ARTECHOUSE DC — Attraction in Washington

2/5 Stars Immersive and Cool photo Op but Unethical/Gross use of AI "art".

I went to the Artechouse while they were running the Isekai exhibit. Which they claim is a "tribute to Anime and Manga and the cherry blossoms in Japan and the festival in the D.C. Area" The main room was really pretty and the bar looks cool, However, as I sat there and watched the looping show, I noticed some of the characters in the loop. (Videos Below) They had distorted features typically found in AI generated characters and art that could be found from DOLL.E or other AI generated images. I understand that the point of this place is the fusion of art and cutting edge tech but using AI that steals art from the artists this is supposedly a tribute feels extremely wrong.

The AI generated characters is extremely apparent in the side rooms where you can have a closer look at the art. (Pictures and Video Below). The final straw was this looping portal thing found in the room to the right where you leaned backwards or forwards and it would loop through time or something? I couldn't really tell because the art was such a AI smudgy mess that it was hard to even try to be immersed or give them benefit of the doubt.

Additionally, there was this robot arm that was drawing characters, and this was very telling to me because some of the characters have this drops at the end of their hair (A sign of AI generated art) as well as smudgy weird eyes, and conveniently none of which showed characters with hands or full body shots. (AI has a hard time generating hands and other appendages on the human body.) This same art can then be found on their merch at the front as well. Same smudgy and weirdly generated art. (Video below)

Can be a fun experience for children I suppose or good for a quick photo op but really disappointing and unethical display of "art" generated by algorithms. Something I could compare it to is the Van Goh experience, it had many similar themes and uses of tech but at least the experience is still based on a real artist while this uses no actual manga artist and is just AI generated slop. It is especially disappointing when they say it is suppose to be a "tribute to the manga art form" and disrespect it in a very blatant and...

I attended the ISEKAI: Blooming Parallel Worlds exhibit. DO NOT GO.

This exhibit was an insult to art and the medium of anime and manga. I am a frequent attender of artechouse, and despite the somewhat steep price, I’ve always enjoyed my visits.

Until now.

The overuse and poor execution of low-quality AI generations was by far my biggest gripe. Let me be clear – despite its controversies, I believe there can be a place for the discussion of AI technology, it’s ethics, and how rapidly its evolving, and artechouse would have been a very suitable place to discuss that given their focus on art, technology, and architecture.

That’s not what was here. Instead, what I was shown was the worst that AI can offer. I was met with blatantly cheap generations, clearly done in haste, without any effort made to correct any errors, all whilst the exhibit attempted to discuss the themes of anime and manga intersecting with today’s tech. It all felt like a cheap cash grab.

The sad part is there’s legitimately a lot of cool technology used at the artechouse. The projector is obviously a big pull, and its use has always been beautiful. The robotics used for drawing was a cool sight. The interactive manga panels were neat. Some of the giant screens to talk to anime characters were a cool draw.

But then all the art overlaying said technology was, again, low-grade AI.

I think if the use of the AI generations was more transparent on the exhibit website and there was a higher focus on its ethics and capabilities I wouldn’t have been so turned off. If there was even a smidgeon of effort to make the generations look good and not so cheaply made I wouldn’t have been as upset. Artechouse to me is supposed to represent the wonderful intersection of art, technology, and architecture; Thus I don’t believe my expectations of a high quality execution is unreasonable, especially given the price.

I have never left the artechouse feeling legitimately scammed before, but this was the epitome of what people are afraid of when it comes to AI. I paid for a product, entry into this exhibit – what I received was cheap, low-grade, honestly...

I really like ARTECHOUSE and have been fortunate enough to have gone to three exhibits there. There are pros and cons. First, depending on the exhibit, the quality varies. A good example would be the Cherry Blossom Festival exhibit of 2023 versus that of 2024. 2023 had the wonderful light immersion art in the main room, like the others but what was different was that there a variety of different technologies present in the smaller pieces on either side of the main room. There were clear Samsung monitors that had light diodes placed inside to look like cherry blossom branches. There were many of these panels hanging one after the other and as you passed each one a different note on a guitar was played. This encouraged several people or a group to work in tandem moving their bodies to create music. There were art pieces that reacted to your movements in a wild and surreal way. Such as a shadow of you that allows you to move your arms and unfold and flap butterfly wings. 2024 was underwhelming. The main room, perhaps due to its theme seemed limited in color and repetitive. What's more, my friend and I felt rather bothered that at the bar were art cards that using your smartphone projected 3D holograms when looking through your camera. Unfortunately for us, the 3 interactive cards had to be accessed via the app which is only available on IOS. The bartender was kind enough to show us on her phone, but I felt it was something that should have been available to everyone regardless of brand of phone. The side exhibits were redundant. All were just either images thaf moved a little when you moved, or spoke. And then these characters which prompt you to ask them questions to which everyone always said, I am an AI chatbot, so I cannot respond to that. I asked what their name was, if they had super powers, and where they were from since they were Manga characters. They couldn't answer any of those questions. I guess I really enjoyed my first time at ARTECHOUSE but I think they need to do a better job. Especially for the price which is a lot for such a...