Artificial General Artistic Intelligence
A concept by Nicola Harvey. First defined 22 October 2026.
Artificial General Artistic Intelligence (AGAI) is intelligence that understands an artwork the way the person who made it does: at its real size beside a body, in its time, with its rights, from inside its marks, and spoken for by a named person. It is general across the history of art, and it works for the artist.
AGAI meets every work at its actual size.
The question it answers
Most talk about AI and art asks whether the machine can make art. AGAI asks what an intelligence must hold to understand a work the way the person who made it does.
In 2023 Lev Manovich asked what a general artistic AI should be capable of, and answered that it should make no art of its own and give artists feedback and dialogue (Towards 'General Artistic Intelligence'?, Art Basel). He also wrote that today's image AI has no knowledge of the world, of history or of contemporary culture.
AGAI starts there and grounds it in the work as a thing in the world: its body, its time, its rights and its consent. Actual Size is where that is built and walked.
Five things a thumbnail loses
An artist knows a work by five things an image file drops. AGAI is general when it holds all five.
1. Scale
The work's real size beside a human body. Every work in Actual Size hangs at its recorded centimetres next to a 1.70 metre figure, from an eye miniature under 2 cm to a carpet almost 10 metres long.
2. Time
When the work was made and when its rights change. Five centuries hang on one spine, and a Public Domain Day room hangs itself each year with the works that came into the public domain on 1 January.
3. Consent
Whose work it is and what they allow. A work still in copyright hangs as a measured outline that says the day it opens, like Guernica. A living artist's room hangs from the artist's own record. Anyone can ask for a work to come down through the contact form.
4. Interior
How the work is made, from inside its marks. Step inside a painting and the canvas comes apart into its own dabs of paint around you: Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Cypresses.
5. Voice
Who speaks for the work, by name. The gallery's welcome and guided walks are written by Nicola Harvey and read in her own cloned voice. A living artist's room opens only from their own link.
6. The future, still to build
The living artist's record, owned by the artist and carried forward. The walls held for living artists are where it begins.
A companion and an advocate for the artist
AGAI stands with the artist. It is never the artist’s competitor. It keeps six commitments, and the gallery keeps each one now.
- It answers only from the record, and names it. Every work card and every work page has Ask this work: five questions, answered from the work’s own record, with the record linked.
- It makes no art of its own. The gallery shows works and lets you step inside them. It never generates a new work in an artist’s style.
- It credits by name, every time. Every card names the artist and the holder, and the credit line wherever the record has one.
- It sends people to the artist. Every card links to the holder’s record, and a living artist’s card links to the artist’s own page.
- Consent decides. A work in copyright hangs as an outline until it opens. A living artist hangs by invitation. Anyone can ask for a work to come down.
- The artist’s record stays the artist’s. A living artist’s room is an AGAI residency: the artist can read the whole record, download it, and have any work taken down.
How a person meets a work
People value a work through their body, its story, their trust in it, its craft, and who speaks for it. Those are the five pillars, and the visitor leads. The gallery opens with the work at its real size and waits to be asked.
Where to find it in the gallery
- Each room’s sign names the pillar it shows best: an artist’s room Scale, a room of an era Time, a room of outlines Consent, a living artist’s room an AGAI residency.
- Each work card has Ask this work.
- Each work’s own page answers the same five questions.
The practice
A way to meet any work, in order.
- Measure. Find its real size and who recorded it.
- Stand beside it. See it next to a body, yours.
- Place it in time. When it was made, and when it becomes everyone's.
- Step inside. Look at the marks it is made of.
- Hear who speaks for it. The artist, the holder, or the commons.
- Hand it on. For a living artist: their measurements, their record, their future.