Post Presentation Essay: British Design || History of Design

1. British Design

There is no hard and fast rule about what British Design is; since post-war Britain hosted the Olympic games after 1948, British Design has shifted for over 60 years, responding  to economic, political, and cultural aspects that changed the fundamentals of how the British live.

In this essay, I will be sharing about three major phases of British Design, it’s characteristics and how it has paved the way for contemporary British Design.

2. Characteristics and movements of British Design

2.1 National Characteristics (1950s)

After the impact of the second world war, reconstruction became the purpose of design in Britain. It had to be modern, and give people a sense of hope for the country’s future.

One of the characteristics in British design is that it is designed with lateral thinking. This means that the design is seen as a whole, taking multiple design problems while injecting a sense of humour and play into design.

An example of this was the exhibition in the 1951 Festival of Britain, which showcased a progressive view of the future. This included interior design, for example Lucienne Day designs.

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Lucienne Day Designer Style

As living spaces in Britain were smaller and minimal due to the reconstruction, there was a focus on filling homes with essentials and keeping things simple.

In the above picture, it is a showcase of the designer style, with furniture and textiles decorated with geometric patterns, with the iconic bright colours of lime, olive green, yellow, and browns that would later be adopted in British households everywhere.

The design has a playful element about them, with irregular organic shapes and patterns. From here, we can see that their approach towards design during the period needed to solve multiple design problems as they were trying to reconstruct the British economy, through people’s way of life, incorporating playful designs around the interior of the house.

2.2 Subversive Impulsion (1960s)

For the children who were born in the 1950s, they grew up to challenge their parent’s values. As such, this lead to the transformation of the function of design from reconstruction to revolution. All aspects of design were enjoyed as a “truthful prominence of expression, identity, and radical intent.”

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Pimlico School

An interesting example of this is Brutalist Architecture. Here, there had been a shift in attitudes towards the once dismissed ugly buildings that were just slabs of concrete put together. 

An example of this is the Pimlico School, which looks fortress-like is rugged, not caring about looking comfortable or pleasing for people. Instead, the architectural style was about being truthful to the materials, and challenged the traditional motives of what a building should look like.

With this, it gives the sense that the building was designed with the focus of what goes on inside the building, and the outside being just something that covers it up. As such, Brutalism is popular in rebuilding government buildings, schools, and providing social housing in the period of social solidarity following the second world war.

Image result for 1970s british interior design
70s interior design

As for interior design, people were still affected by the recession and a high unemployment rate. As such, it was a less “flamboyant” period of design, for instance the use of hand me downs. There was a “back to nature” movement, where there was a lot of use of wood, rattan, rustic kitchenelia, and macramé handicrafts. 

2.3 Global Influence (1980s)

British Design had always stood at the forefront of new ideas, especially in industrial design. For example, during the industrial revolution, the Spinning Jenny was a prominent invention that kept people wanting more of British Design.

During this period of 1980s, British Design moved away from traditional manufacturing, to something more capitalistic this was caused by the impacts of commodification, globalisation, and consumption, which changed the way design was being created with a new function, due to supply and demand. 

Image result for crown chair tom dixon
Crown Chair by Tom Dixon

An example of this was the Crown Chair by Tom Dicon, 1998. It is a fine line between art and design, sculpture and furniture. The chair fulfilled the function of a seat, but it is not comfortable seat to sit on.

There are also traces of an art deco revival as there are art deco characteristics, such as the clean line shapes, paired together with modern curves. This lead to the coining of the term 80s deco.

3. Contemporary British Design

From the different phases of British Design for the past 60 years, contemporary British Design is more postmodern, building a reputation of innovation and style. Contemporary British Design is bold and has become one of the most iconic forms of design across the world.

Image result for the gherkin building
Norman Foster’s 30 St Mary Axe, or better known as The Gherkin

An example of this is Norman Foster’s 30 St Mary Axe (or better known as The Gherkin), 2003. the shape is unconventional, like a pickled cucumber, yet is still fulfils the task of being a building, with the additional incorporation of curves to reduce wind deflection.

