Blog – Page 29 – Karyn Easton

Oct 24

by Karyn in Ai, Experimentation, My Work, Risk Taking, Threats, Videos 0 comments tags: ai, Experimentation, my work, Risk Taking, threats, Videos

Ai on the March

Saving Assets for Later – In the process of experimenting with Ai text to image, I generated a number of stills documented in my post Human Coding and Ai Generated Imagery for Animation. Currently I am waiting for some ‘Chladni’ equipment arriving from Ireland. Therefore, instead of wasting time, I decided to experiment with some of the small animations I made in that post. Video 1. A combination of Clips The video below was a composite of all of the short clips I generated from my software tutorial. I like the fluid motion of the clips and the way they spread. I feel this could be a visual metaphor for the relentless spread of Ai into our lives. Video 2. Ai from an Early Age The video below is an experiment moving on from video 1. I added an iPad and a cake and candle. This represents the march of Ai from an increasingly early age. Video 3. Ai on the March This was my preferred video from the series of experiments. It is a simple video short exploring the tentacle like spread of images across a screen. The calming music to each video is there to […]

Oct 23

by Karyn in Experimentation, My Learning, My Work, Research, Videos 0 comments tags: My Learning, my work, Research, threats, Videos

Generative Art Tutorial

Filling in Time – I was looking forward to putting together a video of of the work I was doing yesterday. Unfortunately the transfer of files from PC to MAC took longer than anticipated. Therefore, I decided to use this time productively to follow another Touch Designer software tutorial. This one only took me around 3 hours to complete. However, the results were quite beautiful. The imagery that is being produced has little or no bearing on my work. The imagery is merely a byproduct of my software learning process. My intention is to eventually use this software to produce my own generative art using my own images. However for now I continue to run up the steep learning curve. the video below is the result of my learning journey from the latest tutorial that I followed. As I have tweaked some of the parameters the imagery generated is all mine but I still need to work on my understanding of networks. I’ve included a short video of my network for illustrative purposes. Particles in Motion – Generative Art Using Touch Designer Software Here is the result from the tutorial. I find the fluid motion of the particles quite […]

Oct 21

by Karyn in Ai, Experimentation, My Work, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos 0 comments tags: ai, Experimentation, my work, Risk Taking, threats, Timelapse, Videos

Human Coding and Ai Generated Imagery for Animation

A Steep Learning Curve – Since learning all about text to image Ai technology, I decided to explore it further. Ai seems to be everywhere – if it were a living creature, I would liken it to one with tentacles – perhaps an octopus or a squid? It might also be likened to a tree with branches sprawling everywhere and with increasing speed crawls further into our lives. I suspect it will become ever more pervasive and how it is used, either for good or ill, will be down to us all. Running with the idea that Ai has tentacles and or branches, I decided to try a text prompt to see what Ai made of the request. I used ‘Tentacles, Branches, Network and Fractals’ as my main prompt. All of the images below were created from this text. I was pleased with the images above because I was looking for a good example image for a new visual programming tutorial I wanted to try. The tutorial was about generating a growing image. The tentacle-like images above seemed perfect for this, especially in relation to my thoughts about the tentacle nature of Ai. Below is the image that I chose […]

Oct 21

by Karyn in Disasters, Research 0 comments tags: Disasters

Disaster – Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Where’s the Silver Lining? – Yesterday was not a great day! I was unable to work on my blog because most of the day was spent trying to get it to display properly. I was annoyed because I had lost a full day of working on my visual programming tutorials. Not only was my blog page not loading properly but the homepage would not display it’s menus without swiping the screen on a mobile device. I tried just about everything I could think of to get my website working and sat up into the early hours of the morning but still no ‘joy’. However every cloud has a silver lining because I managed to speak with a man about a chladni kit (a way of visualising sound waves with sand). We had a long conversation and it so transpired that this person had similar interests to mine having completed a PhD at a University in Ireland while looking into sound and vibration. I intend to devote a separate blog post to the chladni kit when it arrives so I can go into more depth. However the takeaway message from yesterday was that every cloud really does have a silver […]

Oct 19

by Karyn in Luminograms, My Work, Research 0 comments tags: Luminograms, my work, Research

Action Research

What is Action Research? – Research is an important part of any art project and ‘Action Research’ is one way to approach this. Action research is a unique combination of ‘Action and Research’. In essence it is research by the practitioner into the practice to change and improve’. This link points to a video about Action Research. Below are some of the key points from the video. Some research questions – *The practitioner allows themself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which they find uncertain or unique. They reflect on the phenomenon before them, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in their behaviour. They carry out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation.* (Schön 1983: 68) Schön, D.A., (1983) *The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. *New York: Basic Boo 1. How do you respond to the encouragement to be surprised, puzzled and confused? 2. Donald Schön is not writing specifically about artists, so when he says ‘carry out an experiment’ what do you think that could look like for artists in general and specifically for you? Answers – In […]

Oct 18

by Karyn in Ai, My Work, Videos 0 comments tags: ai, my work, opportunities, threats, Videos

