The Whitney Museum of American Art showcases the exhibition ‘Harold Cohen: AARON’, featuring the pioneering artificial intelligence software developed by Harold Cohen. The show explores the historical significance of AARON in merging art and technology, providing insights into AI’s impact on creativity.
The Whitney Museum of American Art is currently showcasing an exhibition titled “Harold Cohen: AARON,” featuring the pioneering artificial intelligence software developed by the late Harold Cohen. The exhibition, organized by Christiane Paul, Curator of Digital Art, and David Lisbon, Curatorial Assistant, runs through May 19 at the museum located at 99 Gansevoort Street, West Village, Manhattan.
Harold Cohen, a London-born painter turned programmer, began developing the AARON software in the late 1960s until his death in 2016. The exhibition highlights Cohen’s innovative approach to merging art and technology, presenting his self-designed plotters and painting machines driven by AARON. Notably, it includes real-time drawing versions of AARON in the galleries and projections of the software in action, providing a comprehensive view of Cohen’s work.
The show underscores the historical significance of AARON, a “symbolic” AI based on simple, rules-based systems, contrasting it with modern AI’s reliance on large data sets.
“Harold Cohen: AARON” aims to explore and demystify the relationship between artificial intelligence and art, situating Cohen’s work within the broader narrative of AI’s impact on creativity and originality.
