Refik Anadol Inspired Responses

At the beginning of this project I began to examine the possibilities created by Ai generated imagery.  I likened Ai to something that had tentacle-like structures.  I imagined that these tentacles were expanding and steadily weaving their way into all aspects of our lives.  After discovering the work of Refik Anadol, It is clear to see that Ai generated imagery and data visualisation are becoming firmly rooted in the art world.

The work of Refik Anadol is truly breathtaking.  He is clearly a pioneer in the field of digital art.  Below is a video containing examples of his work along with an interview with him talking about his art.

Refik Anadol – His Work and Thoughts about Ai Generated Imagery

Art Piece Responses to Refik Anadol

In his interview Refik makes references to the futuristic classic film ‘Blade Runner’.  Through his work he imagines what Ai might look like when it is dreaming.  He affords human like qualities to the machine learning that he is observing.  Following this line of thinking I wanted to imagine what Ai might look like as it grows and then dies.   The following pieces are my responses to Refik Anodol.   In part one I have used tentacle-like Ai generated images to represent the birth and spread of Ai into our lives.  I have also included a human looking face to represent the increasing human-like characteristics being built into Ai.  These images are followed by a technique called ‘pixel sorting.’ The image is gradually deconstructed into its original colour pixels.  These pixels become sorted into colours and flow gently upwards until only blocks of colour lines remain.

The birth of each image is relatively rapid just like human growth. The decline has been deliberately designed to be slow and steady until just its constituent colours remain.  This juxta position of speed is a visual metaphor for both Ai and human birth, decline and death.  I have titled the pieces ‘Production and Destruction’.  We are giving birth to Ai but the question remains will we be responsible for its death? This is how I imagine it…

Ai – Production and Destruction (Part 1)

Ai Production and Destruction (Part 2 Virtual Showcase)

In Part Two of my art response to Refik Anadol, I wanted to portray a sense of scale. Refik Anadol is renowned for his huge installations.  Unfortunately at this time I dont have access to either the equipment or technical know-how to produce these at scale.  Therefore to get around the problem I searched for a Touch Designer tutorial that would allow me to program some virtual screens from scratch.

It’s important for me to say that the following video was programmed from scratch.   I have not used pre-built apps for either what is being displayed on the screens or the screens imagery itself.   The whole production took around 7 hours to produce from start to finish.  I have no doubts that apps exist to achieve my aims quicker.  However I wanted to produce an authentic response to the work of Refik Anadol so I used the nodal system of programming in Touch Designer.  I used tutorials as my base and I amended everything until I had my desired response.

When Digital meets Analogue

A Simple Response

A Riot of Colour

During the destruction phase of the video in part one, a riot of colour emerged just before all of the pixels became sorted into their respective lines of colour.  It is like a mirror of a human lifecycle.  We are born, we grow, we age, we reach our prime then we die.  Below is a gallery of examples.

Pixel Sorted Linear Colours

The ‘death’ of the Ai images resulted in numerous pixel sorted lines of colour.  Even in metaphorical ‘death’ these lines produced some amazing colours.  Below are examples of the final results from the pixel sorting.

Conclusion

On a personal level, possibly one of the greatest takeaways for me, from the work of Refik Anadol, is that no man is an island.  As I took a closer look at his work, I thought that he must be an absolutely brilliant architect, designer, artist, computer programmer, software engineer and electrician all rolled into one.  I found this notion somewhat daunting as I don’t even possess (working on this as we speak), the basics of programming.  Although, that said, I can actually perform a ‘mean’ Photoshop edit or animation, and Adobe After Effects is no longer my nemesis.

I would really like to use the work of Refik Anadol as a starting point for my thinking.  However, as I have mentioned so many times before, I worry that a non-coding/non-programming background could ultimately preclude me from this kind of digital art?  Or does it really need to be that way?  On closer inspection of the ‘About’ section on Refik’s website, I noted and took heart from the following quotation:

It would appear that Refik has a massive pool of talent at his disposal.  Given that my art pieces above were simply me – alone – a non programmer working away in my bedroom; then I was was quite happy with my responses to his work.  What Refik has essentially taught me, is that it is easy to dream about producing a huge project or installation.  Making that dream a reality is a much more difficult prospect.  However, with a little help from your friends great things can come from collaborations.  Indeed, clearly finding the right people to collaborate with is essential, and it may just become a much more serious endeavour for me over 2023.