“Elementy. Sztuka i Dizajn” Issue 10
AI. Creators and post-creative machines

We invite submissions for the tenth issue of Elementy. Sztuka i Dizajn, an academic journal published by the Publishing House of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

The launch of ChatGPT on 30 November 2022 by OpenAI can be seen as a symbolical entry into a brand new era of the research into and application of artificial intelligence, but also a technological and cultural transformation, or a fundamental civilisational “phase transition,” as Jacek Dukaj put it. While every sector of social infrastructure has been affected by it, we intend our discussion to centre on the effect of AI and algorithms on the changes occurring in art and design and in contemporary culture in the broad sense. The expansion of AI has been observed in all the iterations, forms and media of art: pictorial, sound, audiovisual, new-media and project-based. Material and immaterial. The development of AI technologies based on neural networks and machine learning algorithms is radically changing the face, status, methods and tools of contemporary creative practices, as well as their complex conditioning, in a relatively short time.

Today, the question whether (intelligent) machines can be creative seems problematic or even no longer relevant. It is rather the question of how the concept of creativity and the cooperation between man and machine alters that should be considered. Is it therefore right to talk about another artistic revolution as well as, more broadly, a fundamental change, a new cultural paradigm rooted in the ubiquitous algorithms and artificial intelligence being (or having been) constituted?

The need to work out new strategies of conceptualisation and a critical approach to new spaces of creation and experience, different to those we know – poses a challenge to both theorists and practicians. A look at the farthest horizon of things suggests that we are faced with the problem whether – just like the revolution of new, digital, interactive and social media forces us to come up with a post-media vocabulary and theoretical paradigm – the turn related to the expansion of AI forces us to think with the categories and schemata of post-creativity. That is, a creativity located beyond the established formulas legitimised by diverse traditions of examining creation within the domains of art and design. Nowadays, we could also say: of various content, not only regarding network activity, but any kind of cultural (production) creation.

In light of these problems, we suggest the following topics for exploration:

• Historical anticipations for AI art (algorithmic art, generative art, software art).
• Is creative partnership between human and computer still possible?
• Can (intelligent) machines be creative?
• Possibilities for the application of AI in the transformation of creative processes in various media.
• The generative art tradition of creative coding in the context of the art of creative prompting.
• The dynamic of proceduralisation, randomness and unpredictability in creative processes.
• New creative strategies in selected projects – do they indicate a new aesthetic of AI art and design?
• The effect of AI on the constituting of new models of production and postproduction in the audiovisual.
• The question of author/authorship.
• AI in new media art.
• Problems generated by the use of big data in the creation of language models (privacy, chatbot “hallucinations,” copyright, etc.).
• What are the limits of algorithmic creativity (and are they predictable today)?
• Algorithmisation of contemporary culture.
• Ethical, social and institutional risks inherent in the AI revolution – can/should AI art offer a critical response to them?

We expect papers written from multiple perspectives: explorations of the art that is made with algorithmic and generative procedures as well as theoretical, aesthetical and philosophical reflection on the revolution linked to the emergence of AI tools in artistic and design practices.

Guidelines for submissions:

Abstract deadline: 15 October 2025 (title + abstract: 1,500–2,000 characters)

Submission deadline (upon acceptance): 15 December 2025

Length: 20,000–35,000 characters (including footnotes and bibliography)

Peer review: All submitted articles are subject to double-blind reviews

Honorarium: 200 € for accepted article

Please send proposals to elementy@asp.krakow.pl

The Editorial Board

Elementy. Sztuka i Dizajn Issue 9
“Risk, Uncertainty, and Experiment”

We invite submissions for the 9th issue of the academic journal Elementy. Sztuka i Dizajn, published by the Publishing House of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

Uncertainty, risk, and experiment form a triad of concepts that first underpinned the avant-garde and later became key terms in narratives surrounding contemporary art. These ideas became embedded in the language describing artistic practice largely through literature—thanks to Émile Zola, who in the 1880s introduced the term “experimental novel”, emphasizing elements of the unknown and risk in artistic endeavors. As he noted, the very concept of experiment originates from scientific methodology and inherently involves uncertainty—a scientist never knows whether an experiment will succeed or whether it will confirm or refute a hypothesis.

