Christie's: sold at auction for $432,000 the first work ... made in an algorithm

The first work of art created by an algorithm was auctioned at Christie’ s on October 25, 2018.

Thanks to the idea of the French collective Obvious, consisting of Hugo Caselles-Dupré, Pierre Fautrel, and Gauthier Vernier, anartificial intelligence created the Portrait of Edmond Belamy.
The canvas was created byprocessing fifteen thousand paintings, whose date of execution dates back to the period between the 14th and 20th centuries, and an algorithm that generates and discriminates a new image.

The portrait is one of eleven portraits depicting an imaginary family, and the surname Belamy is a tribute to Ian Goodfellow, the creator of the particular technology. At lower right, the painting bears the algorithm’s signature.

The work sold for $432,500 (the auction base was between $7 and $10,000) after a flurry of phone calls and bidding through Christie’s Live, the online platform that allows people to participate in the auction remotely and in real time. The buyer, however, remains anonymous.

Christie's: sold at auction for $432,000 the first work ... made in an algorithm

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