Image result for apple products
Apple products

Another example are apple products, designed by Jonathan Ive, the chief design officer of Spple. It is simple and fun through the attention to detail, in creative grooves and curves. Even though the design is simple, it still looks unique, fun, and friendly without sacrificing the functionality.

As such, we can see that contemporary British Design is focused on the functionality of the product, but also not sacrifice the overall look of the end product, ensuring that it is still user friendly.

4. Conclusion

British Design is ever changing, but it has always been the leader of design, inspiring the future generation of designers of their own country and to others worldwide.

 

Reading Review: Vignelli and Brand Identity [Week 4] || History of Design

Massimo Vignelli’s use of the very neutral and boring Helveteica is a very modernist thing to do: Straight to the Point

However, despite the blandness of Helvetica, the American Airlines logo he designed remained  unchanged for 50 years. Why? I could only point out some aspects that made sense to me:

  • simple, clean
  • straight to the point
  • can see when it is very enlarged, and is not cluttered with ornamental information.

In another world where Helvetica is not boring…

Image result for knoll logo

For me, even though Helvetica is a super boring font, the use of colour value adds to the designs, making it appear more fun and approachable while remaining neutral.

But again, I still don’t understand why it has to remain neutral in a brand identity though. Maybe because in this new generation of millennials, businesses and organisations have to try and become people; have to stand for something, be it advocating for the LGBT or endorsing a celebrity athlete like Colin Kaepernick:

Image result for nike colin kaepernick poster

for the above poster, i find it interesting that there is a use of serif here even though the Nike branding is you know…. FUTURA.

okay not to stray too far off from graphic design, having Kaepernick’s face right there, huge and in yo face, is a very bold choice, a very risky move to take in the political climate in the USA. And then right below his chin is the Nike logo and slogan. (BAM!) If this isn’t brand identity in the 21st century I don’t know what is!!

Video Review: Week 3 || History of Design

From the video, I learned that the Bauhaus was the flashpoint of “modern design”. The principles of form following function and simplicity influences most of today’s designs.

It was interesting for me to learnt that the Bauhaus was created in the 1990s, during a very tense period with new technology popping out, which transformed the way people did business and how artists and designers operated.

In terms of Graphic Design, it has moved from the victorian, ornamental design to m a cleaner modern design movement, which we still use today.

Reading Review: Week 3 || History of Design

Modernism as defined by the reading and the dictionary is the reducing to it’s most expressive form. However, the author goes on to write that there is never really just a single truth, as modernism is not applicable for every single situation.

For me, i’ve also agree that there “is certain arrogance in the idea that one can develop a universal methodology that works in every problem”. It sounds very inquisition-y to me hehe. For instance, reduction and simplicity may not be able to solve all problems. Like, for instance, the De Stijl Chair.

Image result for de stijl chair
It looks great, but is it practical? it looks very uncomfortable and that dip in the chair might not be the best design…

However, there are some parts of modernism that i also believe in. And one of it is the aspect of accomplishing the intended task. For me, i feel that this is where designing with a purpose comes in, which brings me back to my Design Thinking class. Could that be an aspect of Modernism being magnified so that we can study design problems in depth? V interesting.

Another one is not to imitate reality. For me, i can agree to this to a certain extent. Because i am also tired of seeing designers trying to create images of things that are close to reality, which at the end of the day is very pointless because it is not interesting and doesn’t. In the article, it says “Life is erotic; Modernism doesn’t carry that.” That is true in the article’s definition of modernism, which basically says that modernism is “all work no play makes jack a dull boy”. Basic shapes can only last for a period before the graphics become very exhausted and played out.

However, for me, while i agree that you’re not trying to imitate reality here, making the familiar unfamiliar is what makes your designs unique in a way. For example, the Japanese design movement Wabi Sabi works with object we are familiar with and embraces it’s imperfection. It’s very minimalist, but very organic.

