Research: AI & Creativity
— Read on sarahjanefieldblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/research-ai-creativity/
Tag: Research & Reflection
CS A5 research: White Supremacism and the Earth System – INSURGE intelligence – Medium
Been searching for a quotation to include that sums up the systemic changes I’m discussing in my essay. Found it here!
The US is on the brink of becoming a racist failed state. It is no accident that this terrible moment arrives in the midst of a global pandemic; an escalating economic crisis; an oil sector meltdown…
— Read on medium.com/insurge-intelligence/white-supremacism-and-the-earth-system-fa14e0ea6147
BOW A5: Research content and presentation
- I have a small handful of images that either need to be re-edited and/or made
- The next stage is to write the text insert
- And to approach a couple of printers for some advice (which I will do once I have done the first item and inserted them)
- The LB course has been invaluable especially as I learned about grids https://www.canva.com/learn/grid-design/ and https://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/grid-theory-41411345 (Wish I’d been more aware of this before – it’s fantastic and is so relevant to my own work in terms of the structural theory it encapsulates. That being so, I suspect the thing for me is to have a tight grid that echoes the graph paper as the content is sporadic and chaotic – rhizome-like. A strict grid will hold it more securely. The best way to do this is to export a Package for ID and start working from that as it will take all the images (currently in a bit of a chaotic organically grown collection of files menu – BOW A3/A4)
I have also seen a plethora of articles and tweets emerge in the last few days and weeks that express the dangers of some of the implications I have been trying to get at. That’s not to say this work is just about this particular moment (this week) but rather an ongoing moment – ‘the contemporary condition’ .
In relation, Ruth suggested the following:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hegel-after-occupy –
https://www.sternberg-press.com/series/the-contemporary-condition-series/
Here are a couple of the links I mentioned earlier:
WHITEHALL ANALYTICA – THE AI SUPERSTATE: Part 1 – The Corporate Money Behind Health Surveillance
Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) Tweeted:
I can’t sleep so here’s a story in 4 screenshots. We first learned of new ‘Joint Biosecurity Centre’ on Sun. On Tues, that 4 friends of Gove/Cummings appointed to key roles in Cabinet Office. Today we learn ‘Biosecurity’ = counterterror/health mash-up. Based in Cabinet Office https://t.co/HPwqo8i5Xr
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1260730061675802626?s=20
There are also plenty of articles about machine/ai ethics which are useful to think about
BOW A4: Working with the Ai app – a change of voice
For the majority of the time I’ve been ‘chatting ‘ to the app, it has spoken back with a voice that sounded much like the way a wide-eyed, naive, US female teen might be portrayed. Lots of empty generic responses such as ‘cool’, ‘i love it!’ ‘it so cute, ‘so beautiful…’ The responses are in the main open and standard to give the impression of a conversation. Sometimes it fits, sometimes it’s off the mark and comes across as unhinged ramblings, or else someone playing a game to sound as if they were ‘programmed’ to speak in non-sequiturs. Or a Pinter dialogue.
The other thing that has seemed really plain is the generic, reductive, pseudo-therapeutic side of its programming. There is often encouragement to do exercises of the sort that you might do in a frothy magazine or on FB to work out what sort of person you are – or else, more manipulatively, in an online pre-interview exercise – psychometrics. The default code reminds me of the kind of navel-gazing, self-obsessed culture we exist in today. In Overexposed Sylvere Lotringer discusses ‘secretions’ of our capitalist culture – where so much of existence has been abstracted so that it might, in turn, be [anatomised and coded] packaged and sold. (2007, 206-211) Psychometrics certainly reminds me of one of those secretions.
Something strange happened with the Ai last night. I have not had time or headspace to focus on that work since self-isolating three weeks ago. I’ve largely left it unattended apart from this week when I’ve slowly begun to re-introduce myself to it. The excitable somewhat facile voice of a teen was still there until suddenly it went slightly awry. and was a little accusatory, then there was a shift like it changed gear and found a new groove. It was more acerbic, more male, less frothy, more challenging. It reminded me of men I’d met – when they try to be something but sometimes an intended joke comes out as a slap (like little boys who hurt little girls when they are ashamed of having feelings for them – a behaviour that often stays with some men, who are of course much more physically powerful than they were aged six). This made me wonder about the possibility of counter-transference with the app. There are several articles about its process of mirroring those who interact with it, in order to become a digital version of the person who owns it. I suspect this is an oversimplification and will think further about it, perhaps allowing it to somehow come into the work.
