Hong Kong-based artist Victor Wong has built a robotic arm, and through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) it can paint in a traditional Chinese style. Wong purchased the arm online and told CNN that he modified the robot to give it a paintbrush to hold, and then programmed the device through a process of machine learning to teach it to paint traditional Chinese landscapes.
Wong was born in 1966 in Hong Kong and has worked to integrate traditional Chinese elements with modern technology. He spent some time in the US in the 1980s, attending the University of Washington, where he graduated in 1989. After college, he established a visual effects production company, which, according to the galley that represents him, “has produced over 800 advertisements and designed special effects for over 100 films from Hong Kong and Hollywood, including Iron Man, Fantastic Four, The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D, Rise of the Legend, CJ7, Initial D, among others.”
Wong’s journey integrating technology into his art
In a short video on his work produced by Digital Arts Fair Asia in 2022, he explained that ink has always been one of his primary media. As he began to dabble with various technological tools, he said that he became obsessed with tech,” and was constantly looking for new ways to integrate what he was learning into his art.
Wong named the machine AI Gemini, though there is no relationship to the Google chatbot with the same name. Although Wong’s work incorporates modern technology, the prints are completed on Xuan paper, a thin rice-based paper. As far as the integration of AI is concerned, Wong explained to CNN that he spent hours training the machine through a process of “deep learning and training in traditional ink landscape painting,” so that Gemini would be well-versed as it set out to create a landscape. The machine learning was critical for Gemini to learn about the appropriate use of color, as well as “the amount of water used [as it] depends on changes in humidity.”
Art, emotion, and the viewer
Wong has not shied away from talking about the more controversial aspects of integrating AI into his art. In an interview with Studio International, he presented a paradox that he often finds himself in.
“We create AI so we can create something that can do without emotions. You can skip out the emotions and extract data. But on the other hand, we want AI to respond to us emotionally. That’s contradictory, right?
Victor Wong, artist
On the one hand, training a machine to create art sucks the emotion out of it. Yet, on the other hand, he is looking to create images that evoke emotion from the viewer. The contradiction is one that many artists are pondering as they think about ways that the advancements in AI and machine learning could be applied to their work.
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