Image result for wabi sabi
Very minimalist and organic

This, compared to the De Stijl chair, feels more homely and human like, instead of having a “fake human” design.

Being a digital age baby and post-post modernism (?) adult, I find that the philosophy behind modernism is still very strong and timeless: to design with a purpose, to accomplish the task at hand. But I think it’s time to start looking at more human-like elements in our designs.

 

Readings:

Bierut, Michael. Looking Closer. Allworth, 1997

P43-49 Some thoughts on modernism: Past Present and Future by Milton Glaser, Ivan Chermayeff and Rudolf deHarak

 

Bauhaus Creative Response || History of Design

CHOPE WAR

Have you ever seen a crime scene in Singaporean public hawker centres? Tissue packets strewn across the tables, their innocent plastic bodies displayed to show it’s owner’s power during the busy lunch period?

Something unique to Singapore eating spaces is the use of tissue packets to reserve seats during lunch time, as a way to assert your dominance to other people that THIS IS YOUR SPOT. Here I drew a Chope War. Chope means ‘Reserve’ in colloquial Singlish, and in this image there are two people fighting over the table.

Blue for the table because it is the usual colour for hawker centre tables next to white.

Red for angry people fighting against each other

Yellow for the innocent tissue packets being used as weapons of mass reservation.

Art Nouveau || History of Design

I really like Art Nouveau (it took me 4 tries to get the spelling right) because of it’s very ethereal, goddess-like, very calm and ideal perception of life. Though, i’ve never been one to aim to become an arts and crafts designer myself, sometimes when I calm down and go into a fantasy world, I do think of dragons and magic and beautiful women too :’) I went home for the weekend, and in my house, we have lots of plants. My mom LOVES them: both fake and real plants. She kind of has this Moroccan aesthetic thing going on, which is very tropical but still decorative at the same time:

 

Did somebody mention Morocco?
Tropical plants

 

I used the Philodendron plant as the centre of my abstract pattern because it is the most iconic tropical plant. Also, i used a bluish turquoise kind of colour because of the Moroccan aesthetic. I kind of kept it simple (even though that’s not very art nouveau of me) because i kind of wanted to get the round corners in to create an organic square shape, which is one of the characteristics I find in late Art Nouveau styles, mostly inspired by the likes of:

 

My tropical take on Art Nouveau:

 

 

Also because I was in the mood for it:

 

 

Even though it should be more detailed and done with more care, I found it fun to do this tropical take on the Art Nouveau style!

 

Art Nouveau in Singapore culture? More likely than you think!!

For me, learning about the arts and crafts movement was um….interesting. I feel like we’ve been doing this for the longest time though coughcough

my batik pajamas
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more batik for your soul
i wonder why William Morris’s design are put on a pedestal, looks like something my grandma would wear HMMMMMMMMMMM

but other than the normal everyday things that i own in my house, the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movement is still prevalent in Singapore’s design landscape, example the gate at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

 

In conclusion, Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement are not dead! but please keep that far away from me, it’s so gaudy and i’ll use it only when i want no one to see me! or maybe if i’m feeling more southeast asian than normal. or pretending to be a witch in lord of the rings.

Reading and Video Review: Dadaism || History of Design

I’ve been interested in Dadaism and it’s aesthetic because of how edgy, purposeful, and funny it is. I first learned about Dadaism when I was exploring surrealism and post-modernism, and what other art movements would come up next in my time and in the future. Dadaism was not made to be pleasing or beautiful, which to me is a very bold and courageous move outside of my comfort zone.

 

From one of the books I’ve read, 101 Things to learn in Art School by Kit White, she writes that “24: All Art is Political”. To me, the Dadaism movement really exemplifies this as all the choices in the mediums and subjects all return to the fact that art created during the time was a reflection of the negative reactions to the First World War in the 1910s. Often times, we hear that Dadaism is about being anti-war. But the one below might be difficult to understand it as such:

 

The one work that I feel is very iconic of the Dadaism movement is Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, 1917. I think the fantastic thing about this was that he forced people into questioning what art meant. Using a readymade object of a urinal and presenting it in a gallery is very controversial and risky of him especially at a more conservative time, and there were more rigid rules about who and what could qualify as art.

