become archival and be developed later for further research or to trigger new creative stimuli. However, I also believe that the core constituent of artistic thought remains independent of any instrumental functionality and forms the basis on which to adapt the surrounding context. Consequently, in the case of the use of AI, I am convinced that it is the artist who holds control of his or her creative dimension and allows it to permeate reality according to a balance that must be found for each individual work and that can sustain itself independently of the medium used.
How do you manage the balance between personal artistic control and artificial intelligence input in your works?
My background as an engineer often leads me to design artworks through a method that starts from very specific creative cues and then is processed, shaped, in a try-and-fail pattern. Starting, for example, with the hypothesis of using a material to test its behavior in relation to the starting idea. Test after test I accept and discard different materials until I arrive at a convergence, formal and conceptual, as close to the work I had set out to achieve. With the use of AI this process has shifted design-wise from a try and fail linearity to an iterative loop, where the creative starting point is retroactively influenced by the AI’s ability to create visions untethered by the input of specific inputs. In this way, while maintaining control over the pattern of artistic reflection that I am carrying out, I can obtain ideas and carry out tests which, once generated, can in turn be reintroduced into the system to decide whether the path I am following can be in line with the general vision pursued in the research. In reality I think it can be defined as an acceleration between the control I have over the instrument and my creative approach and which allows me not only to have a greater degree of freedom in the final choice of works but to exploit the different methods of AI input, which can be texts, images, videos or sound elements.
What are some of the reactions and opinions you have received from the public and the art community with respect to your works with artificial intelligence?
As with all new technologies with a direct impact on contemporary society and culture, differences of opinion arise, ranging from outright skepticism to fascination or simple curiosity. Probably the gap between the simple use of AI as a content generator and its artistic enhancement triggered by a process of creative experimentation is fertile ground for discussion. I think there is a need to contextualize this gap, because I personally believe that public opinions, whether detractive or simply speculative, can be all the more free of bias the more the artist is able to deliver his or her most honest view of the world around. However, there is one interesting factor that unites the reactions of the art community and those of the non-art community, namely, curiosity about the intrinsic functioning of the medium.
I believe the interest that has been created around it in recent years has led to a general sense of inadequacy, given the actual complexity of the mechanisms that govern it, which often tends to distract from the effective inclusion of a work in its contemporary dimension. Consequently, questions are more frequent about how the AI generation was used rather than the actual content of the artistic proposal. Perhaps, with time, when the need to delve deeper into the procedural elements in favor of the conceptual ones, will be overcome, it will be possible to have the acceptance of a technology that will continue to evolve and expand, and a greater sensitivity to how its application can open up new unexplored panoramas capable of having their own artistic autonomy.
Quantum Series: Paleo
What do you foresee for the future of contemporary art in relation to artificial intelligence and how do you think this technology will influence the art world?
I would rather ask how I think the art world will influence this technology. Currently, the biggest platforms dealing with AI generation have software implementation programs where artists of all kinds are involved to test new developments. We have to remember that although acting in the autonomy of neural networks, AI still has a degree of learning that depends on interaction with its users. Consequently, at the level of technological manipulation. We will increasingly witness a specialization of AI skills that will then have more or less flexible declinations depending on the context of reference. If I consider, for example, the contemporary art scene, it is possible that it will itself be directing new forms of AI that are totally untethered from the current systems, which we currently consider mainstream, or will go on to influence them in such a way as to redefine their own internal mechanisms. I am convinced that the creative activism of the artistic world is still the primary engine of the contemporary system and that it does not suffer from the advances of the digital world but rather imbues them with meaning in a path where the developments of both dimensions do not conflict with each other but manage to create a critical consciousness of the reality around us, not relatable to either one in particular. From this interaction there will be a mutual exchange of value, where AI will stimulate the exploration of new territories where the artist’s approach will be free to range and then influence the technological system again.
