GPT-2 after Sol LeWitt

Inspired by the work of pioneering Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, Robbie Barrat used GPT-2, OpenAI's language generation model, to generate a text describing the rules of a drawing. He dryly titled the prompt ‘Directions for the world’s most interesting drawing’. Barrat then followed these rules, produced in collaboration with a machine, to write a generative sketch. This mirrors the process of how Sol LeWitt's rule cards were executed into wall drawings.  LeWitt first conceived of his wall drawings in 1968, and from then until his death in 2007, he created more than 1,300 of them. His famous statement from 1965, “The idea becomes the machine that makes the art”, continues to have resonance for artists across multiple generations and working across multiple media.