Art
Oh My Diebenkorn
Overview
Oh My Diebenkorn is an exploration of how humans perceive, interpret, and translate abstract art. Through a combination of structured observation, narrative gathering, and computational image-making, the project investigates the personal and collective lenses through which we see.
Phase One — Individual Perception
Twenty-two participants viewed Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park No. 68 and wrote short descriptions of what they saw. Their words were used as prompts in an AI image-generation system to produce new interpretations. The resulting pieces reveal how differently people experience the same artwork—expansive variations shaped by memory, emotion, and visual bias.
Phase Two — Collective Patterns
Using UX research methods, I surveyed 200 Americans and asked them to describe several artworks, including Ocean Park No. 68. ChatGPT was used to cluster their descriptions into thematic categories and create concise summaries. These summaries were then translated into MidJourney prompts, generating a series of images that reflect broader cultural patterns in how viewers respond to abstraction.
The final triptych—drawn from categories that surfaced negative reactions and dynamic color experiences—highlights how collective perception can be both fragmented and unexpectedly coherent.