The Art of Generative Narrativity

TL;DR

This paper explores artistic approaches to narrativity in generative AI, emphasizing non-verbal and experiential storytelling methods that challenge traditional human-centric models and highlight cultural impacts.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for understanding artistic generative narrativity beyond human mimicry, focusing on non-verbal forms and audience experience in AI-generated works.

Findings

Highlights artistic approaches to generative narrativity

Analyzes exemplars with unique methodologies and attributes

Assesses cultural influence and societal implications of AI storytelling

Abstract

Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) technologies have transformed the computer science discipline of natural language processing. However, generative AI retains the anthropomorphic model of simulating human narrative construction and verbal communication whereas, for artists, the ideational exploration is often more important than human mimicry or even plausibility in storytelling. It sometimes leads to generative experiments with non-verbal forms or events that have the potential to incite narratives through the audience's experience of the works' functionalities, backgrounds, and contexts. In this paper, we focus on such artistic approaches to narrativity. In five central sections, we discuss interrelated exemplars whose conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and other attributes anticipate or underscore the issues of contemporary linguistic automation based on massive datafication and statistical retrospection. In closing sections, we summarize the expressive features of these exemplars and underline their value for critically assessing generative AI's cultural influence and fallouts.