Videos – Karyn Easton

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Nov 28

by Karyn in Crits, My Work, Videos, Zentangles, Zoom Meetings 0 comments tags: Crits, my work, Videos, Zentangles, Zoom Meetings

Zoom Session 39

AI and (3 Minute Video) Affirmative Feedback – I cannot believe that this is the penultimate zoom session of this year! I was really excited today because my three minute video was used as a test for the start of the crit sessions. I was really pleased with the comments because I can now use these to help inform my work going forward. I was quite nervous at how my video would be received, but I think on the whole, judging by the comments, it wasn’t so bad 🙂 As an extra form of feedback called ‘Affirmative Feedback’, everyone was asked to respond to the sentence: “What worked for me is…” The other respondents were then invited to agree or disagree with this by giving a thumbs up on the recorded session from today. I am including a link to this week’s video as peoples’ comments and reactions will again be useful in helping to inform my work going forward. Please see below for the comments: A Useful Graphic The following graphic posted by Bea, is useful when considering the critiquing process. Playing with AI text to Image Generation For the rest of the session […]

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 […]

Nov 18

by Karyn in Ai, My Work, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: ai, my work, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Three Minute Video

Athena’s Story – We were asked if we would like to put together a 3 minute video explaining our work. I thought that it would be really nice to tell the story of Athena the robot who was an integral part of my Research Paper. Although this isn’t a video of me explaining my work, it does shed some light on my thinking. The sad robot story also aligns well with the findings of my Research Paper, which posits that AI art reception may improve when delivered by a humanoid robot with a sorrowful ‘backstory’. The whole project from start to finish was produced using only a smartphone. The initial graffiti images were shot on my iPhone 12 Max Pro. The AI animated clips were generated online and accessed via my smartphone. The video assembly was also done via app on my smartphone. The resulting project encompasses a hybrid model of physical human art (the book and graffiti), coupled with digital art (used to design layouts and tweak colours) and AI art used in the generation of some videos and images. In the actual physical augmented book all of the music is also AI generated. There is also the notion […]

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 […]