The Concept of Qualia: A Sitdown with Claire Silver

CohentheWriter Interviews the AI Art Virtuoso

CryptoPunk 1629 (2017) by LarvaLabs. In collection of Claire Silver
The Interrupted Reader (2020), by Claire Silver. Digital. AI.
The Blue Girl (Qualia) (2019), by Claire Silver. Digital. AI.
Page 418 (2022) by Claire Silver. From series “AI Art is Not Art” In collection of 9617B3

What guides me? I have this concept of Qualia, which is the wordless experience of experiencing. The taste of eating an apple. Or the way it feels to see the color green, that kind of thing. There aren’t words for it, but it exists.

- “Is it the will to progress?” We can see that also in ants and honeybees.

- “Is it familial love and affection and emotion?”

- “Is it intelligence?” Well that includes elephants and dolphins.

Renaissance Renaissance Renaissance (2021) by Claire Silver. Edition of 12.
Still from the fisher king (2021), by Claire Silver. Minted upon request for Cozomo de’ Medici

I do think that AI artists keep different concepts that repeat through their work regardless of the aesthetics, as well as particular motifs, symbols and patterns. My work has a range of aesthetics but it almost always features women, a single solitary figure, there’s some kind of ambient abstract nature to it, kind of a Color Field theory. Twins is another thing that comes up a lot in my work.

Complicated (2021), by Claire SIlver. In collection of Cozomo de’ Medici

One thing people don’t know about AI is they think it kind of collages together bits of pieces that exist. It’s actually more learning traits about a particular thing, like a human has five fingers and has skin but only hair on head. It learns these traits, and then you ask it for an image of a human, it takes that learning and pieces it together with the other things you’ve asked for to make something new. It doesn’t pull from existing images or from a catalogue.

1629 (2021), by Claire Silver. In collection of monk36kfu

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