Woods Art Institute Responds to Twitter Trending Topics with Real Time Art Pieces

From prehistoric art to Picasso's Guernica to Banksy’s Flower Thrower, art has always reflected, in its unique way, the moment in which it was conceived.

Today, thanks to social networks, we have real-time access to global conversations, trends, and news – thanks to Twitter Trending Topics.

And new artistic techniques are emerging every day, including digital manipulation and most recently artificial intelligence, supported by software such as DALL-E 2. An AI system by OpenAI that creates realistic images and art from a description in natural language.

The Woods Art Institute, as a place of cultural interaction that gives rise to new possibilities to create, collect and experience art, launches The Art of Trending. 

A real-time art experiment to connect the Institute with younger generations by linking Twitter Trending Topics with DALL-E 2 to create the most contemporary exhibition to date. An exhibition curated by all of us through Trending Topics and executed by AI.

The real-time art pieces will be available from 19th September 2022 on the WAI’s social channels as well as on billboards around Germany, exploring the boundaries of what is art and what makes an artist an artist.

In the words of WAI’s founder Rik Reinking, one of the Top art collectors in Europe, “I am less interested in the question of whether the result is art or not. I understand the experiment as a bridge towards art.”

This real-time art space is the result of the Institute’s collaboration with INGO Hamburg creative agency and MAGIG Design + Technologies. “It is impressive and frightening at the same time how far artificial intelligence has come in this area. The many questions that this raises for our industry are what I find particularly fascinating.” says Tobias Ahrens, MD/CCO INGO Hamburg.