Reporting
Ivory Coast: the place of AI at the heart of the 2024 International Meetings of Digital Arts
The International Digital Arts Meetings of Abidjan (Riana) 2024 will take place on April 4 and 5, 2024 at the Ivorian-Korean Sports, Cultural and ICT Center Alassane Ouattara (Csticao) in Abidjan. This 8th edition questions artificial intelligence and its place in art. Reporting.
Listen - 01:15
During the International Meetings of Digital Arts in Abidjan (Riana) 2024. © Marine Jeannin/RFI
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With our correspondent in Abidjan,
Marine Jeannin
David-Josué Oyoua's paintings are a mixture of photographs, computer-generated images and digital paintings with, more recently, a touch of artificial intelligence. As in this painting representing an epic scene during the Woyowoyanko War, which pitted
Samory Touré
against French colonists in the 19th century. “
AI was used for the extras, for the crowd. Before, it was a little difficult, because if I wanted to do that, I had to use 3D, and it was a long process. Today, with AI, it's possible to write what I want in software, and it generates a crowd. So “text to image”, “from text to image.”
»
“
It’s just a new tool, beyond the brush, beyond the camera, beyond the camera
”
For software architect and entrepreneur Jean-Patrick Ehouman, a specialist in AI, the challenge is not to fight it, fearing that it will end up replacing artists, but on the contrary to place artificial intelligence generative in the service of art. “
It's just a new tool, beyond the brush, the camera, the camera... In the field of art, AI is becoming a very, very powerful tool, whether it's in images, photos of course, audiovisual creation too... This year, generative AI allows us to make videos, films!
»
Workshops on digital creation and artificial intelligence will take place all day, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
One of the reasons why we try to set up this type of event, of activities, is also so that Africans, blacks and Ivorians especially, can appropriate everything that is around them. AI, both at the technological level and at the creative level. Because as long as we do not invest in this area to be able to also do things that can be significant, we will stay behind and this will always be the view of other inventors, engineers and all those who work around the world. AI, which will impose itself on us. However, we must also impose ourselves in this area, to be able to really direct things, to have more African representations, more African inventions. We saw that during, for example, the African Cup of Nations, we had lots of creations with AI, emblems of each country which were treated with AI. It's a way for young people today to be able to appropriate AI and create creations.
01:04
Ivorian visual artist and cultural operator Jacob Bleu, general commissioner of Riana
Marine Jeannin
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