Ai – Karyn Easton

Augmenting the Book

Augmenting the Balance of Power Book – As part of my body of work I felt that it was really useful to produce an explanatory book all about the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ mobile. When I began the journey into the augmentation of the book I hadn’t really planned to shoot many clips, just enough to fill any gaps in my final film (Film Mark 2) and to give a flavour of the fully augmented book. However, as I began creating each clip I decided to go ahead and augment the full book. This needed to be done anyway as it will form part of my body of work. Once each of the pages had been augmented with video I decided to run all of the clips together to see how it looked. What I hadn’t necessarily expected was that the total length of the resulting film was just over 7 minutes. I wondered therefore, would it be possible to trim and tweak these clips to make the resulting film exactly 5 minutes? My thinking was that this would afford me yet another possibility in terms of films to choose from. I was also keen to experiment […]

Apr 15

by Karyn in Ai, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: ai, Unit 3 Blogs

Artwork Stolen?

Have I been Trained? – I thought this was quite an interesting find. If you would like to know if any of your artwork has been taken without consent and used in an algorithmic dataset then do a search at ‘Have I Been Trained’. I found numerous photos of mine had been used without permission. It was an interesting exercise to say the least. Luckily there are tick boxes that if checked will ask for your image to be removed if you so wish. Taken Without Permission Below are a number of images of mine that came up in the search. Each image below was shot by me and subject to copyright should I chose to enforce it. Until I became aware of the ‘Have I Been Trained’ website, I was unaware they were taken or used to train an algorithm. It was all done without my knowledge or permission.

Mar 03

by Karyn in Ai, Opportunities, Threats, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: ai, opportunities, threats, Unit 3 Blogs

In Other News

Ameca Voice Cloning – There doesn’t seem to be a day going by that doesn’t involve a new announcement about advances in AI. I wholeheartedly believe that all artists should make themselves fully aware of both the opportunities and threats presented by this. Ameca is a highly advanced robot that I mentioned in my research paper. Even since writing that paper things have substantially moved on. Below is a short clip of Ameca speaking using the voices of famous people. In my opinion to say that we are rapidly approaching a ‘post truth society’ is an understatement. I think it’s already here.

Feb 16

by Karyn in Ai, Research, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: ai, Research, Unit 3 Blogs

SORA

The Right Choice – Today I made yet another AI discovery called SORA by OpenAI. This completely convinced me that working in the physical (with my mobile) was the right choice. I have used text to video generators in the past, but this software, just like ChatGPT seems to be on another level! Sadly, I don’t have access to this technology yet as I think it’s currently still in beta testing. However, as soon as I do I will post an update. I’m actually quite proud to say that having explored AI generated art I am finding a way forward with it. In my original study statement I wanted to explore new forms of human, digital and AI art combined, and I still believe this is a good model for many artists going forward. SORA Explained Here is an excellent video that sums up some of the capabilities of SORA. Given the nature of what I’m currently exploring in my project work, this software definitely warrants further exploration. AI Art Explained I thought that I had already posted this video as it is a particularly useful one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it. Given that this post is about […]

Feb 02

by Karyn in 3d, Ai, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: 3d, ai, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs

Athena

Athena the Robot – I decided that I couldn’t launch into my final major project without Athena my robot from Unit 2. As my work now involves looking at Art from the perspective of a computer or robot, I felt I needed some form of robotic representation in my my final piece. I have made a conscious decision not to use text to image AI art in my work. Therefore, it was important to have Athena come to life in a very physical way. Working with 3d printable files from the PIB project. I am collaborating with Jamie Easton to produce my very own 3d printed robot ‘Athena’.

