an interpretation and historical context
The flesh.
The earthly material in opposition to the spiritual.
Is it the flesh without a soul?
Is it the human turned into a commodity?
The art is now more than the artist intended as the history before its creation catches up with the price tag it holds today. Has the art become the lesson of itself?
Perhaps the artist is just exploring the idea of a computer not fully comprehending the human form. It appears the artist has curated and or nudged the model to produce something that resembles a steak.
In the end the computer model mangles them into meat. Robbie used to go by the handle of DrBeef. Is this of consequence?
Of course the piece is square because that is what most GAN models produce. The artist has not cropped it to another ratio.
A bit of background on this that might explain its form. An artist collective called Obvious had recently sold a piece at a Christie's auction based on Robbie's code and models he had created. Edmond de Belamy sold for over $432,500. This might be considered an answer to that work. As the output that was awarded such a sum was seen as inferior and claimed to be from the "mind" of the AI. It was marketed with the "signature" of the algorithm as if the computer had become sentient. Robbie rebels against this idea that the code is human. That the computer has flesh.
I see in it personally the limits of technology to imitate humanity. It needs a human to choose the facets that are art. I see that a machine is not the one who made the choices needed to create this piece of art. And this is not the entire artwork. The rest of the art is in the model which could spit out meaningless images for thousands of years.
I see in it that we humans are more than what we create. The physical body is necessary and must be fused with a spirit, a consciousness. But have our creations become something we do not intend as artists?
But now the "AI Generated Nude Portrait #1" is halfway to the price of Edmond De Belamy.
Perhaps this art can be seen as a statement against the monetization of an inferior computer generated art stolen from the the choices of the original artist. But it now has become a financial vehicle to many like its predecessor.
But yet it is still public art. Anyone can view it and enjoy it. Just ignore the price or perhaps view it as an object lesson on the trappings of power and money.