Photography – Karyn Easton

Apr 20

by Karyn in Film Production, My Learning, Photography, Problem Solving, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Film Production, My Learning, Photography, Problem Solving, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Film Production

Assembly of Ideas – After exploring a few possibilities and ideas for the film I set about trying to assemble something. After all of my previous experimentation with many ideas I finally settled on a concept. I decided to produce a film that not only covered what I have been working on over the last two years of my MA but also gives a glimpse of what I’m doing now. The video was to form a timeline. Unfortunately, I really do struggle when it comes to sound and voice-overs. By the end of this long process I had actually attempted to narrate my film around five times. I spent literally hours trying to perfect both my narrative, voice-over and audio levels. Multiple Attempts at Audio and Voice-overs Below is a screenshot of the files as they began to stack up on my desktop, so far I’ve had 5 attempts. Even after hours of trying I’m still not happy with the end result! In fact I’m deeply unhappy with it. On the plus side though I’ve learned a ‘ton of stuff’ about audio production. Learning How to Use Audio in Premier Pro The first thing I had […]

Feb 04

by Karyn in 3d, Augmented Reality, Collaborations, Experimentation, Photography, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: 3d, Augmented Reality, Collaborations, Experimentation, Photography, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs

Keep it Moving

Small Steps – Big Changes. I had to write yesterday off almost completely as I had so many non MA activities to complete. These duties ranged from setting up a new phone for a family member, to composing and posting an important letter. However, today was much more productive. I managed to test my concept and augment a number of my mobile elements. Early indicators suggest that ‘all things going well’ – I should be able to realise my vision. My greatest fear was that the mobile wouldn’t augment very well. I also worried that the elements were too close together, and as such would interfere with one another when augmenting. It appears that as long as the user/viewer is careful then each item should augment separately. Up to this point it has been a bit of a risk. Today the concept however was tested and seems to work. Athena the robot continues to 3d print but this activity is also not without risk. Jamie (my collaboration partner’s) 3d printer isn’t always consistent and parts often become loose from the 3d printer bed. This ultimately leads to print failures which is slowing down the project. On a more positive […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Jun 29

Barcelona Graffiti #2

Hidden Away – During my recent trip to Barcelona, I was was mesmerised by the colour and variety of the street art both in and around the city. I briefly touched on this in part one of this post called ‘Barcelona Graffiti’. I still don’t know exactly why I was so drawn to the graffiti (street art), except to say that the colours were amazing! It seemed to relentlessly permeate throughout the whole fabric of the city, weaving a disjointed tapestry of colours. Indeed it could even be described in some places as a riot of colour on an otherwise typical traditional cityscape and its walls. All of this was in stark contrast to the walls of one of Barcelona’s most famous contemporary art museums, namely the MACBA. Here there was no graffiti. Everything inside was pristine with beautiful gleaming white walls. A Short Recap Below is short video recap from Barcelona Graffit part one. It helps to illustrate the scale of graffiti and street art that can be found in and around the city. In stark contrast to the brightly coloured graffiti in the video above, the following image gallery illustrates the crisp, clean, neutral […]

May 06

A Temporary Distraction

The Annual College End of Year Film – Each year for the last few years I have been invited to produce our college end of year film. It’s a long and quite complex task because it has to really showcase our department. It needs to appeal to parents, staff and students alike. Unfortunately because it is such a massive undertaking, my research has had to go on hold for a little while. However in a couple of weeks I am due to fly out to Barcelona, so hopefully I‘ll have plenty of travelling time to catch up on my studies. In the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to document my film making process. Each year I write all of the script, edit all of the video and use character animation software to enable animated characters to read the story’s narrative. Often I also need to shoot my own video in order to help with the story and to fill in any gaps. In fact I’m responsible for it all! Over the last two years I’ve used a character I named ‘Horace ‘Boris’ Hedgehog’ (trust me, by watching the previous 2 films, his name becomes clear), this year it […]

Feb 28

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Epic Fails, Evaluations, Experimentation, Photography, Problem Solving, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, Epic Fails, Evaluations, Experimentation, Photography, Problem Solving, Videos

Failure

Reaching a Plateau – Up to know I feel quite lucky because I’ve generally quite like most of my experiments, but for some reason this one made me really recoil! I hate everything about it – even a dabble with Ai couldn’t convince me otherwise. I don’t think I can remember a time that I’ve been so disappointed in anything that I’ve done before. I also need to stay away from Pinterest – the more beautiful artwork I see the more self critical I become and it’s not helpful. I feel now is the time I need to take a step back. I need to reflect on what I have done so far and consider what my next steps might be. As per my outline plan ideally I should be doing more research right now and I tend to agree. Over the weekend I decided to try my hand at paper sculpture. It’s something that I’m incredibly interested in, but I’ve never really had time to explore it in any meaningful way. Below is my journey into this medium and some of the results from it. I just can’t get excited about it at all. However, I always like […]

Feb 17

Jason Schulman – Inspired Work

Hidden Light and Colours – I particularly admire the work by Jason Schulman. I discovered him last week and ever since I stumbled across his work I have been absolutely ‘sold’ on it. Schulman records light with his camera across the entirety of a film. His work has been incorrectly likened to that of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s ‘Cinema Halls’. Schulman explains more about this in his interview with Dominic Jaeckle. Although the process of recording the entirety of the film is quite straightforward, it appears that Schulman is somewhat a pioneer in the area of recording films. I am a huge fan of slow shutter techniques, which I believe were used in the creation of both Sugimoto and Schulman’s images. Therefore I could not resist experimenting further using the work of Schulman and Sugimoto as a starting point. I find the notion of light being recorded and compounded into one image very appealing. Generally we never see light compounded in such a way so as to reveal a multitude of hidden colours and tones. Throughout my project I have been searching for the ‘hidden’ in whatever shape or form that may take. Schulman’s work reveals the beauty hidden in compounded […]