Research Paper Journey – Karyn Easton

May 08

by Karyn in Little Wins, Research, Research Paper, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Little Wins, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Little Wins #11

University Invitation to Speak at the HE Research Showcase 8th May 2024 – I had another of what I refer to as my ‘Little Wins’ today. I was invited to give a talk about my MA research paper at the University of South Devon’s annual HE Research Showcase. The screening suite is a great venue and I was really excited to be involved. One of my colleagues who works in HE remembered that I had chatted to him about my research paper and that it was primarily about AI art. The focus of the talks this year were about AI, so he notified the organiser who approached me to speak. One of my ex students was in the audience, so I asked if he would shoot a few stills and videos for me. It was a great opportunity to revisit my research paper. A number of students approached me afterwards to say that they had found my participatory talk really interesting. This made my day! Below is a quick edit of some of the clips that my ex student Kirk kindly shot for me. Hopefully a full video of the showcase will go up on the USDC college website soon, if […]

Feb 07

by Karyn in Research, Research Paper, Research Paper Journey, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Research, Research Paper, Research Paper Journey, Unit 3 Blogs

Research Paper Slides

A Break from Making – Today I had an enforced break from my mobile making. Next week it is my turn to present my research paper so I felt that I really should start to work on it. Unfortunately when I start something I always need to finish it. So, in the end I spent the whole of today planning it out and designing the slides. It’s nearly midnight now and I’ve just finished. I’ve had to stop looking at it as every time I do, I keep seeing little errors that really ‘bug’ me. However, here is my final draft (or at least for now). Research Presentation Slides Below are my research presentation slides – please use the text link to access the full presentation PDF. Here is the full research paper as a recap if anyone wants to see it. Karyn Easton – Research Paper Presentation

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 09

by Karyn in Research, Research Paper, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: Research, Research Paper, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs

Research Paper

Research Paper LO1 LO2 LO3 Research Paper – Please see below for the final research paper. Underneath this document are links to the whole research journey and research process undertaken in the compilation of this paper. Behind the Scenes Please see below a list of links to all of the resources and behind the scenes work and research that was carried out in the compilation of the research paper above. The links are in chronological order starting at the beginning of the journey with later posts towards the end. Research Paper Journey #1 – The start of the Research Paper journey with lots of free writing exercises to help craft an initial research question. Research Paper Journey #2 – Enlisting the help of ChatGPT3 to explore thoughts about ‘Information Overload’ and whether this might form an appropriate research question. Research Paper Journey #3 – A change of direction and a move from the topic of ‘Information Overload’ to thoughts about AI and AI art generation. Research Paper Journey #4 – Taking a look at various tips and techniques from our zoom meetings to help with […]

Research Paper Thoughts and Background

Research Paper 3 – Thoughts, Background and Final Version That’s it – no more! Yesterday and today became the ‘final straw’ with my research paper! Why? Because yesterday my ‘dying’ on its ‘last legs’ MacBook Pro decided that it was going to literally lose all of my research papers and drafts. I know it’s somewhat unbelievable but this actually happened! Months of hard work seemed to have disappeared in front of my eyes. The files were no longer there! I tried opening programs that I had used to construct the last version of my paper, but it was always the same message ‘File cannot be found’. I even convinced my self that there was some evil hacker trying to sabotage my work, that’s how upset I was. At one point I even thought I must be having a nightmare and that I would wake up soon. As I had been editing the document in Adobe’s PDF editing program I thought to myself, ‘Ha’ there will be a copy stored in Adobe’s creative cloud. So, feeling somewhat smug, I looked at my recent documents there, only to discover that on opening my research paper it gave an error message saying ‘bad […]

Sep 14

by Karyn in Ai, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: ai, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs

Research Paper Journey #5

Robots Do Not Think? – After speaking with my supervisor Janet Waring Rago, I decided to contact the makers of Ameca (Engineered Arts), currently one of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots. I was hoping to gain some insight as to whether Ameca the robot could have an ‘opinion’ or at least produce some commentary on the work of another robot. I felt that this would be an interesting interaction to observe. It could possibly give some insight into whether or not preference featured in a robots repertoire. Unfortunately, from the outset I made the mistake of using the words ‘think’ and ‘thinking’. As a result although I did gain some interesting insights, plus a piece of primary research, the resulting silence from my contact at Engineered Arts made it clear – robots do not ‘think’. Sadly I already knew this, but I had not phrased or articulated my email particularly well. Below is the actual short email exchange with Engineered Arts. Email Exchange with Will Jackson – Engineered Arts Hi My name is Karyn Easton and I’m currently studying for an MA in Fine Art Digital at Central Saint Martins University. I need to produce a research […]