Risk Taking

Where Ai Isn’t? – At the moment it feels as if the tentacles of Ai text to image are reaching further and further into our artistic lives. As artists this poses both opportunities and threats. Opportunities come from the ease of image to text generation. Threats arise from the ‘cheapening’ of images, as anyone can produce beautiful imagery at the touch of a button. The whole Ai text to image debate has certainly changed my approach to working. I am now very mindful that anything I produce can be easily replicated with little or no creative input. In order to combat this I began to think about scenarios where Ai text to image in the art world is not yet fully residing. Some of these areas included: Where human interaction is required to initiate a response. Where photography is used as a historical tool for accurately representing the past The documentation of time as in time lapse photography In art and craft based physical structures In the unseen or the hidden (if Ai can’t see it, how can it replicate it?). The first area on the list was where human interaction was required to initiate a response. I […]

Oct 16

by Karyn in Ai, Introduction, My Work 0 comments tags: ai, Introduction, opportunities, threats

Art Without Meaning is Decoration!

Decoration – a Form of Meaningless Art? – In my last post titled ‘If I want Blue Bananas, I’ll have them’ I explored the ease of image generation using the new text to image tools from Midjourney, Dalle and Dalle 2. Indeed it would be very easy for me as an artist to take my existing body of work and create myself a whole new portfolio based on it. Below are some random examples of work generated using Dalle 2. I took some existing images, uploaded them to the Ai software and it ‘spat out’ the following pieces of work. However, the question in my mind is are the new images devalued by the use of Ai? Initially my work was an exploration of oil on water with light. The concept was about whether or not beauty could be found by mixing substances that typically repelled each other. I was fascinated by the way the oil lit up once light was added to it. This, for me, was like a metaphor for society. Anyone who is a fan of social media knows how savage it can sometimes be. I’ve heard Twitter likened to one big long shouting match. Having tried […]

Oct 14

by Karyn in Ai, Introduction 0 comments tags: ai, Introduction, my work

Blue Bananas

If I want blue bananas – I’ll have them! – Taking a more in-depth look at ai and text to image generation, I set myself a small challenge. There are one or two keen photographers that I follow on Facebook. They often post beautiful images of their travels. Therefore I wondered if only using their image descriptions I could replicate their imagery using only ai text to image generation. I found the results both intriguing and and frightening in equal measure. The slider below illustrates this. The images to the left of the slider were described by the photographer who shot them as: ‘Modern Dutch architecture reflecting in water during calm winds’. The image to the right of the slider was an ai generated image from the same description. I think the ai made a pretty good first attempt. I found this idea quite fascinating. Therefore, I proceeded to try replicating the work of other artists using only text prompts. Below I used the simple prompt: ‘Lighthouse with fireworks’. The ai once again did a pretty good job on a first attempt although with further text refinements it would probably improve further. […]

Oct 14

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Introduction, My Work 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Introduction, my work, opportunities, threats

Art and Ai

Has Ai Killed Art? – Ai or Artificial Inteligence/Machine Learning has been around for a while now, but never has it’s presence been more keenly felt than in and around the Creative Arts. Producing imagery was once the domain of illustrators and graphic designs. Now it appears that everyone with a computer/tablet/smartphone and a connection to Dalle and Midjourney can produce the most amazing images. At first as a photographer I didn’t feel particularly threatened by ai. I suspected that what I was producing was safe for a while and that everyone would always need good photographers? As a simple test I ran a text prompt through Midjourney – a text to image ai generator. The results to me seemed less than impressive. Below is an example of what I do and what ai thinks I do. To generate the image below I used the text prompt “Oil on Water”. I decided to give the ai a second attempt. Although the result was better, it was still significantly different from the kind of imagery that I was producing. Below is the second time I ran the prompt ‘oil on water’. Fortunately or unfortunately depending upon a […]

Oct 14

by Karyn in Introduction, My Work, Videos 0 comments tags: backstory, Introduction, my work, Videos

Starting an MA

The Backstory – Tuesday the 4th of October was a really exciting day for me because it was the first day of my MA studying Fine Art Digital. I met a number of fellow students online and we had some interesting conversations. Part of the course requires us to keep a blog – a journal of our creative journeys. I’ve had experience of creating blogs in WordPress and I’ve even run a basic WordPress workshop. However I am by no means an expert, so for this reason I was quite torn about my approach to this. I had two options – either I could start my MA blog from scratch, or I could repurpose an existing blog. I decided to choose the former. My thinking was that art is a creative journey and I’m just about to embark on some new travels. However, what I have already produced has ultimately led me to this point so I’m Adding a ‘backstory’ to help the viewer/reader understand my thinking. Where I have been creatively and where I am headed may be a good starting point. Below is a short video of an art book I created in order to pull together the […]

Ai on the March

Generative Art Tutorial

Human Coding and Ai Generated Imagery for Animation

Disaster – Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Action Research

Risk Taking

Art Without Meaning is Decoration!

Blue Bananas

Art and Ai

Starting an MA

Recent Posts

Categories

Tags

Recent Comments