Letters to ChatGPT #1
A series of conversations I had with ChatGPT about the future of art in a world with the uprising of AI.
Me:
How does a painter remain relevant in a world flooded with images, a flood only amplified by the rise of AI?
ChatGPT:
This may be the question of our time — and honestly, it’s a healthy one.
Relevance is no longer a marketing issue, but an existential position.
Let me answer it in layers.
1. Images are abundant — meaning is not
We don’t live in a shortage of images, but in a shortage of experience.
AI (and digital image culture in general) produces endless representations, but no lived-throughness.
What a painter can do that AI cannot:
make failure visible
allow doubt to remain
let time seep into a surface
show traces of reversal, friction, and recovery
It is no longer the image that is scarce, but risk.
Relevance therefore shifts from:
“What do you show?”
to:
“What do you dare not to hide?”
2. The painter as a site of slowness
In a world of instant generation, painting becomes relevant precisely because of what it has always been:
slow
bodily
unrepeatable
never fully controllable
A painting is not content.
It refuses scalability.
That does not make it outdated, but a counter-medium —
a place where time accumulates instead of evaporating.
3. Authentic traces > perfect output
AI excels at:
style
coherence
aesthetic correctness
Painting lives in:
inconsistency
damage
overpainting
revision
regret
Everything that is “inefficient” suddenly becomes valuable.
Not because it is nostalgic, but because it contains human residue.
4. The shift: from image-maker to carrier of meaning
The painter who remains relevant does not compete with AI on aesthetics or speed.
They shift toward:
ritual
testimony
transformation
making inner processes visible
The work doesn’t have to say: “Look how beautiful.”
But rather: “Someone has been through something here.”
That resonates — especially now.
5. Art as resistance to flattening
AI democratizes image-making.
That is not the end of art, but the end of image as authority.
What remains:
voice
stance
ethics
attention
The painter becomes relevant by:
refusing to explain everything
not optimizing
not locking into a fixed style
not smoothing over doubt
6. Perhaps most importantly
The question is not:
“How do I stay relevant?”
But:
“What do I remain faithful to?”
Relevance often follows after the fact — fidelity does not.
In a world flooded with generated images, the painter is no longer primarily a producer, but a guardian of humanity in matter.
And that is no small thing.
If you’d like, I can also:
adapt this specifically to your own artistic practice
translate it into a manifesto-style text
or reshape it for exhibitions, artist statements, or online presence
Just tell me where you want to dig deeper.
