Unit Three – Learning Objective 3

5 Minute Film      LO1       LO2      LO3

Learning Objective Three

Summarise and evaluate your overall progress and formulate a constructive plan for continuing Personal and Professional Development. (AC Communication)

SUMMARY

Need a quick summary? Please see the LO3 Summary for a very brief outline of LO3

Evolution

Everything has changed and colour is no exception.

Progress

“Art is the soul’s reflection, echoing humanity’s quest for unity amidst the bits and bytes of our technological evolution.”

Out of all of the sections of ‘Unit 3’, this one (LO3), has by far been the most difficult for me to complete.  Partially because it is the last one and I’m really sad about that, but also because I genuinely don’t know where to begin.  At one point I even considered just feeding my words from the first section into ChatGPT.  However, I wanted my final piece of writing to come straight from the heart.  This is because over the last two years I have been on a transformative journey.  When I began the course most of my creative activity revolved around macro photography and I had a deep love of the subject.  I saw myself initially using this skill and refining it further to create more and more interesting art pieces.  However, in the midst of all of this I witnessed the rapid rise of text to image and text to video AI industrialised art. I just instinctively knew that my time as a fine art photographer was drawing to a close.  I really did feel a deep sense of loss.  Fortunately I have a very inquiring mind and I began to seek out new ways of working.  Initially, I began to explore generative art, which even today I still enjoy, but I feel that this too will eventually be lost to the AI industrialised art machine.  I have such mixed emotions about it all.  On one level I embrace AI art.  I can see it empowering people to find a level of expression perhaps previously denied to them.  On the other hand, there are so many moral and ethical issues surrounding it, that I think we need to proceed with extreme caution.  Suddenly I found myself in the middle of a rapidly changing environment.  Each day there were announcements about the latest algorithms and what AI could and couldn’t do.  Keeping abreast of all of this was at best difficult.

I really wanted to pick up my camera and return to the familiar.  Instead I decided to move outside of my well worn ways of working and I embarked on a deep exploration of human, digital and AI hybrid art with the addition of incorporating hidden elements into my creations.  I documented all of my intentions in my study statement.  The working title of my study statement was ‘Know Thy Enemy’ which in my case I saw as AI industrialised art.  The full quote is as follows:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

My thinking was that if I could explore the current developments with this technology, then I would be better placed to both understand it and use it creatively in my work.  However, during the research phase of my Research Paper I was met with the sobering realisation that AI art is not at all popular, and in all probability it was never going to be.  In fact on many levels it is actually quite morally repugnant.  Indeed, my research showed that the only way it was ever going to be acceptable, was if its usage was unknown, or it was produced by a sad humanoid robot.  Using AI art and not telling anyone that it was AI was just not ethical nor tenable.  These discoveries caused a profound shift in perspective. The imbalance of power wielded by tech giants against artists and creators started to become a central theme.

During Unit 2, I took a trip to Barcelona and this was the first time that I really felt the urge to pick up my camera.  I was inspired by the vibrant graffiti that adorned the city’s walls.  This brightly coloured graffiti to me was a very human statement.  It reminded me of early cave paintings.  Perhaps when confronted with walls people just feel the need to express themselves?  There was just something both very human, very physical ‘and very in your face’ about it.  I felt such a strong urge to photograph and document it.  When I ran all of the images together as a sequence the sheer volume of it all was quite breathtaking.  In my blog post ‘Barcelona Graffiti’ I also documented how some residents (consciously or unconsciously) appeared to be colour co-ordinating their clothes with the vibrant graffiti around them.  Even today I still do not know why, but I just felt the need to highlight the graffiti that everyone seemed to ignore on a daily basis.  I think it was because in an increasingly technological world, spraying paint onto walls (as Banksy would no doubt agree) seemed quite a revolutionary act.

The Barcelona trip resulted in three self published books that all had a layer of augmented reality from cover to cover.  These books represented a very human endeavour and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to mix augmented reality (AR), digital art and AI art.  Any AI images in the books were created from my collaged graffiti images.  There was no text to image or text to video used in the making of the books.  Anything that was AI generated was based on original photographs uploaded into the system by me.  The act of scaling back my AI usage was becoming increasingly important to me.  I could feel my outlook changing.  My work was definitely progressing.  I discovered that augmented reality can ‘stick’ to its anchor image even when it is moved around.  This discovery sparked a series of experiments which culminated in the realisation that augmented reality could be seamlessly integrated into moving structures, paving the way for the development of a moving piece of art.

Around this time I was greatly influenced by the work of Alexander Calder.  His work encapsulated exactly how I was feeling.  I wanted to create something physical something tangible, something that was real.  I was tiring of the AI industrialised art machine.   This drove me to work on a series of my own mobiles.  It was not easy.  I fought for weeks trying to work out a suitable hanging system.  Eventually I came up with a method that worked.  I created 3 mobiles two of which were exhibited at the Paradiso Gallery in Bovey Traey and the third is due to be shown at the end of year exhibition at Central Saint Martins.  The physical act of making the mobiles reminded me that art is so much more than could ever be created by a machine.  Increasingly my thoughts turned to all of the artists who had their work fed into this system without consent.  I was seeing more and more people being hurt by this, myself included.  I began to wonder if I could help shed light on this imbalance of power between the tech giants and the ordinary person.  Given that I had been trying to balance mobiles for weeks the words balance and imbalance began to resonate with me.  It was at this point I realised my mobiles work on balance, society works on balance and even the universe works on balance.  Without balance in our lives we have problems and I believe currently we have many.

