CHRIS THURMAN: Artificial intelligence may rumble, but can it drop the ball?
The fallible humanness of the artist is at the heart of Zip Zap Circus
The day after an underground explosion wrecked a section of Lilian Ngoyi Street (formerly Bree Street) in the Johannesburg city centre in July, many Instagram users were surprised to see photographs of beautifully dressed, perfectly coiffed appearing to have been taken while they were wandering serenely through the scene of devastation. Soon these were followed by pictures of “regular” citizens moving along, around and over the deep rifts in the tar: small kids running gleefully, youngsters staring pensively, blurry pedestrians going about their business.
The images under the title The Rumbling were, of course, entirely fabricated — the work of self-styled artificial intelligence (AI) artist Thekiso Mokhele — and they rapidly divided opinion. Some felt that Mokhele was exploiting the newsworthiness and visual impact of the blast to boost his own profile, with scant regard for the severity of the situation and the human suffering it wrought. Others found the material inspiring,...
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