Title: A Medium That Thinks: AI and Media Cognition

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Tags: Article, 2026, selected

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Lev Manovich, A Medium That Thinks: AI and Media Cognition, 2026. 

##Abstract:


Lev Manovich, A Medium That Thinks: AI and Media Cognition.


This is the first part of my article (in progress) that analyzes properties of GenAI as an artistic medium. 

Some of these properties are common for all computational generative media, but many others are unique to generative AI. This part considers 6 properties - and 5 of them are specific to GenAI.

Unlike all previous media, generative media thinks: it reasons, understands images, and possesses encyclopedic knowledge of art history, techniques, and the styles of thousands of individual creators. I call property "media cognition.” 

GenAI outputs can have infinite variation and be unpredictable on many dimensions (e.g, composition, colors, tones, objects, etc.) This medium introduces degrees of freedom into creative practice that have no real precedents outside of certain 20th-century experimental art and performance traditions. 

Generative media replaces the digital artwork’s lack of uniqueness with something new: not identical copies, but endless variations. We are moving from the era of mechanical reproduction (Benjamin) to the new period of "machine variability."