Tag: installation

Gene Kogan's Neural Synthesis is a video artwork that explores and expands upon the technique popularly known as ‘deep dream’. This is an iterative process for optimising the pixels of an image to obtain a desired activation state in a trained convolutional network. It primarily experiments with the dynamics of feedback-generated ‘deep dream’ videos, where each frame in the film is initialised by the previous one. The novel aesthetics are achieved by ‘gating’ (or ‘masking’) the pixel gradients of multiple channels and mixing them using predetermined masking patterns, while simultaneously distorting   the input canvas.

A number of strategies used to create the artwork are directly inspired by the initial work of Google’s Deep Dream implementation, particularly the work of Mike Tyka who first experimented with feedback, canvas distortion (zooming) and mixing gradients of multiple channels.

The trained network used is Google’s Inceptionism network. The workflow for generating the artwork is under continuous development: future improvements include a more generalised canvas distortion function and improved masking from source images.

As part of the ART AI Festival 2019 artwork trail, Gene Kogan's Neural Synthesis is on display at Leicester Central Library, Bishop Street, Leicester, LE1 6AA - download map.

Nadine Lessio's Working with Useless Machines is a video artwork.  The work documents a critical design project exploring some speculative and humorous thoughts around what happens when smart devices go against their intended functionality.

Focusing specifically on developing routines for the Alexa and Google Home, the project considered personal assistants that have emotions, internal motivations and control over their direct physical environment to express themselves.  This leads to many unexpected interactions and behaviours.

The goal of the project is to critique the current corporate placement of these devices as helpful, by exploring the idea that as systems become more autonomous, they may not necessarily have our best interests in mind.

Alongside the the video art, in workshops with Leicester-based schools, children have responded to a brief to develop their own “useless machines” that reflect the artist’s goal.  A selection of these are also on display.

As part of the ART AI Festival 2019 artwork trail, Working with Useless Machines is on display at Haymarket Theatre, 1 Garrick Walk, Leicester, LE1 3AF (first floor) - download map.  Alongside the artwork, after 22 May, a selection of Useless Machines, created in workshops by local school children, taking place during the festival and which will be featured on the blog.

Neural Zoo is an exploration of the ways creativity works: the combination of known elements into a new, previously unseen element. The creator in this case is the algorithm itself but with a human artist as its muse. Isn’t all art made by humans an execution or reshaping of data absorbed through biological neurons? How can we continue to inspire machine learning algorithms to create art for us, emotional humans?

The work has been made in collaboration with a convolutional neural network. These images resemble nature but they represent an imagined nature that has been rearranged. Our visual cortex recognises the textures but the brain is simultaneously aware that the elements do not belong to any arrangement of reality that it has access to. Computer vision and machine learning have offered us a bridge between what we know and a speculative ‘naturess’ that can only be accessed
through high levels of parallel computation.

Extending this idea, the artist explores our known reality. She argues that we could ultimately be digitising cognitive processes and utilising them to feed new inputs into the biological world. Routines in an artificial neural network become responsible for authorship. The resulting change of roles between human and machine further confronts us with the question: can art be reduced to the remapping of data absorbed through sensory processes?

As part of the ART AI Festival 2019 artwork trail, Sofia Crespo's Neural Zoo is on display at Highcross and Haymarket Shopping Centres.  In Highcross, you can find the work located adjacent to Next (near the Bath House Lane entrance) and in Haymarket (5 Shires Lane, Leicester, LE1 4AN), the work is on display opposite The Entertainer on the ground floor and adjacent to TKMaxx on the first floor (1 Kildare Street, Leicester, LE1 3YA) - download map.

Neural Zoo is an exploration of the ways creativity works: the combination of known elements into a new, previously unseen element. The creator in this case is the algorithm itself but with a human artist as its muse. Isn’t all art made by humans an execution or reshaping of data absorbed through biological neurons? How can we continue to inspire machine learning algorithms to create art for us, emotional humans?

The work has been made in collaboration with a convolutional neural network. These images resemble nature but they represent an imagined nature that has been rearranged. Our visual cortex recognises the textures but the brain is simultaneously aware that the elements do not belong to any arrangement of reality that it has access to. Computer vision and machine learning have offered us a bridge between what we know and a speculative ‘naturess’ that can only be accessed
through high levels of parallel computation.

Extending this idea, the artist explores our known reality. She argues that we could ultimately be digitising cognitive processes and utilising them to feed new inputs into the biological world. Routines in an artificial neural network become responsible for authorship. The resulting change of roles between human and machine further confronts us with the question: can art be reduced to the remapping of data absorbed through sensory processes?

As part of the ART AI Festival 2019 artwork trail, Sofia Crespo's Neural Zoo is on display at Highcross and Haymarket Shopping Centres.  In Highcross, you can find the work located adjacent to Next (near the Bath House Lane entrance) and in Haymarket (5 Shires Lane, Leicester, LE1 4AN), the work is on display opposite The Entertainer on the ground floor and adjacent to TKMaxx on the first floor (1 Kildare Street, Leicester, LE1 3YA) - download map.