Experimentation – Karyn Easton

Mar 18

by Karyn in Collaborations, Experimentation, Lectures, Materials, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops 0 comments tags: Collaborations, Experimentation, Lectures, Materials, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops

Mattering Life Day #1

Grow Lab Intro, Lectures and Workshop – Today was the first day of the ‘Mattering Life’ Programme. Firstly, I needed to attend the ‘Grow Lab’ at 10.00am for an induction session. Here we went through everything we needed to be safe while using the lab. Heather Barnett – Introductory Talk After completing our induction session Heather introduced us all to the people we would be working with throughout the week. We filled out our consent forms and she also gave an introductory talk. I have included a selection of slides for reference. A Selection of Intro Slides Talk By Nick Lane Next we had a talk by Nick Lane which helped to highlight some of the problems that science was facing when trying to define ‘What is Life?’ and ‘What is Living’ Below are a selection of slides for reference. Nick Lane – Selection of Slides Masahiko Hara The next talk was by Masahiko Hara, who posed the question ‘What is Colour, Fundamentally?’ On balance it would seem that colour is as a result of brain perception as opposed to eye perception. The eyes ‘see’ but it is the brain that actually decoded the […]

Mar 02

by Karyn in Experimentation, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs

Experimental Time-Lapse

Interesting, But it’s a No –

Jan 22

by Karyn in Experimentation, Final Major Project, My Learning, My Work, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Final Major Project, My Learning, my work, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Blogpost 200

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – After working solidly for two days over the weekend, I finally finished the first prototype for the mobile. I felt on the whole it was pretty good. However, the sheer weight of the project even at this scale was pretty bad. Balancing the elements was also an absolute ‘nightmare’. This meant that some of the spacing between the mobile elements was pretty ugly. The short time-lapse video below shows roughly how many elements went into making three quarters of the mobile (some elements were already strung). I always imagined cardboard to be quite light but after this project I’ve come to revise my view. On the whole I do think that the prototype was a success – not because it was perfect or anything like that, but because of what I had learned during the whole process. First Looks Below is a very short video of the mobile. As I was concentrating on the movement of the video there is nothing to show scale. The mobile turned out to be around 6ft tall in the end! I had envisioned something much smaller and lighter. Alternative Music […]

Hanging Around

Choosing a Suitable Stringing Method – Choosing suitable materials and a hanging method for my mobile has to be one of the most challenging aspects so far. I’m way beyond my comfort zone with this! Noah one of my fellow students shared a link by the creative force that once was, namely David Bowie. Im going to put what he said here so that when I struggle I’ve got a point of reference to start things moving again. Today, having produced enough mobile elements to explore hanging and stringing I started running into multiple problems. Some of these included: 1). What kind of stringing method would I like to use 2). How do I arrange the elements neatly enough so that the viewer understands them as binary. 3). What materials should I use to actually string and hang the mobile? 4). Will a smaller prototype actually translate into a much larger one? The problems above were to name only a few. I spent the evening trying to source suitable hanging materials. I managed to source a very good older pdf on the subject of mobile making which helped a lot! How to Make Mobiles How to […]

Jan 03

by Karyn in Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs

Mobile Designs

Getting the Timings Right – Having reversed the concept of how humans perceive AI art, to how computers perceive images, I decided to consider potential designs. At this stage I am still thinking in terms of a large mobile. However, I would like to base the mobile’s design on binary code. The binary code will conceal a hidden message relevant to my overall project. Using binary code might at first appear to be a superficial idea, but actually the concept goes much much deeper. Early Experimentation In my early experimentation I used a circle to represent the zeros and I cut out holes in the ones. I am not convinced that this works particularly well and it is extremely time consuming! Below is an image of some of the prototypes I made. Further Experimentation I felt the above prototypes were quite bland, probably wouldn’t move very well and didn’t leave a much surface area for designs. I decided that an oval shape was much better than a circle for representing the zeros. I used layers of recycled cardboard and recycled printer paper along with some of my own black and white designs. I think that the second […]

