Cannot consumption of AI be considered an art expression?

Of course it can, and performance art is art, but I feel like it's important to know that the art being eaten was a series of AI generated images reflecting the artist's experience of AI psychosis and commenting on the way that AI use changes the users' interactions with the world. The images were generated by someone who has been using image generation tools in their art since 2017 and who was educated as an artist using traditional techniques.

The piece that the protester ate was made by an MFA student and wasn't an attempt to "pass off" generated images themselves as art, the art was the presentation of the images and their sequence and variety (there's an element of obsessive iteration visible even in the remaining images - an empty room, the same room with different light, the same room with a smiling woman on the bed, the same woman standing in different poses, which speaks to me of someone furiously attempting to construct a comforting reality and finding the tools in your hands inadequate, but that's just my interpretation of what remains).

For the record, Nick Dwyer was the MFA student whose art was eaten. "The intersection of art and AI" is a huge theme in his work.

Like. He made a ceramic sculpture of an AI girlfriend, then generated an AI image of the sculpture and called them one and two in a series.

He made ceramic "phones" and inscribed them with cuniform and ai image hieroglyphics that he carved into the clay.

I've talked a lot about how I think that AI has a place in the creation of art and I think Dwyer's work is genuinely a perfect example of someone using AI to create art.

Again, I also think that performance art is art and eating a portion of the gallery piece is certainly an interesting statement, but I wonder if the protestor would be as outraged by the ceramic phones with AI images engraved on them. How much human touch or human intention does "slop" need before it's art, or is it fruit of the poisoned tree and must always be considered slop because AI was part of the process?

perhaps controversial opinion but when answering the question 'should you destroy someone else's property' neither the artistic merit of the thing you destroyed nor the artistic merit of the act of destruction are really dispositive

remember remember

this asshole had the entire city scared he was going to lead some kind of klan march and rampage through an immigrant neighborhood. he showed up yesterday with about 5 people and "marched" less than one city block before counter protestors super-soakered his ass in 10⁰ weather, pushed him back to his hotel, and ran him out of town. so so so proud of my city

Complete with AI slop