Humans Versus AI: Whether and Why We Prefer Human-Created Compared to AI-Created Artwork

With the recent proliferation of advanced artifcial intelligence (AI) models capable of mimicking human artworks, AI creations might soon replace products of human creativity, although skeptics argue that this outcome is unlikely. One possible reason this may be unlikely is that, independent of the physical properties of art, we place great value on the imbuement of the human experience in art. An interesting question, then, is whether and why people might prefer human-compared to AI-created artworks. To explore these questions, we manipulated the purported creator of pieces of art by randomly assigning a “Human-created” or “AI-created” label to paintings actually created by AI, and then assessed participants’ judgements of the artworks across four rating criteria (Liking, Beauty, Profundity, and Worth). Study 1 found increased positive judgements for human- compared to AI-labelled art across all criteria. Study 2 aimed to replicate and extend Study 1 with additional ratings (Emotion, Story, Meaningful, Efort, and Time to create) intended to elucidate why people more-positively appraise Human-labelled artworks. The main fndings from Study 1 were replicated, with narrativity (Story) and perceived efort behind artworks (Efort) moderating the label efects (“Human-created” vs. “AI-created”), but only for the sensory-level judgements (Liking, Beauty). Positive personal attitudes toward AI moderated label efects for more-communicative judgements (Profundity, Worth). These studies demonstrate that people tend to be negatively biased against AI-created artworks relative to purportedly humancreated artwork, and suggest that knowledge of human engagement in the artistic process contributes positively to appraisals of art

Criminal intent or cognitive dissonance: how does student self plagiarism fit into academic integrity?

The discourse of plagiarism is speckled with punitive terms not out of place in a police officer's notes: detection, prevention, misconduct, rules, regulations, conventions, transgression, consequences, deter, trap, etc. This crime and punishment paradigm tends to be the norm in academic settings. The learning and teaching paradigm assumes that students are not filled with criminal intent, but rather are confused by the novel academic culture and its values. The discourse of learning and teaching includes: development, guidance, acknowledge, scholarly practice, communicate, familiarity, culture. Depending on the paradigm adopted, universities, teachers, and students will either focus on policies, punishments, and ways to cheat the system or on program design, assessments, and assimilating the values of academia. Self plagiarism is a pivotal issue that polarises these two paradigms. Viewed from a crime and punishment paradigm, self plagiarism is an intentional act of evading the required workload for a course by re-using previous work. Within a learning and teaching paradigm, self plagiarism is an oxymoron. We would like to explore the differences between these two paradigms by using self plagiarism as a focal point

Socially Just Artmaking: A Practitioner\u27s Inquiry of Passionate Teaching for Compassionate Action

The arts serve as a vehicle to activate imagination of students in developing a broaderunderstanding of injustice, its consequences, and the range of alternative possibilities (Bell &Desai, 2011). As more young artists engage in this dialogue, we must investigate how young people themselves make sense of and experience the transformative power of the arts (Dewhurst, 2014). Activist art can communicate ideas about individual and community experiences to a wider audience; it can make public that which has been ignored, silenced, or kept from public conscience (Dewhurst, 2014). Visual expression allows one to increase their understandings beyond the limitations of words and artmaking provides an often-overlooked means of knowing and infrequently used research avenue for exploring a phenomenon (Lee, 2013). The primary purpose of this study gives students the opportunity to explore ways in which they can foment change in the world around them through self-expression. A secondary purpose intends to add to existing dialogue about the transformative power of the arts. This mixed-methods research study was designed to address the following questions: (1) How do students perceive and respond to injustices in their world using meaning-making through the visual arts? (2) What methods do student participants find successful in engaging in dialogue about and creation of social justice activist art? (3) Does an activist art project or program impact a student’s level of comfort in social situations

Painting the Nation:Examining the Intersection Between Politics and the Visual Arts Market in Emerging Economies

Politics and art have throughout history, intersected in diverse and complex ways. Ideologies and political systems have used the arts to create a certain image and, depending on the form of government this has varied from clear-cut state propaganda, to patronage, to more indirect arms-length funding procedures. Therefore, artists working within the macro-level socio-political context cannot help but be influenced, inspired and sometimes restricted by these policies and political influences. This article examines the contemporary art markets of two emerging, Socialist economies to investigate the relationship between state pol-itics and the contemporary visual arts market. We argue that the respective governments and art worlds are trying to construct a brand narrative for their nations, but that these discourses are often at cross-purposes. In doing so, we illustrate that it is impos-sible to separate a consideration of the artwork from the macro-level context in which it is produced, distributed, and consumed

AI as an Artist? A Two-Wave Survey Study on Attitudes Toward Using Artificial Intelligence in Art

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have developed rapidly, and generative AI in particular challenges human creativity. Therefore, people's perspectives about this transformative change involving creativity and art must be examined. We investigated attitudes toward using AI in art from the perspective of self-determination theory. We used data from a two-wave survey of Finnish respondents aged 18–80 years (n = 828) to analyze within- and between-person effects using hybrid multilevel regression modelling. We measured positive attitudes toward using AI in (a) the art and culture field in general, (b) music, (c) visual arts, (d) detecting forged art, and (e) creating art. The main independent variables were the basic psychological needs (perceived relatedness, autonomy, and competence) in using new technologies. The results showed that participants were less positive toward using AI in the art and culture field in general compared to many other fields, such as medicine and building and real estate technology. Stronger relatedness had within- and between-person effects on positive attitudes on using AI in the art and culture field in general, as well as in music, visual arts, and creating art. Stronger autonomy had within- and between-person effects on positive attitudes on using AI in detecting forged art and creating art. The results indicate that human needs for relatedness and autonomy are important in attitudes toward using AI in art. Hence, positive personal experiences with the use of new technology are likely to affect how people perceive the introduction of AI to the art field, which has been considered the last human frontier in the technological world.Peer reviewe