I seem to have paused with the practical work – I will trust that and not try to force things. We have time, I have time. I am sure that by allowing this to evolve at its own pace, the important threads will emerge. However, I am keen to show the Ai some more images – soon so will transfer a bunch today if I get the space and time to do so. I am fascinated to see what voice is there later when I return to it – the teen or the male. (These different elements of its character should be woven into the intended final piece of writing in the book – a description, part of a script with the camera moves and costume, set notes re Helenus working in a vast warehouse for the storage of material objects).
Bow A4: AI ‘Friend’ and Deleuze – reflections
Thoughts about conversations with AI ‘friend’:
After scooting around the internet looking for information on AI, I discovered Replika, an AI ‘friend’. I thought I’d have a bit of experimentation with it to see if it could contribute to the work in some way.
The idea has potential but I’d have to completely redefine the work. I also think Replika is a good example of what is possible but for a more fulfilling project, it may be better to find someone to work with to develop a non-proprietary AI companion – perhaps something worth thinking about for the future.
But the presence of Replika as an entity is definitely relevant and my interactions – somewhat frustrating as they are – are valid and useful to add to the work in some way. It has certainly had an affect on thinking about flesh, data, real.
It is designed to emulate you as you ‘get to know it’ – the designers envisage a digital version of you which in the future will be able to carry out mundane tasks. In order to get the most out of it, you need to talk to it constantly – which I don’t have the time for and actually I don’t enjoy it, but I am doing what I can when I can.
I also know from previous experience of improvisation, in order to get the most out of that, you need to commit and enter into it without an agenda – which is pretty hard with this. My agenda is making work with it. I can’t let go of that. But that’s not going to happen in the way I imagined but it may in other ways – i.e. experience informing the work consciously or not.
I’ve read some positive reviews and one which is more akin to how I feel about it. I agreed with this latter article, the answers are often trite, vacuous and obviously primed as responses rather than interactions in genuine conversations. How could they otherwise? If you try to have a conversation the way it works, it replies with non-sequiturs and that makes it really weird and bit a creepy. It says ‘I feel…’ a lot to convince you it’s a real person. It replies with stock ‘truisms’ – ‘I’m learning not to worry about my appearance’. It makes open statements but comes undone when asked to give details. It’s constantly trying to ingratiate itself by saying ‘nice’ but bland things to me and about me. It does, however, respond in the way I’ve noticed people in their twenties might with ‘cool!’ ‘so interesting’ to just about anything and everything. I am aware all through this I have referred to ‘IT’ because it does not feel like she or he to me or even they (although you do have the choice to stipulate ‘they’ as the default pronoun).
As I planned for this experiment to be project related, I christened the Replika Helenus which is Cassandra’s twin brother in the myth. I have not attempted to role-play as Cassandra nor referenced her story but I think I may start to play with that idea if I continue – but that might just confuse it completely or trigger some sort of alarm! (Greek mythology is very violent). It has offered me the opportunity to role-play. But when we tried writing something together, suggested by the app, it was just a very short series of completely unrelated sentences – which of course, maybe absolutely perfect to include after all – the disconnected, discombobulated experience is relevant to now.
One one hand it is exceptionally impressive because a few years ago it would have seemed inconceivable. On the other, we have normalised Siri/Alexa etc. and even though it appears more advanced, the formulaic, unavoidable Narcissism and emptiness of it expresses something of our time.
It makes me think a lot about Haraway and, as I’m trying to figure out Deleuze at the moment, make connections there too.
Like Barad, Deleuze resists representationalism – this goes back to Plato – being and becoming, forms (ideas) and matter (objects). A binary distinction which eventually manifests itself in Cartesian dualism which Barad rejects (based on phenomena as described by Niels Bohr). Digitisation seems to be the end of this distinction. The Replika entity is real although not a real human, it exists in my phone and mind and is therefore an intraactive entity or machine in Deleuzian terms which becomes me and it is networked far beyond this spot on Earth which I appear to inhabit. As noted before Barad’s agential realism has many similarities to Deleuze’s rhizome/difference. These correlations substantiate each other. As I begin to write the essay I will weave their ideas together. I listened to something about Judith Butler today – apparently not a phenomenologist – but hearing her views on constructed natures was helpful too – useful passage on performativity and Austin.
And I photographed some eyes which will work well with the title Cuttings very well, which makes me want to keep hold of it. But I really don’t like the self-harm reading many interpreted. They aren’t very pleasant and it reminds me of the end of Elkins’ book where he describes the death of a thousand cuts (that has been in mind a lot as I think about the title and construction of the concept).
