This campaign uses AI to turn Twitter's trending topics into artwork

We've seen a handful of marketers from Heinz to Nestle experimenting with AI creative platforms recently. Now, a new campaign from German art museum the Woods Art Institute is using Dall-E 2 software to translate trending Twitter topics into works of art.

The Hamburg-based institute is working with agency Ingo Hamburg to generate real-time art pieces that starting today will appear on its social channels and billboards around Germany.

The first examples, some of which are seen here, include art generated on news topics highlighted in hashtags such as  "#Queen Elizabeth," "#FacebookDown" and "#energyprices." However, the images will change in real-time as the worldwide trending topics shift during the two to three weeks that the campaign will run. According to the agency, certain topics such as those centered around a named person (such as Putin), cannot be processed by Dall-E so won't appear in the push. 

With the campaign, the Woods Art Institute aims to attract the attention of Gen Z and millennial visitors, as well as to create a stimulus for discussion about the limits of art. INGO Hamburg worked with design technology firm Magig Design + Technologies on bringing the tech to life. The campaign comes as agencies and marketers alike are experimenting with tech such as Dall-E 2; Heinz recently used it in an extension of its "Draw Ketchup" campaign. 

“It is impressive and frightening at the same time how far artificial intelligence has come in this area," said Tobias Ahrens, managing director and chief creative officer at Ingo Hamburg, in a statement. "The many questions that this raises for our industry are what I find particularly fascinating."

"I am less interested in the question of whether the result is art or not," added the Institute's founder Rik Reinking, one of the leading collectors in Europe. "I understand the experiment as a bridge towards art.”