A herd of elephants flying in the blue skies
Artist
Elman Mansimov
(American, born Azerbaijan, born 1996)
Date2015
Mediumarchival pigment prints
Dimensions(each) sheet: 8.1 × 8 cm (3 3/16 × 3 1/8 in.)
framed (overall grid): 25 × 44 cm (9 13/16 × 17 5/16 in.)
framed (overall grid): 25 × 44 cm (9 13/16 × 17 5/16 in.)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineMuseum purchase through the Helen Sagoff Slosberg Fund in Honor of Daniel Catton Rich
Object number2024.4
Label TextIn 2015, computer scientist Elman Mansimov developed the first text-to-image artificial intelligence computer model called alignDRAW. Using Microsoft’s 80,000-image database COCO, Mansimov directed alignDRAW to invent visual content outside the scope of the metadata in COCO’s existing dataset. For example, when presented with the text prompt to generate “a herd of elephants flying in the blue skies,” alignDRAW collected the images related to elephants, flying, and the sky and then “imagined” eight different ways those objects could be stitched together into a new image. This work was among Mansimov’s original 36 prompts.
In a recorded interview, computer artist Alejandro Cartagena compared the magnitude of alignDRAW’s 32-pixel, blurry text-to-image output to the first documented photograph. “In 1826 [Nicéphore] Niépce creates this almost indecipherable image, but there’s a promise that there’s a machine that can create an image through light and photosensitive materials. [alignDRAW] is the project that basically promises that there’s a possibility that, using natural language, you can create an image.”On View
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