Risk Taking – Page 2 – Karyn Easton

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 […]

Mar 29

Zoom Session 20 (Low Residency)

Low Residency Part 2 – This is part 2 of the Low Residency. This blog covers the second week of activities. To see what happened in the preceding week please see Zoom Session 19. Low Tech Photography (Monday 10.00am with Felix Loftus) I was very torn about taking this workshop as opposed to the printing workshop. Printing is something that I’ve always been very interested in, but I’ve never really had the opportunity to explore it to any great degree. However the pull of photography coupled with tech had way too much of a ‘pull factor’ for me. Indeed, having taken the workshop I knew I had absolutely made the right choice for me! It was nice to see both Trisha and Ester at the workshop too. When we entered the classroom there were a variety of Rasberry Pi processors on the table. these were hooked up to a variety of lenses. Some were native to Rasberry Pi and some were off the shelf smartphone camera lenses. I hate to admit it but I was in tech heaven! Although I was sad to miss printing I don’t think anything could ‘top’ me messing around with programming and kit. The […]

Jan 17

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Ai Chat, Disasters, Evaluations, Experimentation, Ideas, My Learning, My Work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Ai Chat, Disasters, Evaluations, Ideas, My Learning, my work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Videos

Clocks and Carrier Bags

Time as a Fourth Dimension – Before I go any further, I really need to present this video with sound. The sound is incredibly important, because it adequately and eloquently sums up the disaster that is currently all of my technological devices! Every computer or device I own is creaking at the seams! The video I created below actually sums up how it feels! No words needed. Technology Gone Bad I subtitled this blog ‘Time as a Fourth Dimension’ – I’m not actually going to discuss time as a fourth dimension here, but I do think it sounds great as a subtitle. It’s relevance will become apparent further into this blog. In a previous blog I responded to the work of Vilde Rolfeson. I also had a number of conversations with ChatGPT in the making of the digital pieces presented there. These were inspired by her work. I always felt that her work around the plastic bag landscape offered a myriad of experimental possibilities. Therefore I decided that I would continue with more experimentation based on this. During my conversations with ‘Ai’ I asked for programs to gently destruct or disrupt an image. After a number of […]

Dec 29

Refik Anadol – Production and Destruction

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 […]

Nov 26

London

Time & Travel It’s Better to Travel Than to Arrive? – This was a quote I stumbled across earlier this year. Unfortunately I’m not sure who said it, but given I was travelling to London I decided to use it anyway. This was the first of two trips to London this year. As I am a keen photographer I decided to document anything interesting. I couldn’t help but notice that the light was particularly beautiful at Newton Abbot train station. However this was nothing compared to the beauty of the ceiling structures at Paddington train station. Below is a small collection of images including the view from my hotel window. A Few Random Shots with My Smartphone Unfortunately I had decided to leave my DSLR at home. However, should I ever decide to shoot Paddington station again these are the kind of shots I would take with my DSLR. My smartphone is great for this activity, but maybe not so good with its pixel count. The Most Underwhelming Time-Lapse Ever! At the start of this blog I muted – it is better to travel than to arrive? I’m not sure that is strictly true, but just in case, […]

Nov 23

by Karyn in Ideas, My Work, Opportunities, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos 0 comments tags: Ideas, my work, opportunities, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos

Line in the Sand

A Sand Pendulum – Discovering Hidden Motion – I have been meaning to put up this short sand pendulum unboxing video for well over a week now. I’ve done so much work lately in the digital space, it feels like the right time to move back into the physical again. Shortly after posting this I will be travelling to London which will be a very physical experience and I’m looking forward to documenting that. In the meantime here is the start of my journey looking at motion. This may be something that I want to incorporate into my work if possible but at the moment it remains just an idea. Sand pendulums have always fascinated me. I love their rhythmic motion and the patterns they create as they follow their path. This blog is really about exploring another facet of my thinking. I feel that I still have so many ideas to explore and so little time to do it before I need to narrow my focus. I am are going to be working with physical ‘things’, digital ‘things’ or a combination of both? What do I want to ‘say’ through my work? Do I even want to ‘say’ anything? […]

Nov 20

by Karyn in Experimentation, My Learning, My Work, Patterns, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, My Learning, my work, Patterns, Risk Taking, Timelapse, Videos

Amazing!

The Best Tutorial Yet! – This has to be my most challenging and rewarding tutorial so far. Apart from the complexity of the node network the instructor was speaking in Chinese which sadly I can’t understand. To work my way through such a complex node system I feel that I must be learning something. Just for the record, I wasn’t actually wearing my pyjamas, I was wearing a huge baggy fluffy top with a fluffy blanket. This is because we are currently renovating our property and our central heating is broken. It was a very cold day! I may look strangely dressed, but I was really nice and warm. Below is the usual time-lapse of my journey and also the results from the work. I certainly think that the addition of the clock was a good idea. It really helps to visualise the passage of time. Flying Box and Lights – Tutorial Time-lapse Flying Box with Lights Here is the result of my 3.5 hours work. The video is best viewed with the sound turned on. I particularly liked the fluid motion of the box and lights. The resulting network and nodes are also highly customisable. […]