Nov 19

Epic Making Session

Yaacov Agam Inspired Work – Over many months now I have been wrestling with a myriad of ideas. In my Study Statement I was keen to develop a new form of hybrid human, digital and AI art. I also wanted to include an element of mystery and discovery whereby elements of the work were hidden. During my search for inspiration I came across two artists that particularly resonated with me, namely: Alexander Calder and Yaacov Agam. I particularly liked the idea of movement and mobile art seen in Calder’s work. Indeed I was so taken with his work that I went to visit the Tate Modern to see some of his pieces there. However, Yaacov Agam’s work really did inspire me. In his Artist’s statement he says: “My aim is to show the visible in a perpetual state of becoming”. I think this is a beautiful way in which he describes his work. However, I personally would liken it to, showing the visible in a perpetual state of change. Given the nature of the subject matter that I’m exploring, his work for me very much aligns with this notion of change as well as ‘becoming’. Below is a short […]

Jan 03

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Experimentation, My Learning, My Work, Patterns, Timelapse, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Experimentation, My Learning, my work, Patterns, Timelapse, Videos

Onwards…

Holiday Touch Designer Projects Over the Christmas period I felt it was important for me to keep up the momentum with Touch Designer. I am constantly aware that if I want to go down the more generative art route I need to be much more programming literate. Normally when I sit down to an online tutorial I set my camera recording, so that I can produce a time-lapse. I like to produce a time-lapse because it gives a visual snapshot of the passage of time. This is something that is hidden from the viewer when observing final pieces. The tutorials are vastly time consuming so I think that it is interesting to have this time represented in some way. I have numerous time-lapse footage of me working away at the Touch Designer tutorials. Therefore, I think now may be a good time to think of more creative ways of expressing this passage of time. However, for this blog I have included my last tutorial time-lapse as I worked on the video below it. The Touch Designer Time-lapse Results From The Touch Designer Time-lapse Single Images Generated from The Video Above Building in Mouse Interactivity […]

Dec 22

Too Cold!

Lissajous Curves and Cold Weather – I mentioned in an earlier blog that due to lack of disk space on my hosting package I would need to upgrade my hosting. This is always a tense time when moving files from one server to another. For this reason I needed to come up with a foolproof method of backing up my blog. In the past numerous backups have failed for me (files lost, media libraries lost, databases lost etc.), therefore I knew I couldn’t solely rely on this. However under my reflective planning it was on my todo list to think of an easy but effective way of getting around data loss. I came up with the idea of taking screenshots of my blog. This means that in the event of any data loss all I have to do is insert the screen shot and add any live links (genius!) and it works. Unfortunately when my blog was moved this particular post completely disappeared. However the process of taking a screen shot meant I can quickly post up images of the original post and add in the relevant link. Below is my original post added from screen shots. I’d […]

Nov 26

London

Time & Travel It’s Better to Travel Than to Arrive? – This was a quote I stumbled across earlier this year. Unfortunately I’m not sure who said it, but given I was travelling to London I decided to use it anyway. This was the first of two trips to London this year. As I am a keen photographer I decided to document anything interesting. I couldn’t help but notice that the light was particularly beautiful at Newton Abbot train station. However this was nothing compared to the beauty of the ceiling structures at Paddington train station. Below is a small collection of images including the view from my hotel window. A Few Random Shots with My Smartphone Unfortunately I had decided to leave my DSLR at home. However, should I ever decide to shoot Paddington station again these are the kind of shots I would take with my DSLR. My smartphone is great for this activity, but maybe not so good with its pixel count. The Most Underwhelming Time-Lapse Ever! At the start of this blog I muted – it is better to travel than to arrive? I’m not sure that is strictly true, but just in case, […]

Nov 20

by Karyn in Experimentation, My Learning, My Work, Patterns, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, My Learning, my work, Patterns, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos

Amazing!

The Best Tutorial Yet! – This has to be my most challenging and rewarding tutorial so far. Apart from the complexity of the node network the instructor was speaking in Chinese which sadly I can’t understand. To work my way through such a complex node system I feel that I must be learning something. Just for the record, I wasn’t actually wearing my pyjamas, I was wearing a huge baggy fluffy top with a fluffy blanket. This is because we are currently renovating our property and our central heating is broken. It was a very cold day! I may look strangely dressed, but I was really nice and warm. Below is the usual time-lapse of my journey and also the results from the work. I certainly think that the addition of the clock was a good idea. It really helps to visualise the passage of time. Flying Box and Lights – Tutorial Time-lapse Flying Box with Lights Here is the result of my 3.5 hours work. The video is best viewed with the sound turned on. I particularly liked the fluid motion of the box and lights. The resulting network and nodes are also highly customisable. […]