 

“How is this a piece about anti-war?” One might ask. Me too, until I started learning that Dadaism was also about mocking the materialistic and nationalistic attitudes of people during the war years. To be honest, I would be pretty annoyed too if everything I saw was propaganda and support for the government who was responsible of screwing the people over in the first place. This artwork represented the amount of spite I’d have on the “pretentiousness” of people who felt that they were of higher class just because they could “get” abstract art (how bourgeois of you to be able to understand a urinal sitting on a pedestal, care to tell me more about it?). What I understood from “Fountain” was that Dadaism is a form of dark comedy and should be enjoyed as such.

 

I guess you could say he was just taking a piss *ba dum tsssss*

 

glasses on floor of sf moma mistaken for art (7)glasses on floor of sf moma mistaken for art (2)glasses on floor of sf moma mistaken for art (4)glasses on floor of sf moma mistaken for art (5)All pictures by @TJCruda

If I could point to one contemporary example of Dadaism, it would be that kid who put his glasses on the floor at the MoMA and people looking at it as if it was an artwork. This form of “Neo-Dadaism” really magnifies the lengths people would go to put a line between art and life, but in reality, the boundary is very thin. I feel like the same audience wouldn’t have acted as such if those glasses were next to a trash bin right outside the MoMA though. I wouldn’t go so far as to calling that kid a Dadaist, but he definitely did act like one in the moment.

 

Regarding the video, I did not understand anything. However, I feel that even if you could speak the language, you still would not be able to understand it because of how “loony” it is. There actually is a level of coordination and choreography, so to an extent, it is not that random. However, after having read an explanation of the video, I found it interesting that….I still could not understand. To me, I think this is the cause of me having never experienced the horrors of war myself. I feel like I can understand the sentiment, and it would have made a huge difference if I was a woman living in 1927 and watching this performance.

What I did understand, however, is that the performance was a huge success, and the halls were so overcrowded that many could not find a seat to watch it at all. It was something that people of the time really identified with and really enjoyed, which further goes in line with blurring the lines of the art and life. It was a type of “art for the people”.

When I first started the video, I think the one thing that kind of stood out was that most of  the names being said belonged to men. Why were there so many men? Was it because men were the ones who suffered the most in times of war because of facing their enemies head to head in the time of battle? While that may not have been the main point of the video, I felt that it was an interesting observation as to why many Dada practitioners were men.

 

Sources:

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada-artworks.htm#pnt_4

http://www.cabaretvoltaire.ch/en/history.html

Guy Puts His Glasses on the Museum Floor and People Thought It Was Art

 

Rebus || History of Design

okay so instead of trying to find words that kind of spelled my name, like Jam-m+n, i kind of wanted to play around with the way things were pronounced instead. So i came out with:

NO CHAIR+N AAAAAAH = NurJannah

sources:

  • Chair free vector icons designed by Freepik. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/chair_184113
  • Emoji, W. (2018). Woman Saying No Emoji. Retrieved from https://emojiisland.com/products/woman-saying-no-emoji-icon
  • Propheta, D. (2018). We Bet Not Even Macaulay Culkin Knows These Home Alone Facts. Retrieved from http://www.icepop.com/macaulay-culkin-home-alone-facts/

 

 

 

Hyperessay: Robbie Barrat’s AI Generated Nude Paintings || History of Design

Introduction

As of the 2010s, technology has been fully integrated in our daily lives (Wikipedia, 2018). Unlike the 1970s, we are currently living in a period of time where technology is accessible to everyone, everywhere, and any time. One of the most exciting technological developments during this period is Artificial Intelligence (AI), where computers are now slowly becoming their own entities. This new technology can act as a new medium, opening up endless possibilities in terms of art making. It can be classified as a type of hypermedia, as it has non-linear characteristics, acts as a metamedium, and breaks down the barriers of “traditional spatial and temporal boundaries”.

