A Hundred Thousand Lousy Cats (exploring drawing, AI and creativity)

This paper introduces a practice-led project that uses the Google Quick, Draw! project and dataset to explore the potential differences of algorithmic machine or digitally constructed drawings, and fictional associative hand-drawings. The authors use both digital 20-second sketching (the rule set for the Quick, Draw! Project) and more elaborate drawings and collages to then analyse and speculate about the results of these types of visualisations. At this phase of research it seems obvious to label and move the machine drawing to the reductive, the handdrawn to the more complex and associative realm but we seek to unpack this binary. Artificial intelligence and machine-learning are producing a wealth of creative projects, we select a couple of case studies to speak to particular visual artefacts that derive from algorithmic processing. For instance, the (IBM AI) Watson-composed film trailer for Morgan is considered as a creative artefact and looked at for its apparent allure and effect on a creative process. Through this inquiry we contemplate surprises and mistakes that come naturally when producing hand-made works, exploring then, what it means to draw and to work within classification systems in an algorithm-leaning world.