Art, as we know it, is dead. And this time is for good.

Again and again declared but never achieved during the last century the death of art is now a fact. Not through sheer will, but because the conditions of art production have changed dramatically. Suddenly all the contemporary art as become ancient art. Because we are not dealing anymore with human art creation, but aiming directly to generate non-human artists. As ever paradigm change is possible due to technological shift. From analysis of the parts we have become more and more aware of the mechanics of complexity. From the study of living organisms we have embrace the desire to make life as it could be.

When robotics is not reproducing anymore human features, like walking, playing football or telling jokes, but creating art, something very radical happens. Art making robots change not only our views about art or philosophy, but also the condition of mankind. Why persist on doing something that machines do better and in a much more consequent way? If art as no purpose, like is stated in all the modern and postmodern theories, then machines are the best creators. Free from the realization of art we can concentrate to generate a new kind of artist emerged from the protobiotic soup of robotic and artificial life. We can make the machines that make the art.

This new machine/artist has no pre-determined objective, no aesthetics, no moral, no ideology, no intentionality. He is the ultimate "pure psychic automatist", as announced by Breton and partially realized by Pollock. Moreover he is not concerned with individuality or identity. He functions collectively and perceives the world as a common ground shaped by stigmergic behaviour. From a philosophical point of view the action is relational and the works are synthetic propositions that need to be made experience. From a behavior perspective the machine/artist life is interconnected with the human/artist life.

When we move from making art to making artists, what do we become ourselves? A symbiotic artist! A human that it is not concerned anymore with object production, but dedicates all the available knowledge and ability to create and co-operate with imaginary non-human life devoted to the artistic.
In doing so the symbiotic artist states that technology serves creativity, not military destruction or mercantilist production.

The role of the symbiotic artist is from now on to generate non-human artists in order to cooperate to produce art. That means understanding the rudiments of non-anthropocentric life and creating the conditions to let the experience run. That is, art as it could be. The art of the XXI century. >from *The Symbiotic Artist Manifest [Making the Artists that makes the Art] by Leonel Moura. March, 18, 2004

related context
> swarm paintings: artificial art, next aesthetical rupture?. march 12, 2002
> Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam. an independent organisation consisting of machines, computers, algorithms and human persons, who work together toward the complete automatization of art production.

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