Syntax Error: Painting is Dead, Long Live Painting

About this episode

The episode explores the intersection of contemporary painting, AI, and the laws surrounding art, featuring a humorous account of Melletios's experience at the Salon des Refusés.

In this episode our painting is selected for the Salon des Refusés, and Melletios goes to the opening. He embarrasses himself but somehow makes friends with Craig Foster. Meanwhile Tim tries to start, but Melletios needs to know what brand of salt Tim puts in his hair. Eventually Tim discusses Effigy Attack and the laws around paintings being treated as actual humans (for the purposes of being hanged during the French revolution). If a painting can come alive so it can be harmed, how can we think of contemporary painting and AI as the ghost of deep traumas in excess of photography? How can we think of the new laws around AI generated porn as the tip of the iceberg? Where each AI image holds the traces of the image based work and extractive mining that are required for the spectacle to appear. Can “alive” paintings reveal that ‘truth emerges through art as revelation rather than representation’ (Bogna Konior, 2026). Links: Blak Douglas Artist Website Karla Dickens at AGNSW Website Laurel Nakadate Artist Website Wangechi Mutu at MoMA Up in the Sky by Tracey Moffatt 1997 War in the Age of Infinite Evidence: On AI-Generated War Photography, Bogna Konior, 2026 Seeing Against Seeing by…

People in this episode

Hosts: Melletios Kyriakidis, Tim Gregory

Guest: Craig Foster

Topics covered

• contemporary painting
• AI and art
• Salon des Refusés
• laws around paintings
• AI-generated content
• art as revelation

Keywords

• painting
• AI
• Salon des Refusés
• Effigy Attack
• art laws
• contemporary art
• photography
• Bogna Konior
• Alexey Yurenev

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: AGNSW, MoMA

Books & works: Effigy Attack, Up in the Sky, War in the Age of Infinite Evidence: On AI-Generated War Photography, Seeing Against Seeing

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