The connection was made and I decided to name my mobile ‘The Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’. I wanted it to be an intricate art piece with many hidden layers.  Now completely disillusioned with AI art, I wanted my mobile to serve as a testament to hidden voices and untold stories within the art industry.  I designed the mobile so that its elements spelled the words ‘Unity in Bits’.  This phrase was a simple ‘play’ on words posing questions like – was our unity in bits, namely a fractured society driven apart by the rise of technology and its inherent threats?  Or, could we actually find our unity in the bits and bytes of computer code?  All that was now required were artists prepared to voice their true options about AI.  The art piece already accommodates a number of prominent voices, but the intention is that it evolves, as more and more voices are added.  Evolution is a theme that continues to flow through my work.

The Balance of Power Book

I created an explanatory art book to accompany the ‘Balance of Power’ mobile.  It contains further details about the concept and rationale behind my mobile.  I used augmented reality to hide sounds (often hidden and muffled voices), animations and videos inside.  AI did help with some of the animations, but all of the imagery was created by me, and only my imagery was used in the making of the following film.  The film below was a contender for my final 5 minute video, but I rejected it, preferring to use a piece that could stand alone.  However, this video is a good summary of my thinking and I believe that the book will prove a useful addition to my overall body of work.

Resolve or Evolve

Finally, I would like to mention again my ‘Resolve or Evolve’ video.  This is the first 5 minute video I produced as my film submission.  However on reflection I discounted it.  The reason I place it here is because, visually, it charts my progress and my gradual evolution from 2d digitally based work into more physical 3d digital and hybrid based work.  I think it also helps to explain a lot of my background thinking.  Can we evolve with the new technologies facing us?  I think so…

All of the Above in Numbers

A more detailed explanation of these numbers can be found here.

300 Blogposts

162 Image Galleries

5,234 Media Items (Photos, PDFs and Videos)

Over 1500 Links

87 Before and After Sliders

2,500 Video Clips

230 Completed Films

43 Hand Drawn and Digitised Zentangles

4 Self Published (AR) Books

2 Large Scale (AR) Mobiles

3 Five Minute ‘Final’ Videos

Future Plans – Continuing Personal and Professional Development

 *  Have a break! Take some time out to catch up family and friends

* Build on my ‘Little Wins’

* Produce promotional materials for my mobile for the end of year show

* Evaluate the response to my mobile and seize any resulting opportunities

* Establish a robust, sustainable, ethical and commercially viable way of producing my mobiles

* Seek out artistic collaborations with some of my work colleagues

* Establish connections with galleries and foster current relationships

* Establish connections with architects with a view to designing mobiles for large spaces

* Sell some mobiles to fund my ongoing work and outbuilding refurbishment (to create a studio space)

* Catch up on any of the online artist talks and progression videos I may have missed and continue to read and research

*  Contact the MACBA Museum in Barcelona to discuss any opportunities relating to my MACBA Metamorphosis Books

* Consider a PhD?

I am looking forward to the end of year show and I have a number of tasks to complete before the mobile is ready to show.  However, I am looking forward to seeing reactions to it.  When the first prototype was shown at the Paradiso Gallery people seemed to enjoy interacting with it.  This is something that I would like to build upon in my work.  I’m really not sure what I will create next.  I have a number of colleagues with whom I would like to collaborate and I’m thinking about forming a collective with some of them.  In order to make my work more commercially viable I need to do more research into materials etc.  I want anything I produce to be ethically sourced, sustainable and ultimately planet kind.  Once the making process is refined and fully costed, it is my intention to seek out gallery representation.  My initial thoughts are to approach architects who may be dealing with large spaces.  I also need to approach the MACBA Museum to explore any potential opportunities relating to my trilogy of Barcelona Graffiti books. The MACBA Museum has featured quite heavily in these. Having already exhibited at a number of galleries, I am hoping to foster these existing relationships and expand my connections.  I have an outbuilding that will make an ideal studio space, so I will be looking to refurbish this soon, hopefully with funds from my ongoing work.  Finally, I want to keep my ‘Little Wins’ rolling in, so that maybe my ‘Little Wins’ can one day turn into increasingly bigger ones 🙂

In conclusion, my time over the last two years has been nothing short of transformative. It has not only broadened my creative horizons but also challenged me to confront the ethical dilemmas posed by emerging technologies. As I navigated the complexities of AI and its impact on the art world, I discovered new ways to blend traditional and digital mediums, ultimately finding a balance that honours both. This journey has been profoundly enriching, filled with moments of self-discovery and artistic growth. I leave this course with a deep appreciation for the ever-evolving landscape of art and a commitment to continue exploring, creating and evolving in exciting new ways.

– Karyn –

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Throughout my time on the MA Fine Art Digital course, I have maintained a systematic approach to reflecting on my processes and my work in general.  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 and many of the processes involved in it.  Each reflective entry charts my progress and is a useful addition to this section.

A VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF All WORK

Below is a visual representation of all of my blogs.  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 browse the full blog by using either categories or tags.   In the meantime the ‘Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’ mobile continues to evolve…