Exactly 60 years ago, Allan Kaprow published his essay “Experimental Art.” As both an explorer of new artistic territories and a talented essayist, he mocked the established artists of his generation who had abandoned experimentation. He accused them of producing “art art”—works that were erudite, well-versed in art history, but never risky. They replicated familiar avant-garde styles, creating pieces that audiences and buyers could immediately recognize as art. Experimenters, like Kaprow himself, worked in a way that left them uncertain whether they had even created art at all. They embraced uncertainty and the unknown.

In 2014, Walter Robinson highlighted a slightly different aspect of experimentation by coining the term “zombie formalism.” He described essentially the same phenomenon Kaprow had ridiculed: a legion of success- and money-hungry creators taking shortcuts by copying once-revolutionary but now well-worn styles, producing simulacra of experimentation rather than genuine revolution—a pastiche of the very avant-garde that once thrived on risk, provocation, and self-doubt. A decade earlier, in a different artistic context, Artur Żmijewski seemed to follow a similar path, creating a perverse pastiche of the idea of experimentation in art (and science) by titling his re-enactment of Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment “Repetition.”

So what has become of experiment, uncertainty, and risk? Are these still essential categories in artistic practice? If not, where does art derive its prestige and legitimacy today? What language should we use to describe it? Can we still claim that art investigates, analyzes, critiques, and engages with pressing issues—that galleries and museums are laboratories for new practices and visions of social life? And if so, where do we find uncertainty, risk, and experiment today—in what practices, contexts, and media? What generates the discomfort that is both creative and inspiring?

These questions serve as the starting point for the 9th issue of “Elementy.” We encourage authors to reflect broadly on the role of experimentation in today’s art and culture—and whether questions about experimentation still matter or belong to the paradigm of contemporary art at all. Possible topics include:

• How has the concept of experimentation evolved from the 19th century to today? Does contemporary art still take risks, or has experimentation become merely a safe stylistic choice?
• Does art need a new definition of experiment?
• Should the goal of experimentation be primarily to produce new artistic quality, or simply to introduce unpredictability, trend-breaking, and procedural disruption into the art world?
• Why do avant-garde “failures” (e.g., unrealized utopias, incomplete or abandoned projects) now hold museum, economic, and archival value?
• To what extent does the logic of today’s art world allow an artistic experiment to “spiral out of control”? How much risk of failure is acceptable in a professionalized art system?
• How do we move from Dadaist chance to algorithmic unpredictability? Is this continuity or rupture? Is AI art a new form of experimentation or merely a simulation of creative risk?
• How do glitch art and other techniques based on deliberate system failures challenge traditional notions of agency and control in art?
• What connects art and science today? Were these ties ever meaningful, or were they merely metaphors taken too seriously by some?
• Is the pseudo-scientific language used to describe artistic practice (e.g., problem analysis, research, testing, laboratory, or even experimentation) still relevant?
• How do uncertainty and risk in art relate to contemporary crises—migration, geopolitical tensions, climate change?
• How does art justify its social relevance in an era some call “post-artistic”?
• Is Anthropocene and post-apocalyptic art merely an aestheticization of fear, or a tool for constructive and effective critique?
• Are “uncertainty” and experiment still artistic categories, or just commodities in the “experience economy”?
• How do risk-, uncertainty-, and experiment-based practices define creators’ responsibilities?
• How is risk distributed in the interconnected art world? Who takes greater risks—the artist, curator, institution, or collectors—and how can we measure and describe this risk?
• As experimental artistic practice declines, is there a growing potential for experimental art theory and criticism?
• What does risk mean psychologically—emotionally and existentially—as an element of every creative process? Is creation only possible where there is a risk of failure, rejection, or disintegration?
• How do artistic professions compare to others in terms of risk?
• Authors are requested to submit their paper proposals in the form of an abstract (up to 500 words) to: elementy@asp.krakow.pl