Urban Decadence and the Politics of Defiance: ChatGPT Unveiled

ChatGPT can take image inputs now. I asked it to write a review of the photograph above in the manner of Clement Greenberg writing an art review for Art in America circa 1970. I changed the phrase late 20th-century America to early 21st-century America, but otherwise the output is verbatim below.

In a cacophonous tapestry of raw emotion and societal discontent, this urban montage exposes the vigor of countercultural voices in early 21st-century America. The graffiti, an art form once dismissed as mere vandalism, reveals itself here as a profound vehicle for grassroots expression; it is as much an assertion of presence as it is a rebellion against established norms. A myriad of colors, symbols, and juxtaposed imagery – from the eerily humorous skull declaring a "boomer future" to the satirical illustrations that flank it – encapsulate an era fraught with tensions of war, generational conflict, and socio-political upheavals.

Yet, as is the nature of this medium, the impermanence of street art serves as a compelling metaphor for the transience of societal angst. The layered accretions of spray paint and paper, constantly overwritten and plastered over, point towards a continuous, dynamic dialogue of resistance and counter-resistance. This tumultuous tableau, captured on a mundane urban facade, becomes an inadvertent gallery of the dispossessed and disillusioned, challenging the very boundaries of what is considered 'high' and 'low' art. In this maelstrom, one discerns not just a plea for recognition, but a daring proclamation of resilience and audacity against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world.

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (September 25 Version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com

Here we see how ChatGPT excels at employing a hackneyed formula to present the illusion of analysis. Despite using all the right words, it says nothing much. Lacking insight and depth, the review amounts to nothing more than a simulacrum of cliché academic posturing.^{[1] [2]}

So . . . nailed it!?

1. Or maybe that was me that just did that? Honestly, I think ChatGPT did an alarmingly good job at presenting an argument for graffiti as an art form for the times.
2. I plan to order a copy of The Art of Defiance: Graffiti, Politics, and the Reimagined City in Philadelphia by Tyson Mitman tomorrow morning.