GenAI Art and the Liberation of Viewer Interpretation

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_106How to use a DOI?

Keywords

GenAI Art; Viewer Interpretation; Aesthetic; Liberation

Abstract

GenAI art fundamentally subverts the traditional ontology of art by systematically dismantling the foundational premises of meaning in the work of art, such as authorial intent, historical context, and reference to reality. This creates a “vacuum of meaning” and generative AI art completely fulfills Barthes' prediction of the death of the author, handing over the power of interpretation to the viewer. They are no longer recipients of predetermined meanings, but creators. Attempts to fill this vacuum with Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) are false; XAI provides a technological traceability rather than a humanistic interpretation, and is more likely to reinforce technological determinism. True artistic democracy lies not in algorithmic interpretation, but in recognizing the right of the viewer to decide on meaning without having to submit to authorship, history or technology. Generative Artificial Intelligence art thus catalyzes a paradigm shift that establishes the viewer as the ultimate source of meaning.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Haofang Dai
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/31
TI  - GenAI Art and the Liberation of Viewer Interpretation
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 908
EP  - 914
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_106
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_106
ID  - Dai2025
ER  -