Bård Edlund, a critically acclaimed artist hailing from Oslo, creates art that marries traditional techniques with AI technology. His latest work, Celebrities Kissing Themselves, showcases this unique blend, exploring the intersection of cultural obsessions with personality and AI-generated art.
Edlund uses AI to manipulate digital renders of celebrities, leading them to an intimate encounter with their self-image. This choice of subject matter, rich in its critique of fame and vanity, brings a fresh perspective to our societal infatuation with celebrity culture.
His pieces invite the viewer into a deeper conversation about identity, the role of AI in our life, and our societal issues.
AI and traditional techniques in Edlund’s art
Celebrity Kissing Themselves, in particular, has been applauded by art critics and audiences alike for this innovative approach.
Edlund’s journey began with a fascination for comic art, leading him to the Maryland Institute College of Art in the US. From there, he explored web designs for financial news platforms, forging a career in graphic design and eventually establishing a successful digital marketing agency.
In 2012, Edlund started his own creative studio in pursuit of his interest in art, innovation, and AI. He used this new platform to explore AI’s impact on visual culture and the minds that shaped it.
Currently, Edlund is working on AI-generated representations of beauty pageant entrants. Despite their imperfect nature, Edlund capitalized on these imperfections to create artworks like Celebrities Kissing Themselves, turning apparent flaws into featured attractions.
The project features well-known personalities such as Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Trump, and Elon Musk in encounters with their duplicates, shedding light on the societal obsession with personality culture and echoing our own beliefs and ideals.
Edlund uses the Genie Tool by Luma Labs to create these 3D models and emphasizes their flaws in a world increasingly dominated by AI, valuing the uniqueness and human traits they reveal in our digital age.
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