Sep 04

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Polls and Surveys, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: ai, Polls and Surveys, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs

Research Paper Proposal 2.0

Title: AI Art Reception: Investigating Initial Anonymity and Empathy as Strategies for Negative Bias Reduction Abstract The rapid ascent of AI-generated art raises critical questions for artists working in this medium, particularly regarding the pervasive negative bias it faces among viewers. In the first component of this two part paper, this study investigates the concept of “initial anonymity,” a novel approach wherein artworks are initially presented without disclosing creator details or backstories. Subsequently, the artist’s identity is revealed. This intriguing method challenges traditional perceptions of art by emphasising the pure aesthetic appeal of AI-generated creations. In the second component, this study delves into the compelling realm of empathy as a negative bias-mitigation tool for AI created art. Here, the power of a humanoid robot, equipped with a poignant narrative is harnessed to forge emotional connections between viewers and AI-created art. Inspiration is drawn from the remarkable impact of these narratives on social media engagement. Preliminary Appendix. This pilot study using social media yields promising results, suggesting that both initial anonymity and empathy both exhibit the potential to alleviate negative bias towards AI-generated art. While further rigorous investigation is warranted, these findings pave the way for a deeper understanding of […]

Sep 03

by Karyn in Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs

Word Count Checks

A Working Document. This is a place to test out the number of words in the research paper. Its sole purpose is to test for the number of words in any required document. In this case the research document. Title: AI Art Reception: Investigating Initial Anonymity and Empathy as Strategies for Negative Bias Reduction Abstract The rapid ascent of AI-generated art raises critical questions for artists working in this medium, particularly regarding the pervasive negative bias it faces among viewers. In the first component of this two part paper, this study investigates the concept of “initial anonymity,” a novel approach wherein artworks are initially presented without disclosing creator details or backstories. Subsequently, the artist’s identity is revealed. This intriguing method challenges traditional perceptions of art by emphasising the pure aesthetic appeal of AI-generated creations. In the second component, this study delves into the compelling realm of empathy as a negative bias-mitigation tool for AI created art. Here, the power of a humanoid robot, equipped with a poignant narrative is harnessed to forge emotional connections between viewers and AI-created art. Inspiration is drawn from the remarkable impact of these narratives on social media engagement. See Preliminary Appendix. This pilot study […]

Aug 15

by Karyn in Polls and Surveys, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: Polls and Surveys, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs

Image Polls

Primary Research – Choose Your Favourite Image – Below are the results of my image polls. This was primary research I conducted to try to see whether or not initial anonymity or empathy could help mitigate the pervasive negative bias that exists towards AI generated art. All of the following image polls have been subsequently tidied up. Each image poll/survey has now been given its own page that appears as an appendix to the research paper. Image Poll #1 Today I’m working on some primary research for my research paper. I ran the following poll along with the accompanying text among some of my fellow MA students in our WhatsApp group. As the respondent numbers were low I repeated this exact poll among some of my Facebook friends. ‘Below are four images by relatively famous artists – I’d like to buy a print of one of them for my new extension as they are all pretty well known. Please can you help me choose which one would you go for? Apologies in advance of the image quality, but colour and composition are probably more important to me than the finer details – Thanks’ 😊 The […]

Aug 13

by Karyn in Books, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: Books, Research, Research Paper Journey, Unit 2 Blogs

Action Research

A Leap from Practice to Research – After working so hard producing digital artworks I am becoming increasingly aware that my research paper is being neglected. This imbalance needs to be corrected. In order to do this I am going to engage in a form of research each day. This is so that hopefully I will have a substantive body of work prior to my return to work at the end of this month. Starting with the most recent activity and working downwards this post is a working document of my research activity over the next few weeks. For a more formal list of my activities please see my Research Timeline and my Research Resource List Day #21 – Saturday 2nd September – Further refining the second draft of the research paper and integrating research sources and compiling coherent appendices. Day #20 – Friday 1st September – Compiling the second draft to incorporate all of the polls and revising it to meet the target word count. Day #19 – Thursday 31st August – Refining headings and layout of the second draft of the research paper. Day #18 – Wednesday 30th August – Commencing the second draft […]