On a defence of art that in reality defends two other things
Una columna reciente en El País, firmada por Jordi Labanda, se titula «Contra el arte automático» y resume su tesis en una línea: un algoritmo no pinta porque no soporta existir, ni existe porque tenga miedo a la muerte, ni compone porque alguien le rompió el corazón un verano. Frase bien hecha, condensa, con eficacia retórica, dos confusiones que conviene separar. No respondo al autor, cuya posición es legítima y comprensible. Respondo al argumento: el argumento dice más de lo que pretende.
The column presents itself as a defence of art against automation. I maintain that it actually defends two other distinct things: the art market and a romantic theory of art. Neither of these is art. Mixing them—sliding from one to the other without warning—gives the column its apparent strength and its real weakness.
1. The first shift: from art to the art market
Cuando se defiende «el arte» frente a la máquina, preguntar de qué se habla exactamente. Buena parte de la inquietud ante el arte generativo no es por el arte: es por el mercado del arte y por el mercado del diseño. Son cosas distintas, sometidas a reglas distintas.
The art market is governed by the rules of the market—scarcity, speculation, price narrative, concentration in an elite. I developed this in another text in this notebook: the high-end art market operates today under financial logic, and that logic mistreats the vast majority of artists, save for a small, privileged minority. Graphic design is governed by even more explicitly commercial rules: those of marketing, not even those of the art market. When the machine threatens that terrain, what is being defended is a position in a value chain, not an ontology.
Esa defensa es legítima. Que la automatización precarice a ilustradores, diseñadores y artistas que vivían de un oficio es un problema real, grave, y merece respuesta —sindical, legal, regulatoria—. Pero es un problema de trabajo y de mercado, no de arte. Confundirlos tiene una consecuencia: usa la dignidad de la palabra «arte» para blindar una posición de mercado. La emoción que despierta defender «el arte frente a la máquina» se transfiere, sin que lo notemos, a la defensa de un sector económico. Movimiento retórico eficaz y conceptualmente tramposo. El mercado maltrata a los artistas; usar ese maltrato real para definir qué es el arte es usar una verdad para sostener un error.
2. The second shift: from art to the interiority of the author
The other slippage is more profound, and it pulses within the phrase about the broken heart.
The column defines art by the suffering of the author: one paints because one cannot bear to exist, one composes because someone broke one's heart. This is an expressive definition of art—art as the discharge of human interiority—with a long romantic tradition behind it. Yet it is a position, not an obvious truth. And it is open to debate.
The issue is not that human emotion is irrelevant to art. It is relevant, and intensely so, in the mode of art that has dominated history. The issue is conflating the historically dominant mode with the necessary condition. That much human art has been born of pain does not mean that pain is what makes something art. There is art without suffering—decorative, conceptual, constructive, playful—and there is suffering without art—the vast majority of human pain produces nothing. Correlation is not definition.
Cuando se define el arte por la interioridad del autor, la pregunta por la máquina queda decidida de antemano y por tautología. «La máquina no sufre, luego no hace arte.» Eso no es un argumento: es la conclusión metida en la premisa. Si defines el arte como expresión del sufrimiento, por supuesto que lo que no sufre no hace arte. Has ganado el debate definiendo las palabras a tu favor. Has dejado sin examinar la pregunta interesante: ¿es el sufrimiento del autor lo que constituye el arte, o es solo la vía por la que los humanos hemos llegado a él?
3. What art is, if it is neither of those two things
I have been maintaining, in my work, that art is defined neither by the market that prices it nor by the interiority of the one who makes it. It is not the price it reaches nor the pain from which it is born. It is something else: an event that reorganises a field of possibilities without being absorbed by the function from which it arises. I call it structural surplus, and I have developed it elsewhere.
From that perspective, the column is read with clarity. Its two shifts are, at heart, the same error with two faces: anchoring art in something that is not the artistic event. The market anchors it in price; romanticism anchors it in the suffering of the subject. Both lose the same thing: that art occurs, or does not occur, independently of who signs it and how much is paid for it. A work can be born of a broken heart and produce no surplus whatsoever—being pure sentimental discharge without reorganising anything. And a configuration can produce surplus without a pained biography behind it.
Por eso la pregunta por el arte generativo no se zanja diciendo «la máquina no sufre», igual que no se zanja diciendo «la máquina no vende». Las dos respuestas cambian de tema. La pregunta seria es si en un proceso —humano, maquínico o mixto— se produce esa reorganización que desborda la función, o si todo queda absorbido por ella: por el encargo, por el efecto, por el mercado, por el desahogo. Esa pregunta no la responde ni la biografía del autor ni su factura. La responde el acontecimiento.
I do not write this against those who fear for their profession. That fear is legitimate and the precariousness that fuels it is real. I write against the confusion that converts a market problem and a romantic aesthetic preference into a definition of art, and that shields both with the word that commands the most respect. Defending artists from the mistreatment of the market is necessary. But art is not defended by defining it by what the market pays or by what the author suffers. Art is what occurs when something, wherever it came from, reorganises what we believed possible. That is not priced by the market nor guaranteed by a broken heart.
This notebook remains open, as always, to anyone who wishes to discuss it.
Sources
Labanda, J. (10 June 2026). Against automatic art. El País, ICON Design. https://elpais.com/icon-design/2026-06-10/contra-el-arte-automatico.html
Esteban Ruiz, J. A. Art as an asset. Public notebook at juanesteban.art, 2026. (On the financialisation of the art market and the structural mistreatment of artists.)
Esteban Ruiz, J. A. Art as Structural Surplus: Toward a Relational Ontology Beyond Human Authorship. PhilArchive and Zenodo, 2026. (On art as surplus, versus expressive and market definitions.)