 

The work that struck me the most, one which I will be discussing in this essay, is Robbie Barrat’s surrealist AI Generated Nude Paintings, posted on 27th March 2018.

I will also be using Deep Contact by Lynn Hershman as a comparison artwork, as a way to show the development of technology over 29 years, and different approaches of the same concepts that will be later discussed.

 

A self-taught coder, nineteen year old Robbie Barrat attracted the attention of a company executive at NVIDIA, a technology company working with Artificial Intelligence (AI), when he posted a video of him training a neural network to rap in the style of Kanye West in March 2017. Having only graduated high school, he has already accomplished so much, from appearing as a guest lecture to talk about Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience, to having the artwork he created using AI as the cover of Bloomberg’s Business Week (The Stanford Daily, 2018). Currently, he  conducts research at the Center for Biomedical Informatic Research at Stanford, and during his spare time, he posts his experiments online. Going as @DrBeef_, Twitter is the social media site is where he usually posts his artworks, essentially making the social media platform his online gallery. He also posts his codes online on Github, where people can download and play with.

 

The AI Generated Nude Paintings are created using GANs (general adversarial networks), which consists of two neural networks that compete with each other. The two neural networks, one being a Generator and one a Discriminator, tries to fool each other using the data of 10,000 nude paintings that Barrat fed it. The purpose of the discriminator is to compare images that the generator sends it, trying to distinguish whether it is “real” or “fake”. The generator gets feedback on how well it is doing, and keeps trying to generate more realistic images that will fool the discriminator into saying that the image generated is real (The Stanford Daily, 2018).

 

 

Non-Linear Characteristics

In As We May Think by Vannevar Bush (1945), Bush says that the human mind “operates by association. With one item in it’s grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain.” This means that through association, rather than indexing, the organization of data in computers should mimic the way the human mind stores and receives information, creating a non-linear trail of data.  

While the use of ‘web of links’ may seem subtle in the AI Generated Nude Paintings, it is actually the ‘main artist’ creating the paintings. Defined by Google Dictionary as a “computer system modelled on the human brain and nervous system”, the neural networks used to create this artwork operates in a non-linear manner (Understanding Activation Functions in Neural Networks, 2017) as it tries to learn from 10,000 images of nude paintings, retrieving information from it’s database to determine what is a “real” or “fake” nude, and also to generate more and more paintings that would be considered a nude.

What a neural network looks like. Source: http://www.nlpca.org/

Above, we can see the non-linear web of trails in the neural networks, used to link all the data that the artificial intelligence is being fed. This is a more complicated approach to non-linearity as compared to Deep Contact by Lynn Hershman, an early artwork from 1989, that made use of linking 71 storylines that users can choose from through the use of hyperlinks. Both artworks use mediums that stem from the concept of the non-linear way of organising data like the human brain. This further blurs the lines between art and technology as technology gets more integrated into artwork, now becoming the artist themselves.

 

 

Metamedium

“Metamedium is active – it can respond to queries and experiments – so that the messages may involve the learner in a two way conversation.” (Personal Dynamic Media, Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, 1977). This means that metamedium happens when the technology is being interacted with, resulting in some sort of change, be it the computer is now giving you information, playing music, or creating new images.

In AI Generated Nude Paintings, the artwork does not interact with a human user. Rather, the artwork is a result of two neural networks interacting each other, essentially creating a two-way conversation between two artificial intelligence systems. This results in a non-sequential series of events, resulting in nude paintings that are unexpected and constantly change. Below, we can see visual manifestation of the generator and discriminator neural networks fooling each other in real time, creating very abstract and surreal images.

From this, we can see that while the two neural systems in itself are non-linear, through the interaction, it creates a non-sequential end product as the neural networks constantly learn from each other. As such, this creates seemingly endless possibilities, as the ‘questions’, the generated images, and ‘answers’, true or false, constantly change. This is drastically different to Deep Contact, where users are limited to the areas of the screen which they can touch, where if the human user touches outside of the body of the protagonist, there would be no response. In a way, the AI Generated Nude Painting is a result of art and technology combining and creating a “meta-metamedium” paradox of two AIs talking to each other.

