AARON at Tsukuba, #2 13-6-85 (Claim Deed Token)
Still, 1985
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About the artwork
Developed by Harold Cohen, AARON is one of the world’s first cybernetic systems capable of autonomously generating paintings. Remarkably, Cohen embarked on this groundbreaking project without any formal background in computing. Cohen was a prominent painter who represented Britain in the 1966 Venice Biennale. After settling in San Diego, he became interested in the emerging new field of computer programming. It was still performed on punch cards, but Cohen began to teach a computer to paint, modeling the decisions made by an experienced artist. He treated it as though he were teaching a particularly dense art student. “The vast majority of us follow rules that somebody else taught us when we were growing up and going to art school,” Cohen says. “Nobody really invents art from scratch. The computer can, in principle, enact whatever rules you’re capable of enunciating, but enunciating those rules in a computer language is a nontrivial issue.” Cohen taught AARON to paint black-and-white abstractions, then added color, then figuration. He taught it that human bodies fall within a spectrum, how certain types of plants grow, and more. Looking at its paintings, it’s hard to believe that the painter “felt” nothing while making them. Edward Feigenbaum, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, considers AARON a remarkable example of AI displaying genuine creativity. “What you call a creative act, it’s actually a behavior that you observe,” he says. “It elicits a kind of emotion of, ‘How did he or she or it think of that?’” Yet Cohen himself disagrees; he considers AARON, into which he has poured 40 years of his life, not to be creative. “I think creativity has to involve self-modification. The creative act has to leave the creator with a different world model than it had before,” he argues. AARON is knowledgeable, but “having a brain and having a life are two different things.”
AARON at Tsukuba ’85 is presented in collaboration with Gazelli Art House, Verisart, and the Harold Cohen Trust.
This Token is a non-fungible, uniquely identified digital token issued by Fellowship, corresponding one-to-one with a specific AARON at Tsukuba, 1985 plotter drawing by Harold Cohen. It represents the right to redeem one authenticated physical Work, which is held in custody by Fellowship until initial redemption. Upon redemption and delivery confirmation, the Token is transferred to a custodial wallet controlled by Gazelli Art House or the Harold Cohen Trust, marking the Work’s “Claimed” state. The Token serves solely as a claim mechanism, does not constitute the Work, a Certificate of Authenticity, or evidence of legal title, and confers no intellectual property rights. It may not be used for any financial mechanics, such as fractionalization or staking. It is a digital claim mechanism only. Subsequent redemptions may be made with Fellowship, Gazelli Art House or the Harold Cohen Trust.
Inventory ID: i23-1759
Signed: "Aaron 13-6-85"
Certificate: https://verisart.com/works/harold-cohen-4112a353-ba8a-4de4-824c-1812cc0381a3
Harold Cohen was a British artist whose innovations at the forefront of technology changed the face of computer art. Unfolding where art and artificial intelligence intersect, Cohen's artistic practice was punctuated by his famed invention of AARON, a computer programme designed to create art independently. Cohen's work attracted global attention and was exhibited at major institutions such as Tate London and SFMOMA.
Having graduated from Slade School of Fine Art, Cohen's first solo exhibition was held at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 1951. Further solo shows followed, including at Whitechapel Gallery in 1965. Cohen represented the UK at the 1966 Venice Biennale, Documenta III, the Paris Biennale, and the Carnegie International.
Cohen relocated to the United States as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, San Diego, in 1968. Cohen remained at UC San Diego (UCSD) for almost three decades, as professor, chairman of the Visual Arts Department and eventually in 1992, director of the Centre for Research in Computing and the Arts. During this time Cohen began work on AARON, a venture to which he would devote the next five decades, instigating new areas of study and pioneering generative art.
After his retirement from UCSD, he continued to work on AARON and produce new artwork in his studio in Encinitas, California. In 2014, Cohen received the ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art.