my work – Page 2 – Karyn Easton

Jan 17

by Karyn in Competitions, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Competitions, my work, Unit 3 Blogs

Wish Me Luck

Love Letters From AI – I had an email from my favourite AI provider today. It was an open call for artists actively using AI in their work to enter an annual AI film competition. I thought that’s interesting, it’s a pity that I don’t have anything to enter. Then I continued to read more of the details. The request mentioned the word ‘experimental’. They said they were looking for experimental films of between 1 and 10 minutes duration. Then I remembered Athena the robot from my 3 minute film last term. I know in my ‘heart of hearts’ that this is probably a massive ‘long shot’, but I thought, if I don’t at least try then I’ll never know. My 3 minute video was very experimental and technically there were so many things wrong with it. However, I’m hoping that because they requested experimental work, then maybe? Who knows? Please wish me luck! Love Letters From AI Here is a recap of my entry. Entry Confirmation Here is my official entry confirmation. Now I’ve just got to wait and be really patient. Here’s hoping 🤞

Hanging Around

Choosing a Suitable Stringing Method – Choosing suitable materials and a hanging method for my mobile has to be one of the most challenging aspects so far. I’m way beyond my comfort zone with this! Noah one of my fellow students shared a link by the creative force that once was, namely David Bowie. Im going to put what he said here so that when I struggle I’ve got a point of reference to start things moving again. Today, having produced enough mobile elements to explore hanging and stringing I started running into multiple problems. Some of these included: 1). What kind of stringing method would I like to use 2). How do I arrange the elements neatly enough so that the viewer understands them as binary. 3). What materials should I use to actually string and hang the mobile? 4). Will a smaller prototype actually translate into a much larger one? The problems above were to name only a few. I spent the evening trying to source suitable hanging materials. I managed to source a very good older pdf on the subject of mobile making which helped a lot! How to Make Mobiles How to […]

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 26

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

Grotto Print – The Final Outcome

To QR or Not to QR – After much deliberation I finally settled on the final design for my Grotto Print. The background to this project can be found in the following blogs: Grotto Print Ideas #1, Grotto Print Ideas #2 and lastly Grotto Print Ideas #3. Initially, I had wanted to add a layer of augmented reality to this project, which would have been very much in keeping with all of my thoughts and aims from Unit 1 and Unit 2. I designed myself an augmented reality QR code to compliment my final clock print design. Unfortunately, although it worked really well for me on my iPhone, there was a problem for Android users. This problem was a country problem namely the U.K. vs U.S. Apparently there are subtle differences between the U.K. Android operating system and the U.S. Android operating system. So sadly my grand vision of having my print augmented with an animated video could not happen on this occasion. However, I was not to be completely thwarted. I decided that if I could not augment my print with a video, then I would use standard QR code technology to take the user to my art print […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]