This mise en abyme of the question of the monochrome in the era of the “prompt”, borrows the form of Alphonse Allais’ Album Primo-Avrilesque to bring a firm and definitive answer to the question: should artists fear Artificial Intelligence?
A.A. vs. A.A. – Alphonse Allais vs. Artificial Art – was produced with the desperate help of all the AIs available on the Internet, in particular ChatGPT, Midjourney or Dall-e.
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Cette mise en abyme de la question du monochrome à l’ère du « prompt », reprend la forme de l’Album Primo-Avrilesque d’Alphonse Allais pour apporter une réponse ferme et définitive à la question : les artistes doivent-ils craindre l’Intelligence Artificielle ?
A.A. vs. A.A. – Alphonse Allais contre l’Art Artificiel – a été réalisée avec le concours désespérant et désespéré de l’ensemble des IA disponibles sur Internet, en particulier ChatGPT, Midjourney ou Dall-e.
Album Primo-Avrilesque (Alphonse Allais, 1897) is a radical work with multiple ramifications in 20th century art, in which the “Incoherent Artist” appears as a precursor of the idea of monochrome in painting.
The project A.A. vs. A.A was exhibited for the first time on March 28th, 2023, at Xanadu gallery (IMéRA, Marseille), during the exhibition “Prompt”. It was shown together with a facsimile of the Album Primo-Avrilesque by Alphonse Allais made for the occasion by the Éditions Les plis du ciel. Translations of the prompts read as follows:
White = First communion of anaemic young girls in snowy weather
Grey = Dance of drunks in the fog
Red = Apoplectic cardinals harvesting tomatoes on the shore of the Red Sea (effect of the Aurora Borealis)
Yellow = Jaundiced cuckolds handling ochre
Green = Pimps, still in the prime of life and stomachs on the grass, drinking absinthe
Blue = Astonishment of young naval recruits seeing for the first time your blue, O Mediterranean Sea!
and finally, the (in)famous:
Black = Negroes fighting in a cellar, at night
Here is a screenshot of Beaux Arts Magazine from November 2015, showing that Malevich was aware of Alphonse Allais’ work (“Technology reveals racist joke under Malevich monochrome”):
Below: pictures of the exhibition “Prompt” at Xanadu (Xanadu is a curatorial project by Christophe Bruno and Jeff Guess, artists in residence at Iméra, Institute for Advanced Studies of Aix-Marseille University, from September 2022 to July 2023).
Christophe Bruno 