UK artist seeks selfies for AI-generated ‘national portrait’

A British artist on Thursday urged the public to contribute selfies so she can create a new “national portrait” with the help of AI for London’s National Portrait Gallery.

“There are 55 million adults in the United Kingdom. What if we could all be present in one picture — whatever our backgrounds or beliefs, however much we disagree with each other on so many things?” Es Devlin said of the concept.

The digital art project “reimagines what national identity could be”, the artist, who has been drawing portraits with chalks and charcoal for 30 years, told AFP in an interview.

Devlin had the idea to create a “national portrait” about three years ago and developed the digital method in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture Lab.

The huge-scale project would not be possible without the use of artificial intelligence to generate thousands of drawings that resemble her own style.

She appealed for UK residents aged 18 and over to take a selfie on a smartphone and upload it onto the website of the “collective artwork”.

The artist will then use AI tools to turn each photo into an image resembling a charcoal sketch, a process that takes just seconds.

At a launch presentation at the National Portrait Gallery, the first portraits created earlier that day were shown on a screen on the wall.

Each face was quickly sketched on screen, immediately followed by another, as if each person were blending into the next.

The images went on display alongside the gallery’s collection of portraits of notable figures, which include King Charles III, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, conservationist Jane Goodall and fashion doyenne Anna Wintour.

“We are all in this country together: let’s all be in this portrait, united,” Devlin urged British people at a press conference.

“We’re hoping that thousands of people all over the country will be participating as we speak,” said Victoria Siddall, director of the National Portrait Gallery.

The installation, on display until October, will create “a true portrait of the nation”, the director said.