Expand this into how artists today are beginning to position themselves

Beautiful—because this is where the conversation gets alive, urgent, and real.

Here’s how some artists today are beginning to position themselves in the wake of AI and machine-made creativity. It’s less about resisting the tools and more about reclaiming the deeper human terrain that machines can’t touch.

1. Positioning as “The Human at the Center of the Work”

Some artists are doubling down on the physicality of making—the evidence of the hand, the brushstroke, the fingerprint, the labor.

• The flaws. The mistakes. The reworking. The hesitation.

• Because these are things machines don’t experience.

The presence of the human body, the time it takes, the imperfections—all of this becomes the proof that the artist lived through the work.

Example:

• Painters like Jenny Saville still show the messy flesh of the process.

• Sculptors like Anselm Kiefer layer weight, decay, and time into the materials themselves.

In this position, the artist says:

“This work is not just about image. It’s about being present through making.”

2. Positioning as the Selector, Not Just the Maker

AI can generate endless options—but selection is meaning.

The artist becomes the editor, the composer, the filter of value.

• Which output do you choose?

• Which moment do you say this is the one that matters?

• Why this image, in this context, for this audience, right now?

Artists can lean into intentional curation as authorship.

It’s no longer just about production—it’s about judgment, taste, intuition, and emotional intelligence.

Example:

• AI collaborators like Refik Anadol use machine learning to generate vast visual fields but then carefully select and shape the final form.

This position acknowledges the tool—but keeps human sensibility as the heart of authorship.

3. Positioning as the Questioner and Philosopher

More and more, artists are stepping into the role of the one who holds the mirror to culture.

Not just making art—but making questions.

• What happens when machines make beauty?

• What happens to our sense of self if the sublime can be coded?

• What remains sacred?

The artist becomes the person asking:

“What does this mean about us?”

Rather than: “Look at what I made.”

Example:

• Artists like Trevor Paglen explore surveillance, AI, and machine vision, not to compete with the technology, but to expose its ethical and psychological implications.

4. Positioning as the Hybrid Creator—Co-Creating with Machines, Not Competing

Some artists embrace the tools, but claim the soul of the process by steering the dialogue between human and machine.

They use AI not as the artist—but as the brush, the pigment, the assistant—while maintaining themselves as the one holding the vision.

Example:

• Artists like Sofia Crespo, who use AI to generate biologically inspired imagery but remain the shaper of the emotional arc.

Here, the artist’s position is:

“I will use any tool—but the vision, the question, the longing, the purpose remain human.”

5. Positioning Through Story, Presence, and Witnessing

A painting may no longer be valuable just because it’s beautiful.

Instead, it becomes valuable because it holds the artist’s story, the personal history, the experience that no machine can replicate.

• Who are you?

• Why did you make this?

• How did your life, your body, your experience shape this outcome?

This is why people still care about the hand of the maker.

The art becomes not just about the object—but about the presence of the person behind it.

Why This Might Be the Most Vital Moment for Artists in a Century:

Instead of making artists irrelevant, this AI moment calls artists back to the root purpose of art itself:

Not production.

Not beauty.

But connection. Inquiry. Witness. Presence.

Art as a way of being in the world—not as a thing to own.

In a flood of perfect, frictionless machine images, the roughness of your human hands, your breath, your questions—that may be the rarest thing left.

If you’d like, I can help sketch how you might position your own practice within this emerging landscape—how your own sensibilities, questions, and approach could align with these new artist roles. Would you like that?