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How Artists Use AI as a Responsive Material for Art Creation
Rozental,Sonja van Dartel,Michel de Rooij,Alwin
Rozental,Sonja
van Dartel,Michel
de Rooij,Alwin
Abstract
This paper investigates how artists integrate artificial intelligence into their creative practices, using Material Engagement Theory (MET) as an analytical framework. MET provides a lens through which AI can be understood as a responsive material that actively contributes to the artistic processes. Through an analysis of 18 eminent artists’ practices in which AI is structurally used, we explore four key MET concepts: radical continuity, creative thinging, enactive discovery, and attentive unity. This approach allows us to examine AI as an active material within a co-creative process, where artists and AI discover and use each other’s affordances, thus reaching a state of unity and co-agency. AI's capacity for unexpected outputs emerges as a central feature of the co-creative process, with artists leveraging serendipity to reveal novel artistic directions. This research contributes to understanding AI’s evolving role in art, positioning MET as a valuable framework for examining the intersection between serendipity, co-agency, and materiality within the co-creative process. By acknowledging AI as a responsive material, this study reveals new directions for exploring the co-creative processes underlying AI use in art.
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Date
2025-07-25
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Keywords
AI art, Artificial intelligence, Co-Creativity, Material engagement theory, Materiality, Serendipity, Co-Agency
Citation
Rozental, S, van Dartel, M & de Rooij, A 2025, 'How Artists Use AI as a Responsive Material for Art Creation', Paper presented at International Symposium on Electronic/Emerging Art, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, 23/05/25 - 29/05/25 pp. 471-478. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gjdnw