Lures of Engagement: An Outlook on Tactical AI Art

Abstract

This paper aims to diversify the existing critical discourse by introducing new perspectives for the poetic, expressive, and ethical features of tactical media art that involves artificial intelligence (AI). It explores diverse approaches of AI artists and their effectiveness in critiquing the epistemic, phenomenological, and political aspects of AI science and technology. Focusing on the three representative thematic areas - sociocultural, existential, and political - it discusses the works that exemplify poetic complexity and manifest the ambiguities indicative of a broader milieu of contemporary art, culture, economy, and society. It shows that tactical AI art provides important insights into the AI-influenced world, with the potential to direct computational arts toward a socially responsible and epistemologically relevant expressive stratum. The closing sections summarize the major issues of tactical AI art and outline possible directions to tackle the challenges and advance the field.