Unit Three – Learning Objective 1

 

5 Minute Film      LO1       LO2      LO3

 

Learning Objective One

Present evidence of a body of work that demonstrates a systematic enhancement of your knowledge and understanding. (AC Realisation)

 

 

 

Summary

Need a quick summary? Please see the LO1 Summary for a very brief outline of LO1.

 

Background

In my original study statement near the start of this course, I spoke of my desire to investigate a human, digital and AI hybrid form of art.  I noted the desirability of incorporating some form of ‘hidden’ element into any given art piece.  Often hidden elements, upon discovery, can both potentially add appeal and enhance meaning.  Initially I began to work very heavily with a variety of newly launched AI art tools.  I was completely fascinated with text to image and text to video generation.  Much of my work became heavily focussed in this direction.

However, after examining AI art closely for my Research Paper, the enthusiasm I once held for it for it, significantly dampened.   The findings in my Research Paper for ‘Unit 2’ showed numerous studies confirming a huge negative bias towards AI generated art.  Although my paper was looking at mitigation strategies to counter this negativity, it was becoming increasingly obvious that AI art was neither generally liked nor respected.

One of the greatest turning points was when I became aware of the tagging process.  This is whereby a human tags an image with descriptors to feed algorithms and enable the machine learning process.  It became clear to me that images were being taken from artists, often without their knowledge or their permission.  It was also obvious to me that the only real winners in this scenario were the tech giants behind it all.  Indeed, during my research I became aware that I too had been a victim of losing images to this process.

 

 

Realisation

My change in attitude towards AI art was quite profound.  In my opinion the tech giants wield a vast amount of power in comparison to the average person on the street, or indeed the artists whose work they farm.  The scales appear to be unfairly tipped in their favour.  It was at this point that the idea of a ‘Balance of Power’ came into being.  This concept is discussed in more detail here.

During this period of ‘soul searching’ I was in the process of completing the last augmented reality phase of a trilogy of books I created.  While spending time in Barcelona, I became increasingly interested in the brightly coloured graffiti that adorned the city’s walls.  After completing the full augmentation of each of the three books (born out of an exhaustive investigation into augmented reality), I proceeded to make a video (found in this blogpost), showing the the augmented reality in action across the book’s pages.  Although the bulk of this work was completed in ‘Unit 2’, it played an integral part moving my work forwards into ‘Unit 3’.  This is because I discovered from my investigations (see the 21 day challenge) into augmented reality that any augmented reality images or videos would ‘stick like glue’ to whatever they were augmented onto.  I created another video showing this phenomena in action.

This realisation had come at a very opportune moment because I had just started to investigate the work of Alexander Calder.  I found his work inspiring, being particularly drawn to the slow kinetic motion of his mobiles.  Around this time I had also just begun taking my first steps into mobile making.  I began to wonder if it would be possible to add a layer of augmented reality to a moving structure?  Also, if it was possible to augment a moving structure, was it also possible to add augmented reality to any light and shadows created by my proposed mobile?  Numerous experiments proved the answers to be a resounding ‘yes’.   This meant I could now take my ‘Balance of Power’ concept and apply it to a structure that relied heavily on balance, namely a mobile.  What followed was many weeks of sustained experimentation to refine my mobile making process.  This is discussed in much more detail in ‘Unit 3 – LO2’.

Blogpost number 200 really was a celebratory post as it showcased my second working prototype alongside images of my first prototype.  The elements on the second prototype were markedly different from the circular elements on the first prototype.  This is because as explained in my concept, each element on the second prototype spells out the words ‘Unity in Bits’ in binary code.  It was important to me that there were hidden elements to my mobile waiting to be discovered.  Prototype number two was exhibited by the Paradiso Gallery in Bovey Tracey.  Apparently people were so sad to see its departure that it may be invited back by popular demand in the Autumn.  At this point knowing that people actually seemed to like my mobile, inspired me to embark on a much larger and more imposing version.  Again it was important to me to have hidden elements to my next mobile creation. Therefore, I decided to invite a wide variety of people across the arts industries to give me their thoughts on AI generated art.  One of the prime reasons that I wanted to hide these voices within the elements of the mobile is because AI art contains the work of many hidden artists.  Many of their voices are unheard, yet should be heard.  I wanted my mobile’s binary elements to echo this.  It is my belief that when people discover unexpected things in unexpected places, then that memory becomes much more powerful.  The following video shows the mobile in full with snippets of augmented reality showing how the augmented reality concept works in practice.

 

 

Body of work

There were a number of outcomes from my investigations into both augmented reality and mobile making.  However the main outcomes were as follows:

 

• A series of three self published books with hidden layers of augmented reality, containing a mix of digital art and animations.  This set of three books became the driving force behind the augmented reality mobiles that followed.
• A small working prototype of the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ mobile exhibited at the Paradiso Gallery in Bovey Tracey.
• ‘The Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ binary code themed mobile.  This is a large intricate art piece containing the voices of many hidden artists.  This mirrors the reality of many artists today, currently hidden from view, while their art is ‘gobbled up and spat out’ by the industrialised art machine.
• ‘The Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ book.  This publication is a self published 30cm x 30cm hard backed book that is filled with a variety of augmented videos, including the words of some well known artists.  This book could act as a standalone piece, but its main purpose is to accompany the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ mobile art piece.  It contains both the concept and rationale behind the mobile.  It is a call upon the AI industrialised art industry to recognise the human stories behind the pixels.
• A standalone video of the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ book.  This video can stand by itself as a call out to the AI industrialised art industry to acknowledge all of the work from hidden artists used in the making of their products.

 

 

 

 

• Experimental photography for the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ book.
• A standalone video piece posing the question should we resolve to fight against AI or evolve with it?  This video gives a good overview of all of the projects both physical and digital that I’ve been working on over the course of the last two years.  It shows how my work has gradually moved from being primarily digitally focussed towards the more physically focussed.  All of the clips in the following film were created by me using a mix of photography, digital art, generative art and some AI animations.  They represent many hours work, particularly the digitally produced generative art pieces, which I learned to code from scratch.

 

 

 

 

 

**Digital Artworks (Key Section)**

Throughout the last two years I have created a vast amount of standalone digital art pieces as part of my development and learning process.  One these pieces ‘Echoes of Sadness’ now permanently resides with the Paradiso Gallery.  The digital art piece called ‘Time of the Signs’ was also exhibited by Studio Kind.  Please use the following links to access these works.

 

** A SELECTION OF DIGITAL ARTWORKS (VIDEOS) **

** A SELECTION OF DIGITAL ARTWORKS (IMAGE GALLERIES) **

 

 

 

 

Reflective Practice

Throughout my time on the course I have maintained a systematic approach to reflecting on my work.  All of this has been captured in my ‘Deep Reflection’ blogpost.  I feel that this blogpost (through the act of evaluation and reflection) captures the essence of what I’ve been trying to achieve.  Each reflective entry charts my progress and is a useful addition across all of the learning objectives in ‘Unit 3’ and across the whole of my blog.

 

A Visual Representation of my Unit 3 Work

Below is a visual representation of all of my blogs from ‘Unit 3’.  It charts all of the ‘behind the scenes’ work that has gone into the making of the body of work above.  Every image that heads up each individual blogpost is designed to tell a story of its own.  It is an additional way to help showcase both my photography and my work. All of the header images (unless otherwise stated) have been created by me and specially curated to reflect the content of each individual blogpost.

Having trouble viewing the visual blog post page? (Smartphones do not display) –  Please use either the ‘Unit 3 Blogs’ tag or the ‘Unit 3 blogs’ category.  In the meantime the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ mobile continues to evolve…