Beyond the Prompt: My Hopes for the Future of AI Art

Jisue Park |
As an industrial/creative designer, I spent my career believing that value is found in the resistance of materials. The grain of wood, the weight of steel, the friction of a pen on paper. When I first encountered AI-generated art, I felt a sense of lightness that was hard to reconcile. However, as we approach the opening of DATALAND, the perspective is shifting from skepticism to a deep curiosity. I find myself looking forward to how this medium will evolve.

The Search for the "Human Peer"

I often think about why we watch sports. We remain addicted to the same games for decades because we appreciate the risk. We feel a visceral passion watching a player push their body until the point of failure—though we don't enjoy the failure itself—because we respect the effort and the potential for agony. That "human peer" connection makes an experience sacred.

Image: Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).

I am beginning to appreciate the lightness of the machine. If an AI creates a perfect sunset in a second, it lacks the sweat of the creator, but perhaps that is the point. It allows us to enjoy beauty without the burden of the creator’s ego. I look forward to a version of AI art that is unashamedly "kitsch"—art that exists simply to be enjoyed, like a beautiful California sunset that didn't have to suffer to exist.

Embracing the "Digital Lava Lamp"

There is a frequent critique that AI art is just an "ambient spectacle" or a "digital lava lamp." While I used to see this as a negative, I now see it as a new kind of design. In industrial design, we don't always create tools for struggle; sometimes we design for comfort, mood, and atmosphere.

Image: Google Deepmind

I look forward to DATALAND’s multisensory environments not as sites of profound contemplation, but as spaces for sensory play. I want to see how "World Models" and AI-generated scents can create a high-tech kitsch that is spatially resonant and joyfully superficial. There is a specific value in art that doesn't demand you feel a "bruise," but instead invites you to simply be.

DATALAND LA Opening in Spring 2026

The New "Readymade"

I still think of Marcel Duchamp, but through a different lens. When he placed a urinal in a gallery, he used kitsch to challenge the idea that art must be "sacred." He introduced a paradigm shift that allowed us to find value in the mass-produced and the mundane.

Photo: Marcel Duchamp,Fountain, 1917, 5th version, 1964.Painted glazed earthenware and oil paint, 36 × 48 × 61 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. © Association Marcel Duchamp / ADAGP, Paris / SOCAN, Montreal (2022) Photo: NGC

AI art is the ultimate "Readymade." It is frictionless and infinitely reproducible. My expectation is that the "Masters of AI" will be those who embrace this lightness. They will be the ones who use the Large Nature Model to create a new aesthetic that is free from the history of human struggle. I look forward to seeing if this technology can act as a bridge to a type of beauty that is light, accessible, and unapologetically fun.

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913–64 (“Ex Arturo,” one of two artist’s proofs). Photo by Rob McKeever from Gagosian Gallery

I am still searching for a peer inside the machine, but I am no longer looking for an artist who has suffered. I am looking for a designer of experiences. The future of AI art may not just be about reaching deep human truths through pain; it might be about discovering new human joys through the unbearable lightness of the machine.

Image: dataland LA

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