A.EYE CANDY: A Museum of Imaginary Robots and Other Digital Delights

Sure to dazzle your senses and inspire your imagination, A.EYE CANDY presents some deliciously bizarre, intriguing and weird images. It includes a variety of different robots, robots that are creating art, strange and odd imaginary creatures, and abstract "art-like" images. This lovely collection will keep you coming back again and again with an increased delight in every viewing. For anyone interested in imaginary robots, robot artists, surreal animals, abstract art, and/or the generative AI revolution, this "must have" coffee table book offers an absolute treasure trove.   

"In this lively book, Corey Anton reminds us that AI can be productively employed to stimulate the imagination. The sophisticated, often goofy (often both) characters are funny, tragic, creative and unique. The 'Imaginary art exhibition' contains kaleidoscopic images which resist definition in the same way that great artworks resist definition. Whether you approach this book as a collection of artworks, or a compendium of AI imagery - A.EYE Candy is an entertaining exploration of the modern hybrid imagination."    

--Dom Heffer, Artist (UK) 

"In his uniquely brilliant way, Corey Anton has crafted A.EYE Candy to advance both wisdom about the explosion of generative AI and inspiration for its use. By thoughtfully and expertly exploring the potential of AI as its own artistic medium, Anton has brought forth emotionally evocative and appealing imagery, inviting us all to suspend judgment of AI's capabilities and partake in intriguing new ways of creating, seeing and knowing."   

--Julianne Newton, Professor of Visual Communication & Director of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program, University of Oregon  

"Prepare to go fishing with Corey Anton. In his introduction, Anton advances fishing as a helpful metaphor for the process of tweaking and refining the prompts that reeled in all the gorgeous AI-generated images in this book. And what a museum they comprise: a potent cocktail of whimsy and nightmare fuel. You'll see robots, robot artists, a bestiary beyond human imagining, and abstract spaces where forms struggle to assert themselves. Is it art? With a general semanticist's distrust of the copula of identity, Anton unasks that question, choosing to foreground human intent, which was "to generate images that are aesthetically pleasing." Whether you're gazing in wonder at Escher-y scenes, considering an armadillo-tardigrade chimera or puzzling out the Bosch-like forms slithering through less figurative pieces, you're sure to find something that challenges your perceptions in interesting ways. So grab the chum bucket and get ready to experience the rapture of the deep." 

--John McDaid, Adjunct Professor, Roger Williams University 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Acknowledgements  

Welcome to the Museum 

Exhibit One: A Range of Robots  

Exhibit Two: Robot Artists 

Exhibit Three: Fantastical Animals 

Exhibit Four: Imaginary Art Installation  

Appendix A: Eye Gari