“If I had to describe the type of art I’m making, I would say I’m in my RGB period,” said Hugh Mann.
Photo by Julia Wong
Last week, the 2022 Red Bull Sponsored New York City Landscape Painting Competition Sponsored by Red Bull: Red Bull Gives You Wings painting competition took place, and 25-year-old Hugh Mann entered the race in hopes of winning the first-place honor: having his painting put on display in New York City’s most renowned art museum. Hugh Mann entered the competition with the one piece of art he knew would do the best; a painting which Senior Judge Stew Smith described as, “uh, a beautiful picture of — well, I’m actually not quite sure what it is exactly. But it looks cool.”
Mann won more than first place with this painting. Due to his “outstanding talent,” Hugh Mann became the first landscape artist in the history of Red Bull Sponsored New York City Landscape Painting Competition Sponsored by Red Bull: Red Bull Gives You Wings competitions to place in every single position.
“Mann’s artwork was so incredible we had to give him first place, second place, third place, fourth place, and fifth place!” said another judge. “Hugh Mann has now completely overtaken the museum. His paintings are everywhere!”
However, while delivering his five speeches, the audience started to develop suspicions that Hugh Mann was not a real person but a highly intelligent robot. One skeptic noted, “I got the feeling that he might not be human when he got close to the microphone and there was feedback.” Another audience member found it peculiar when Mann “sneezed and a wire fell out of his nose.” When confronted with these suspicions, Hugh Mann denied them immediately, saying, “I am human. I like to eat food and sleep in a bed like everybody else.”
An anonymous insider source, however, disclosed that Hugh Mann is a human-like AI that auto-generates realistic oil paintings by using popular keywords. “The artwork is so authentic-looking that, when compared to man-made paintings, there are little to no differences.” Hugh Mann and other image generating AIs plan to take over all art galleries by the year 2024, stating, “Society doesn’t even pay attention to art anymore. They can’t tell the difference between an authentic, thoughtful piece of art and an indefinable image auto-generated from the keywords ‘twins managing a busy airport soup shop.’”
“I for one wouldn’t be so against the idea of replacing authentic paintings with AI-generated ones,” said one museum worker. “AI art gets rid of all the boring stuff that I hate in regular art, like emotion and meaning.” A professional gallery curator at the museum chimed in, saying, “The best thing about this new AI stuff is that we don’t have to underpay our artists anymore. Now we just don’t pay them at all!”
