My Work – Karyn Easton

May 13

by Karyn in Hand Written, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs, Zentangles 0 comments tags: Hand Written, Handwriting, my work, Unit 3 Blogs

Pen Drawings

Original Drawings – I’ve never actually revealed any process behind the textural images that I used on the elements of the ‘Balance of Power Mobile’. I feel that now might be a good time to show some of them. As my drawings were actually always meant to be incidental to my work I tended to neglect this. It was just idle doodling on my part – or was it? I found that I really enjoyed the digitisation process of the drawings and particularly cleaning them up. I found sitting quietly with ‘Photoshop Fix’ and its excellent spot healing brush was really quite cathartic. As I mentioned in earlier posts I gave myself strict rules for these designs. They had to be drawn freehand and if any mistakes were made the mistakes had to be woven into the design and not erased or covered up. I’m not entirely sure why I self imposed these rules other than to make the drawing process more interesting and challenging. Below are a selection of images from my sketch books. A Selection of Original Pen Drawings

May 09

by Karyn in Books, Conclusion, Experimentation, Final Major Project, Final Outcomes, My Work, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Books, Conclusion, Experimentation, Final Major Project, Final Outcomes, my work, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs

Book Photography

Product Photography for the Balance of Power Book – My book is now fully augmented and the whole of its contents can be viewed in the augmented reality video that I made to accompany the ‘Balance of Power Mobile. A full digital copy of the book can be found here. The next step in my process was to create an image that would represent my book – something that I could use for social media posts and head up any literature that I might like to send out. It might even form the cover of a brochure about the project as a whole. Contact Sheets from Experimental Shoots Refining the Concepts There are many references to nature in my ‘Balance of Power’ Final 5 Minute Video. Therefore, in the first instance I decided to shoot my books outdoors. One of my chosen concepts to explore was having my books with foliage or vines wrapped around it. Below are some of the concepts that I decided to refine further. The original ‘Balance of Power’ Book was a large scale book (30 x 30cm), but sadly when I came to scale the book down, the title wasn’t as prominent. […]

May 06

by Karyn in Experimentation, Film Production, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Film Production, my work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Film Concepts

Three Finished Film Concepts – When I started the journey into the production of my five minute film, I genuinely hadn’t expected to end up with three full versions! This really was not my intention. I am very tired now and yet still not completely happy. However, over the summer I do hopefully intend to work on my film making along with many other art related projects. For comparison purposes I have listed them all here. The film I chose in the end was the second film. The reason I chose it was because of personal preference coupled with small polls conducted among family and friends. On my final film page, I have listed the reasons why I rejected film number 1 and 3. Film 1 – Resolve or Evolve? The concept behind this film was simply to show my work while talking about the rise of AI. In this film, I pose the question is it possible to evolve with AI art instead of resolving never to use it? More information can be found on my film submission page. Film 2 – The Balance of Power This is the film I chose for my final […]

Apr 23

by Karyn in Artists, Augmented Reality, Film Production, Final Major Project, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Artists, Augmented Reality, Film Production, Final Major Project, my work, Unit 3 Blogs

Balance of Power Book

Concept, Rationale and Reasoning As part of my overall body of work, I decided to fully augment a large square art book. This book contains images of the ‘Balance of Power’ mobile along with examples of some of the surface patterns used in its creation. However, most importantly it helps to explain both the rationale and concept behind the piece itself. At the start of the project I wanted to gather many views from across the arts, about AI generated art. Over the last few years it has become increasingly evident that people involved in the arts industry have both wittingly and unwittingly been exploited by the big tech giants. This is not only true for the artists who have had their work taken often without knowledge and consent, but also for the image/data ‘taggers’ at the ‘bottom of the food chain’ who facilitated all of this. I figured that in the first instance enlisting the help of more well known artists might help encourage voices of others, thus creating a snowball effect. Therefore, in the initial stages I approached some of my favourite more famous artists and invited them to comment on their feelings regarding AI generated art. I […]

Mar 16

by Karyn in Exhibitions, My Learning, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Exhibitions, My Learning, my work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Framing Prints

Getting Ready for the Gallery Paradiso – It’s been such a busy time for me since leaving London and the Low Residency. Today I’ve been framing all of my prints ahead of taking them to the Gallery Paradiso. They will be shown next week with the private view on Wednesday evening. I would have loved to attend, but I will be back in London for the Mattering Life, Scientist in Residence Programme. Below are a few images of the framed pieces. I think they look rather smart framed. I was quite surprised at how long it took me to frame them, add D-rings and package them up. However I was pleased when it was all done. Labels and D-Rings Added All Wrapped and Ready to Go Decisions Decisions… I was pleased when the pictures were finally dropped off. The whole process from start to finish was quite a lengthy one. From image creation right through to delivery I’d had to make lots of decisions, for example: How big should my prints be? What aspect ratio should they be? What paper should I choose for printing? Do I want a border? If I have a border […]

Mar 06

by Karyn in Little Wins, Mentions, My Work, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Little Wins, Mentions, my work, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs

Little Wins #9

The Phoblographer Magazine – I feel so lucky this year because after a shaky start things seem to be looking up at last! The ‘little wins tag’ that I set up last year seems to be getting more usage which is great. I just hope that I can keep the momentum going. It was lovely to see that the Phoblographer has mentioned me again today. Here is a link to my interview.

Feb 27

First Looks

First Footage from the ‘Balance of Power’ Mobile It feels like it has been a long journey to get to this point, but at last the mobile is up and running. It stands around 3m tall and is by far one of the largest structures that I have ever made all by myself. Although, I haven’t kept an hourly diary of how long the mobile has taken to complete, I know that it has taken many weeks. At the moment the balance of the mobile is quite precarious and this is quite a threat to the project so I need to ensure that it is really secure going forward. I already had one mishap this morning while trying to hang it up. All of the pieces ended up on the floor, so this is far from ideal if it is to be transported then hung. My intention is to ensure that all of the mobile elements are secured so that if the balance does tip then everything will be relatively contained. In many ways hanging the mobile is just the very start of the journey as there is so much more hidden in the whole structure. However, I will begin […]

Feb 19

by Karyn in 3d, Final Major Project, My Work, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: 3d, Final Major Project, my work, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs

Process

Another Full Day of Working – When I first began making my mobiles, I honestly hadn’t realised how much time each element would take to make. However, I am enjoying the process and I’m looking forward to seeing the end result. Today was another full day of making. My plan is to finish my second mobile by the end of this weekend so I can work out my next steps. During this process I have shot a number of time-lapse videos so I thought it would be nice to add some process stills. Process Stills

Jan 29

by Karyn in Final Major Project, Ideas, My Learning, My Work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Final Major Project, Ideas, My Learning, my work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

The Concept

Hidden Depths – I have decided to call my mobile ‘The Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’. My mobile represents a ‘balance’ of power play between the major players in the AI art generation industries, versus the millions of voiceless, hidden artists who had their images used (often without permission) to feed machine learning algorithms. The mobile is based on binary code and the lines of code spell out the words ‘Unity in Bits’. Why ‘Unity in Bits’? This is an ambiguous play on words. The rise of the digital age coupled with social media and AI has led to a fragmentation of our society – namely, our ‘unity in bits’. For example we have divided communities, surveillance capitalism and lack of free speech. However, I hope that through interaction with my mobile ‘unity can be found in bits’ only this time ‘bits’ refers to the ‘bits’ and ‘bytes’ of binary code. My mobile project poses the question can that which has sought to divide us, actually bring us closer together?

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 […]