Food for Thought – Karyn Easton

Mar 19

by Karyn in Collaborations, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Lectures, Materials, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops 0 comments tags: Collaborations, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Lectures, Materials, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops

Mattering Life – Workshops Day #2

Samples Collection & Experimentation – As we arrived back at CSM most of us were feeling pretty tired. It had been an intense but very enjoyable morning in the science labs at UCL (University College London). However, we were all pretty excited to start collecting our samples. We felt it would be a great idea to collect some canal water, some moss, and some leaves. I was really keen to examine the dregs of my Chai Latte so I popped some in a little sample bottle. I wasn’t so keen to grab the canal water but luckily Charlotte a fellow member of the group was on hand to do this. Charlotte Collecting Samples Below is a mix of clips from Days #1 and #2 – they range from crystal garden crystals, to sample collecting, to fruit fly equipment and oxygen free cabinets. Sample Analysis and Experimentation After Lunch we had a quick de-brief then we headed off into the grow lab for some sample analysis and experimentation. Shem and Barbera were our technicians. Shem produced the first four of the following time-lapse sequences. The rest were produced by our group and shot by […]

Mar 17

by Karyn in Experimentation, Food for Thought, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Food for Thought, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs

Off to London Again

Best Laid Plans… Today I’m heading back down to London for the ‘Mattering Life’ Programme. So thinking I had everything planned, guess what?? Yes, the coach broke down!! I’m nervous enough about travelling but this really threw me. Judging by the reaction of the other passengers, perhaps I wasn’t the only one with travel anxiety. There were some pretty cross people aboard the coach. I really didn’t envy the driver having to make peace with everyone. When I got on the coach I was happy because my case was nicely stacked. I am bringing my camera kit with some of my best lenses for the workshops so I was concerned that heavy cases on top of mine could be problematic. On the first coach I was pleased as this didn’t seem like it was going to be an issue. I was also really pleased to be giving my new camera strap an outing. My daughter bought me a new strap with my Instagram handle ‘Secret Shutter’ written on it. However, now sitting on the replacement coach I’m just hoping that my case hasn’t been squashed! It is a hard case so here’s hoping everything will be okay. Killing Time […]

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 […]

Jan 02

by Karyn in Experimentation, Final Major Project, Food for Thought, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Final Major Project, Food for Thought, Unit 3 Blogs

Still Thinking

How Do Computers See Art? – Throughout my research journey, I focussed a lot on how humans perceive AI generated art. On the whole there was quite an amount of negative bias towards it. Further research revealed that some of this negativity could be mitigated by carefully crafting a narrative to accompany the AI art. However, this led me to question how do computers actually see and understand the art that they are fed? I did some further research and I stumbled upon something called ‘pixel data’. This is the raw data the computer uses to display both the colour and brightness of any given pixel on a screen. I wanted to learn more about pixel data. While doing some research I stumbled across a really interesting website called ‘Think Maths’. On this website was an interesting piece of software to enable the extraction of pixel data called the ‘Spreadsheet Pixel Converter. After watching one of Matt Parker’s videos on the website, I became completely ‘sold’ on the idea of pixel data and how a computer might at some level actually view or ‘see’ the imagery that is input into a machine learning system. In his video, Matt demonstrated how […]

Dec 24

by Karyn in Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, my work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Stacking Cardboard

Ducks in a Row – It’s Christmas Eve and surprisingly this year I am ahead of schedule with wrapping presents etc. Therefore, I decided to start getting my ducks in a row so that I have everything ready to begin Unit 3. One of my goals is to create a huge mobile. Initially I would like to make it from cardboard boxes recycled from items bought for our house. So, today I finally began flattening it all out and storing it upright to keep it in good shape. I’m hoping that this is the start of something interesting. New Videos Following my feedback I also decided to catch up on my Zentangle drawings. I wanted to do this because I think hand drawing is something I’d like to incorporate into my work. I also decided that any AI that I would use would be for animation purposes only. Therefore, I took three of my most recent black and white hand drawn then digitised creations and animated them using AI. The results seem to have a very organic feel. I was fairly happy with the results. I introduced a digitised Polaroid frame around the videos to both add interest […]

Dec 18

by Karyn in Conclusion, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Reflection, Unit 2 Blogs, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Conclusion, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Reflection, Unit 2 Blogs, Unit 3 Blogs

Feedback

Thoughts Firing Actions – I’ll not lie, I was feeling so happy with my grade from Unit 2. Ahead of receiving my grade, I was so worried that I had completely messed up with regards to my thinking. I knew that there was a depth to my work still lacking, but I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then I received my feedback! This put beautifully into words exactly what I was feeling. There had to be something deeper to what I was trying to achieve. It’s really not enough to simply use AI and it’s crucial that investigations go much further. I decided that I would try to dig a little deeper and ‘go under the bonnet’ of AI. What exactly is AI and machine learning? How easy is it to master? Can a non programmer access it? Could there be a creative use for it beyond simply using it and tapping into the vast wealth of humanity that created it without being asked? I decided that in order to move forward I needed to train one of my own models. I wasn’t sure where to start so I asked my old friend ChatGPT. The bot suggested […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sep 24

A Mental Derive Part #2

Picking Up Where I Left off – Ever since my first mental derive, it was always my intention to recommence this particular project. now that the second draft of my research paper is nearing completion, I feel I am better able to return more fully to creative activities. Since part one of my mental derive, I didn’t totally abandon this project and I experimented with suspending some of the circles on a sheet of acetate between some thick heavy duty white elastic. Below is a gallery showing the results. This is a project I’d like to return to at some point, but I don’t currently have the correct materials. The acetate was far too thin and buckled under the strain of the elastic. Therefore thicker acrylic is possibly a better choice. The patterned discs/circles also had a habit of ‘pinging off’, so a better method of securing them is required. However, I do think that there is room to develop this project further. Moments in Time and Space Each black and white patterned circle/disc above, is a collage of many little moments in time. For this reason I wanted to trial another form of suspension. I am particularly […]