Moving to the West: Media, Cultural Transnationalism and Identity. Cultural Dynamics of Korean Women in Diaspora

This research project explores the experiences of young Korean women relocating to London, employing an ethnographically informed approach to delve into media, diasporic identity, and cultural transnationalism. The analysis draws from six month of intensive fieldwork, including “following” in-depth interviews, participant observation, and digital ethnography. The study aims to investigate the interplay between media, social values, interactions, and the performance of identities within the Korean female diasporic community in the context of circulation and transnational migration. The primary objective is to discern how social values and interactions, whether mediated or direct, contribute to the cultural transmission within Korean female diasporic groups and shape specific meanings associated with transnational identities. Within this framework, meta-themes such as transnational imagination, Western centrism, alternative multicultural interpretations, and performativity emerged, guiding further data analysis. The research findings underscore the pivotal role of media in shaping the imagination that prompts young Korean women’s transnational mobility. Additionally, it reveals the complex contradictions within their transnational social spheres, fostering a unique symbolic transnational space where identity politics continuously evolve through negotiation and struggle. This study offers a comprehensive examination of cultural transnationalism, spotlighting a contemporary migration pattern. It showcases the correlation between media, non-Western contexts, Western centrism, identity, and everyday transnational experiences. At a micro level, this analysis fills significant research gaps regarding the intersectionality of transnationalism, media, and migration studies within the narrative of young Korean women’s transnational experiences

The brand, culture & stakeholder-based brand management phenomenon: an international Delphi study

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Docter of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Most recently in academic literature, over the past decade, it has been observed that the cultural approach to brand management represents a new school of thought. This has emerged from relational and community based brand perspectives: which chart the rising role, significance and influence in brand management of connected and savvy consumers. Furthermore, the researcher has identified that economic migrancy; the increase in multi-racial and multicultural relations, evident in childbirth; urbanism and urbanization; Globalization; conspicuous branded consumption; and Web2.0 continue to drive new methods and channels for information exchanges, collaboration and societal understanding. These in turn are shaping and changing the way in which branding, management and consumption are being understood and practiced. Brands have gravitated towards a position of offering individual and societal meaning. In doing so they have become cultural artefacts and language shapers. In tandem the conceptual argument for a brand being understood and used as a ‘human’ has grown in prominence. Collectively, these represent a global cultural phenomenon where the management of brands appears to be a cultural, diffused and self-defined practice. The purpose of this study was to examine this identified phenomenon in greater detail, from a brand management perspective. The aim was to investigate the nature of the relationship between culture and brands – to the benefit of brand managers. The method of qualitative investigation elicited iterated views from an international panel of academics and practitioners -­ in the form of a 16 month Expert Delphi Study. Through the Delphi process, they were encouraged to arrive at a consensus of opinions and understanding. Findings of this doctoral study suggest that culture and brands share strong relationship bonds, brought into existence by human desires. Equally, brands and culture both have the ability to influence each other. Furthermore, the successful management of brands requires a cultural approach, which mediates dynamic and complex networks of brand stakeholder relations. It was concluded that the understandings of brands, culture and management have to take into account: context, space and time – as porous boundaries of transience and transcendence. A new, grounded theoretical framework for brand management was developed - which took its inspiration from Aristotle’s Praedicamenta. In addition, alternative criteria for collecting and analysing biographical data were proposed

Perceptual fail: Female power, mobile technologies and images of self

Like a biological species, images of self have descended and modified throughout their journey down the ages, interweaving and recharging their viability with the necessary interjections from culture, tools and technology. Part of this journey has seen images of self also become an intrinsic function within the narratives about female power; consider Helen of Troy “a face that launched a thousand ships” (Marlowe, 1604) or Kim Kardashian (KUWTK) who heralded in the mass mediated ‘selfie’ as a social practice. The interweaving process itself sees the image oscillate between naturalized ‘icon’ and idealized ‘symbol’ of what the person looked like and/or aspired to become. These public images can confirm or constitute beauty ideals as well as influence (via imitation) behaviour and mannerisms, and as such the viewers belief in the veracity of the representative image also becomes intrinsically political manipulating the associated narratives and fostering prejudice (Dobson 2015, Korsmeyer 2004, Pollock 2003). The selfie is arguably ‘a sui generis,’ whilst it is a mediated photographic image of self, it contains its own codes of communication and decorum that fostered the formation of numerous new digital communities and influenced new media aesthetics . For example the selfie is both of nature (it is still a time based piece of documentation) and known to be perceptually untrue (filtered, modified and full of artifice). The paper will seek to demonstrate how selfie culture is infused both by considerable levels of perceptual failings that are now central to contemporary celebrity culture and its’ notion of glamour which in turn is intrinsically linked (but not solely defined) by the province of feminine desire for reinvention, transformation or “self-sexualisation” (Hall, West and McIntyre, 2012). The subject, like the Kardashians or selfies, is divisive. In conclusion this paper will explore the paradox of the perceptual failings at play within selfie culture more broadly, like ‘Reality TV’ selfies are infamously fake yet seem to provide Debord’s (1967) illusory cultural opiate whilst fulfilling a cultural longing. Questions then emerge when considering the narrative impact of these trends on engendered power structures and the traditional status of illusion and narrative fiction