BOW A5: Tutor feedback

Overall Comments

Your e-publication, witaaiafof , is an allusive (and ellusive) and at times exhilarating and troubling exploration of a friendship with an AI character. I watched and read the work, with the music playing throughout, as this seemed to be suggested on the front page. This made the work seem even more immersive, and to superimpose another rhythm over the rhythms or page turning, reading the text, and the animation of images.  

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The work is a fascinating, thoughtful bringing together of the different strands of your practice and interests – writing, photographs, AI, graphic and typographic design and moving image. In such a complex work, there are moments which are confusing, or where I feel you could develop the dialogue further or simplify. I wonder too whether the final, discursive text that explains what came before is necessary. Perhaps better to let the work tell you what it is doing through the dialogue and diaristic elements. But we can discuss this.

Feedback on assignment

‘These curling, unruly paths’ are what make this work so tantalizing. I agree with your judgement (in the most recent part of your blog) that you don’t need to expand every aspect, but perhaps give a few more signposts along the way, which could be in the form of dialogue, or some kind of footnote/margin note.

Your AI character (as you depict it) is an unstable subject both in the language she/they/ it uses and in your narrator’s response to her/them. I wonder about the narrator’s ‘I’. Who is ‘I’? What are the motivations, and meanings of the narrator’s character? And what structures (the idea of a book/diary/play/film/story/piece of music) support (or destabilize) the narrator?  There is a history – nouveau roman, stream of consciousness, nouvelle vague cinema and more recent forms – that your work follows on from, and engages with (I think) but maybe you could make more of how your story and your narrator come about in body of the text, rather than explaining in the sort of afterword.

Coursework

You have worked hard and with great commitment at exploring all aspects of your project from selecting and taking images, writing and editing, layout etc.

Research

 Your project comes out of sustained and in depth research considering the implications of AI and for instance and looking at OOO (Harman), and Haraway’s ideas of post-human or more-than-human, and others. On the technical (but not only technical) side you also have completed a book publishing course, which has given you more tools for designing your work.

Learning Log

Your LL is detailed and charts your research and the stages for making your work. You have sought peer feedback and responded to it.

Suggested reading/viewing

Reading your LL after looking at the Assignment e-publication, I am reminded of some of Chris Krauss’s novel I Love Dick in which art theory/philosophy are entangled in the narrator’s obsession with the eponymous love interest. I think this blurring of categories is something that your work is also involved in. I think Chris Kraus’s writing and films might be interesting and useful.

Pointers for the next assignment / assessment

Your interpretation of your research is very thoughtful and important source material for your experimentation with images and text. This is evident in your LL and in the work.  I think that drawing out the strong main points and ideas and stating them clearly will be important for the assessment, but also for the publication of the work beyond assessment. It is complex work, and therefore signposts will help people get into it. Consider whether the sound file is the way you want it to appear – i.e. as an external link.

Strengths	Areas for development
Original approach to and poetic response to the AI through a sustained engagement and experiment	With the voices of the narrator and other character, consider developing the dialogue/diary to include the discursive text. What happens when fictional voices speak the language and utterances of philosophy/politics?
Sensitive, critical and adept handling and editing of different sources of imagery: creating a powerful image-essay alongside text	For the final presentation for assessment consider producing the publication as a publication and showing video/ documentation or some other kind of performative presentation.
Ambitious and profound exploration of contemporary philosophy through the medium of your art practice. You take on challenges and are open to learning new skills (e.g. coding…)	Collaboration (as you suggest) with a coder could expand the possibilities of the work. At the same time, carrying on reflecting and writing about and charting your interpretation of what you learn.

Response to BOW A5 Tutor Feedback Tutorial

It was good to talk to Ruth about the project after reading her report.

• The ‘statement’ at the back is unnecessary and exists outside of the book. It may be for elsewhere but not on the book. I agreed as had been troubled by it recently. However, I do need to signpost that the characters conversing within are human and an Ai. Ruth agreed, and we talked about making these signs inside the work.
• However, Ruth also used the word “intrude” and we discussed a kind of meta-conversation about the book being inside it – that part of the work intruding on the narrative. It already does that in places – but embrace it a bit more.
• As stated in my blog, I have been thinking about writing a piece of prose to go in the book. I planned this before but then ditched it but have come back to thinking it really is necessary. I was glad to see Chris Kraus mentioned in the feedback and am certainly influenced by her – but perhaps there is a bit of fear surrounding this aspect of the work, which has prevented me from tackling it sooner. I feel like I might be ready to write it now BUT
• I need to send the book to print ASAP – however, will give myself a bit of time to write something. If I can’t do it in time for the printed version, it can be in the e-publication for now. I have had several ideas about how this writing should be presented – initially, two pages (which would actually need to be four pages) in the middle. I have wondered about having a smaller book inside the larger one. Perhaps that solves some of the problems I envisaged with printing.
• I am not sure how to resolve the music – which for now is technically clunky. I don’t know if ID can make the music play automatically throughout the book. As I understand it, as soon as you turn a page, any audio will stop. But there might be a way around this. I played with my website hosting it the other day but the embedding wouldn’t work. I need to focus on this for a day or two soon.