Nov 18

by Karyn in Ai, My Work, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: ai, my work, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Three Minute Video

Athena’s Story – We were asked if we would like to put together a 3 minute video explaining our work. I thought that it would be really nice to tell the story of Athena the robot who was an integral part of my Research Paper. Although this isn’t a video of me explaining my work, it does shed some light on my thinking. The sad robot story also aligns well with the findings of my Research Paper, which posits that AI art reception may improve when delivered by a humanoid robot with a sorrowful ‘backstory’. The whole project from start to finish was produced using only a smartphone. The initial graffiti images were shot on my iPhone 12 Max Pro. The AI animated clips were generated online and accessed via my smartphone. The video assembly was also done via app on my smartphone. The resulting project encompasses a hybrid model of physical human art (the book and graffiti), coupled with digital art (used to design layouts and tweak colours) and AI art used in the generation of some videos and images. In the actual physical augmented book all of the music is also AI generated. There is also the notion […]

Love Letters From AI

Hidden Art – When I first began my MA, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do. Ultimately I knew it would be something to do with the hidden or the unseen. Initially I began looking at invisible phenomena such as sound waves and the passage of time. However, nothing captured my interest quite as much as augmented reality. It was this whole concept of a hidden unseen world (only accessible to those ‘in the know’), that intrigued me. While conducting research for my Research Paper I discovered that there is a distinct negative bias towards AI generated art. I looked at a number of strategies to help mitigate this bias. Finally, after a number of image polls, used to inform my project, I created a fictitious robot called Athena. Her name was inspired by the old Athena posters from the past. My research was suggesting that humanoid robots with a sad ‘backstory’ could help to reduce bias and win over an audience when presenting AI art. At this point I began to develop a narrative for my robot. During a visit to Barcelona, I was completely amazed by the sheer weight of graffiti adorning the city walls. I […]

Research Paper Thoughts and Background

Research Paper 3 – Thoughts, Background and Final Version That’s it – no more! Yesterday and today became the ‘final straw’ with my research paper! Why? Because yesterday my ‘dying’ on its ‘last legs’ MacBook Pro decided that it was going to literally lose all of my research papers and drafts. I know it’s somewhat unbelievable but this actually happened! Months of hard work seemed to have disappeared in front of my eyes. The files were no longer there! I tried opening programs that I had used to construct the last version of my paper, but it was always the same message ‘File cannot be found’. I even convinced my self that there was some evil hacker trying to sabotage my work, that’s how upset I was. At one point I even thought I must be having a nightmare and that I would wake up soon. As I had been editing the document in Adobe’s PDF editing program I thought to myself, ‘Ha’ there will be a copy stored in Adobe’s creative cloud. So, feeling somewhat smug, I looked at my recent documents there, only to discover that on opening my research paper it gave an error message saying ‘bad […]

Oct 27

MACBA Metamorphosis

Barcelona’s Hidden Artists – While visiting Barcelona, I became fascinated with the vast swathes of graffiti covered walls. It felt as if collectively everyone had given up on cleaning the walls. Indeed, it felt as if the walls themselves had become works of art. In stark contrast I also noted the pristine internal walls of the MACBA (One of Barcelona’s contemporary art museums). I was so ‘taken with’ the beautiful light inside of the MACBA that I decided to photograph it. I also photographed many graffiti laden walls across Barcelona. There really was a such a stark contrast between the pristine and the messy that I began to wonder what the MACBA would look like if it was plastered in graffiti? The internal walls of the MACBA were so beautifully clean that I felt an irresistible urge to ‘plaster’ them. The vibrant colours and designs found externally on the Streets of Barcelona seemed a logical choice. Unfortunately, my dream of taking spray paints to the MACBA walls was pretty much out of the question. However, I did have access to Photoshop, Ai and augmented reality. As a direct result of my thinking I managed to self publish 3 small art […]

Oct 11

by Karyn in 3d, Abstract Art, Ai, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, My Work, Photography, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: 3d, Abstract Art, ai, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, my work, Photography, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs

Grotto Print Ideas #2

Adding Value – I quite like the idea of ‘Killing Time’ and the oil on water re-imagined clocks. However, I do feel that there needs to be some level of interactivity with my Grotto print. I decided that since posting the video short included in the Grotto Print Ideas blog, more of the clocks needed to be shown. This is pure experimentation and the full video can be seen below. A couple of years ago I began to explore Paul’s book. I felt that the nature of the folds created within would lend themselves very well to warping the clock faces and dials even further. Killing Time – Calming Edit As well as the calming edit, I also produced a shorter more rousing video short, showing the clocks animated as they warp and destruct. This is more in keeping with the idea of ‘Killing Time’. I’m debating whether or not to include these either one or both of these digital edits as part of the print sale? At this point in time it is just a thought. I’ve a long long way to go before I make a firm decision. I’ve also had another idea regarding […]