Unit 2 Blogs – Karyn Easton

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 […]

Nov 02

by Karyn in 3d, Abstract Art, Augmented Reality, Experimentation, My Work, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: 3d, Abstract Art, Augmented Reality, Experimentation, my work, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Mental Derive Part #3

Made with a Mobile – As the deadline to Unit 2 rapidly approaches I’m aware that I really need to be pulling together all of my ideas. I have been trying to build a number of skills lately and it’s been quite a steep learning curve. I’ve explored augmented reality through my 21 day challenge. I’ve explored projection mapping, physical book printing and 3d paper sculpture via my Grotto Print. I’ve also explored drawing which appeared on my mobile 3d kinetic art piece. However, today I managed to return to my first love that is photography. This afternoon I decided to make two short films showing the beautiful motion created by my mobile. The background to this particular mobile piece can be found in ‘Mental Derive’ Part #1 and ‘Mental Derive’ Part #2. I deliberately shot both short videos using a very wide aperture as I wanted to add depth to my film. I wanted to see the patterns on the mobile slowly come in and out of focus as they gently glide backwards and forwards. I think that I managed to do this. Please see below for the two videos created today. Kinetic Art with a Mobile […]

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 […]

Oct 05

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Animation, Artists, Experimentation, Ideas, My Work, Patterns, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Tasks, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Animation, Artists, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, my work, Patterns, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Tasks, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Grotto Print Ideas #1

Print Ideas & Adam Bridgland (Jealous London) – Today we had an interesting talk about the ‘Grotto Project’ formerly ‘Merch’. Adam Bridgland from Jealous London came along to share some insights and revealed a lot of useful information – see a selection of his slides at the end from the talk. I’ve just been looking at the deadlines and I’ve realised that I really do need to start moving on this. Some very interesting takeaways from the talk included answers to questions such as: what was a popular poster colour? What kind of images sold well? Adam suggested that blue was a popular colour and skulls, butterflies and cute cats seemed to do quite well. Unfortunately the human form, unless comprising a skull did not seem to fair quite so well. I’ve produced many digital images over the years, but the thought of choosing just one singular image to print has really made me think. I have some interesting macro photographs of oil on water hanging on my walls. One was bought by a large Australian advertising company, one hangs in the local hospital and one appears on an album cover. Even Adobe use some of my work. Therefore I can’t […]

Jul 14

by Karyn in 21 Day Challenge, Augmented Reality, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: 21 Day Challenge, Augmented Reality, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs

21 Day Challenge – Day #2

Friday 14th July – Day two of my challenge and I was looking forward to diving back into the Meta Spark software. Unfortunately as I have so often come to understand, nothing is ever straight forward. Instead of opening up the software, I was greeted with a message saying that I needed to upgrade. It took around 10 minutes for the update to complete. During this time I could feel myself becoming increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with computer software generally. Luckily, once the update was complete everything still worked and I was able to continue with the online tutorials. Yesterday I had explored face tracking and today I wanted to explore ‘trackers’. These are images programmed to be recognised by the software which in turn launch or initiate the desired augmented reality experience. Of course it couldn’t be ‘plain sailing’ could it?. The mandatory update which had gone relatively smoothly had now caused subtle changes in the user interface. This meant that when the online tutor said click this icon, unfortunately said icon wasn’t there. I found this really unhelpful because it was now really difficult to follow along! However, I persevered and using my new Barcelona Graffiti book as […]

Jul 13

by Karyn in 21 Day Challenge, Augmented Reality, My Learning, My Work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: 21 Day Challenge, Augmented Reality, My Learning, my work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 2 Blogs

21 Day Challenge – Day #1

Thursday 13th July – Today is the start of my 21 day challenge! I have decided to focus mainly on three activities that will help with the overall aims of my project and guided by my study statement. My key areas of focus are as follows: Explore ‘The Art of the Fold’ – Bookbinding Explore augmented reality Continue Research Paper So How did it Go? I started the day full of enthusiasm for diving into augmented reality in order to produce something really amazing! Unfortunately both the universe and my MacBook Pro had other ideas. I decided to start my day by exploring augmented reality with Meta Spark. This is industry leading software and I found it to have lots of functionality. Challenges The first challenge I faced was to free up resources on my MacBook Pro. I reluctantly got rid of Cinema 4d which I just haven’t ever had the time or inclination to explore. Sadly this wasn’t enough and the Meta Spark software still wouldn’t download. So unfortunately Microsoft Excel was next on my hit list. Luckily this gave me the space that I needed. Already I had wasted 20 minutes simply trying to free disk […]

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 […]