Engineer before becoming an artist, Shin Gyo-myung invents his own art mediums. His robot  painters are capable of generating series of original canvases, proposing a controversial but  meaningful reversal of the hierarchy between the artist and the machine. Will AI replace the  artist? Shin Gyo-myung’s work raises one of the most pertinent issues in contemporary art. 

Shin Gyo-myung belongs to the very rare category of visual creators who were trained as  engineers and not as artists. Unlike most artists, Shin Gyo-myung doesn’t create based on  references in art history (he hardly visited museums before making art) but on references in  the science area. Shin Gyo-myung was born in the generation of Homo Digitalis, who was  raised since childhood surrounded by computers and their growing influence in all segments  of life and activity. Trained as a mechanical engineer and designer, making his first kinetic like objects in metal, Shin Gyo-myung came to art following the visual opportunities offered  by the developments of AI. When the French collective of scientists and businessmen named  Obvious presented in 2018 their AI Portrait of Edmond de Belamy (based on GANs  technology and successfully sold by Christie’s), Shin Gyo-myung started to investigate the  possibilities of AI to make original artworks. In a few years, he then invented a series of artist  robots, increasingly intelligent and capable of creating imaginary figures. 

After the Machina Sapiens, where the artist still controlled most of the creation, his latest  robot “Lee Il-O,” developed since 2021, offers one of the most advanced “thinking” art tools.  Unlike other AI robots, based on art data and recreating it as pixels, “Lee Il-O” is  programmed to express itself by drawing lines in empty spaces, without any deep learning  background in art history. Shin Gyo-myung is therefore raising a very critical issue in the art  world through his unique process: how AI tools could radically reverse the hierarchy between  the medium of creation and the creator. Shin Gyo-myung assumes the role of a kind of  “assistant” to the robot Il-O, only selecting for the robot-artist the type of brush the intelligent  machine will use and the subject (which is often Shin himself). In this rare and delicate  experience, the artist becomes both an assistant and the model of the “artist” the robot has  become. 

Indeed, a series of canvases by Il-O presents portraits of the artist, half abstract, half  figurative. The 'Portrait of Gyomyung Shin -5-' looks like it comes from a third dimension.  By attributing a rather large brush to his robot, Shin Gyo-myung ensures the portraits will  remain undefined, bringing a welcoming universality to his work. In another series, featuring  abstract compositions based on the pixel shape, Shin Gyo-myung aims to “portray” the  perception of the robot.  

In any case, and this is a significant point, Shin Gyo-myung remains the master of the  performative artwork that the invention and installation of the robot itself constitute.  Nevertheless, through his series of paintings, Il-O confirms what the pioneer of robotic art  Nicolas Schöffer predicted in 1956 (the same year the concept of AI was invented): “In the  future, the artist will not create more artwork; he will create the creation.” Here, we are  entering the art scene of the AI Planet.

Jerome Neutres

Shin Gyo-myung: When the artist becomes the assistant of the Robot

Critique