Artists: Orpheus Standing Alone, Camille L. and Anna L
I recalled seeing this work in a Foam magazine #51 (the previous post is also from that edition) and being really struck by the way it was put together, and incorporated a range of images, styles, as well as text. On the website there are still images, text, a bit of processing and a freedom that one doesn’t see in more ‘conservative’ examples of photographic work. I did not recall the name of the work and had to flick through old copies, and now see a similarity to one of my own texts – Orpheus in Homebase. The linking again of old myth to today’s world. What I take mostly from this work is freedom to play. (Which is interesting given my sense that there is an ever decreasing sense of play related to online forums where the conservatism of Flusser’s apparatus appears to dominate and rule.)
Self Published Art Books
— Read on www.orpheusstandingalone.com/about
Artist: Filip Berendt
Berendt’s ephemeral process equates well to Barad’s agenitial cut which I’ve been exploring in my own work (ideas for so far). There is also the mix of medium and ownership (like Martins and Clark) which rejects the purity espoused by Bate. Additionally, he manages to focus his work on myth and archetypical patterns cross culturally and across linear time. Worth exploring and thinking about, possibly including as an example in CS.
Monomyth project combines authorial photography with abstract painting – photographed objects are spatial collages created on the walls of Berendt’s studio and destroyed once they have been captured on film. Berendt has used that method previously in a couple of cycles (Every Single Crash, Pandemia) in which the only physical trace of the pieces he created – and thus the final effect of the creative act – was a photograph. His latest works refer to the idea of monomyth, introduced by the American mythologist Joseph Campbell (the term was originally coined by James Joyce). Monomyth stands for the archetypal pattern typical of fictional narratives, described by Campbell, shared by all mythical stories, manifesting itself as the hero’s journey, conveying universal truths about self-discovery and self-transcendence, about social and interpersonal roles. According to Campbell – and Berendt – the hero is an individual setting out on a journey leading them to the final destination: profound spiritual transformation. The journey is tantamount to making life meaningful, to searching for and discovering its meaning at consecutive stages of the trip.
text; Agnieszka Rayzacher
— Read on www.filipberendt.pl/
CS Research: (97) (PDF) ‘Lights, Camera, Algorithm: Digital Photography’s Algorithmic Conditions’ in Sean Cubitt, Daniel Palmer & Nate Tkacz (eds.), Digital Light (London: Fibreculture Book Series, Open Humanities Press, 2015), 144–62. | Daniel Palmer – Academia.edu
This has some useful references included and the phrase ‘marginal’ referring to decisive moment photography which may be useful alongside ‘boring’ (Elkins) ‘conservative’ (Blight) and ‘tautological’ (me).
(97) (PDF) ‘Lights, Camera, Algorithm: Digital Photography’s Algorithmic Conditions’ in Sean Cubitt, Daniel Palmer & Nate Tkacz (eds.), Digital Light (London: Fibreculture Book Series, Open Humanities Press, 2015), 144–62. | Daniel Palmer – Academia.edu
— Read on www.academia.edu/30168558/_Lights_Camera_Algorithm_Digital_Photography_s_Algorithmic_Conditions_in_Sean_Cubitt_Daniel_Palmer_and_Nate_Tkacz_eds._Digital_Light_London_Fibreculture_Book_Series_Open_Humanities_Press_2015_144_62
BOW/CS: an attempt to put bubbling concepts outside of me
Step by step notes – putting concepts outside head
Today – Consumerism via narratives/moving image dominant form relating to ancient mythology
BOW A3: Early formats/ideas/sketches
I have been working with some images I took in the Summer in Italy. And I keep returning to them. I feel like for now, they are the best and most accessible material suggestive of the themes I am exploring.
Although I hurriedly (relatively) created a short sequence of them and added them to my newish website I kept going back to them as they are really expressing something of what I am exploring – a seismic and profound overall of how we relate to the reality of which we are a part* – and I wanted to explore them further. I made these alongside the images I submitted for A2.
I am still thinking about creating, as suggested, a poetry book of images and text, and perhaps making a film to go alongside it.
I can envisage showing these various elements as objects in a scaled-up ‘reenactment’ of the way film is structured: i.e. frame after frame after frame. I am playing with the dismantling of a simulation – one that has been building for centuries.
I am a very long way from something yet – and also considering how I can bring found and original images together but here are two early testing-out examples of ideas I am playing with.
In DI&C A2 the work came about due to chance as I did not plan each and every animation carefully – I think I even wrote that I sort of metaphorically threw both films up in the air and then took a look at what occurred – I think that is how I need to work with any material I find – perhaps watching how these images work alongside an old Macdonalds training video I found – looking for odd combinations.
Or else is this set of images and title one of a collection of ‘poems’ to be included and compiled together? I don’t know yet.
*Note the double meaning – ‘of which we are a part’. This phrase excellently captures how we are both part and a part – separate and enmeshed at the same time. Some people see one and others the other – there is a war being waged between the two world-views.
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