 

 

Similarities and Differences

Common Theme: Intimacy and technology

In Deep Contact, Lynn explores the new type of relationship humans have as technology gets more involved in their lives. Given that the artwork was created in 1989, this was appropriate for it’s time, during period of initial stages of personal dynamic medias, and is becoming more accessible for non-engineers and businessmen (Personal Dynamic Media, Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, 1977).

 

Today, in 2018, technology already has been fully integrated in our daily lives in the physical world. In AI Generated Nude Paintings, Barrat explores an even newer type of relationship. At this point, intimacy no longer refers to the physical state of humans, rather, the mental and psychological state. Barrat’s objective is to “get the computers to create art.” (The Stanford Daily, 2018), something that used to be unique only to humans. As such, the work explores our discomfort of how intimate technology has become, giving off uncanny valley vibes as it tries to become us.

 

 

Different Objectives: Audience Participation

In Deep Contact, users have to make their way to the gallery and physically touch the screen in order to make the story go forward. This gives the user a “sense of control, while still operating within its boundaries” (Lynn Hershman, 2010), giving the users a false sense of control.

In the AI Generated Nude paintings, it does not interact with humans in a physical manner. However, being in a different era of technology, and the artwork having a different objective, I feel that Barrat’s work does not have to. The term interaction now means being able to see his artwork from your personal dynamic medias, such as your laptops and your smartphones, the way it’s supposed to be seen.

 

The audience is also able to get involved through the use of the online platforms. As Barrat posts his “works in progress” on Twitter, this allows the audience to be involved in his art making process, as recommendations and comments from other science students to computer scientists go directly to him. Barrat also posts his codes on Github, where anybody can download and play around with on their own time. As such, this demonstrates the collaboration of people from multiple disciplines in his art making process, giving the audience even more control over the artwork and opening up more conversations.

Barrat having conversations with his audience directly
Barrat responding to a difficult viewer about his work
Barrat uploading his codes on GitHub, accessible to anyone

Conclusion

In this essay, we have looked at how technology has developed tremendously, giving artists in 2010s a whole new set of tools and angles to work with to tackle similar concepts from artists and thinkers from eons ago. Even though it has been 18 years since the 2000s, we are still in the early phases of the world’s history of technological advancements.

Robbie Barrat’s work is very different from what we are used to, representing an important breakthrough in technology. Hypermedia is not only tearing down the traditional spatial and temporal boundaries, but also the traditional definitions of what it means to be an artist and what it means to have your work in a gallery. Barrat has a gallery on his Twitter, I have a gallery on my OSS account, and both are accessible to the world.

In an interview, Barrat mentions that he wants to go to art school. However, he needs maths for his art, and art school does not offer that. This just shows that the lines are getting fuzzier and fuzzier, and maybe one day in the future, the biomedical informatics lab will become the new art studio.


References:

  • Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, The Atlantic, 1945.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think
  • Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, “Personal Dynamic Media,” 1977, The New Media Reader http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf
  • DEEP CONTACT BY LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON – ADA | Archive of Digital Art. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.digitalartarchive.at/database/general/work/deep-contact.html
  • Smartphone. (2018). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Technological_developments_in_the_2010s
  • The Evolution of Technology & Its Impact on the Development of Social Businesses | Visual.ly. (2018). Retrieved from https://visual.ly/community/infographic/technology/evolution-technology-its-impact-development-social-businesses
  • Understanding Activation Functions in Neural Networks. (2017). Retrieved from https://medium.com/the-theory-of-everything/understanding-activation-functions-in-neural-networks-9491262884e0

[Updated] Change of Artist & Key Work Selection, Robbie Barrat || History of Design

Artist Selection

From my previous artist selection, i felt that i did not know much about projection mapping to be able to talk about it. However, I am excited about Artificial Intelligence, which can be classified under hypermedia, which my group presented on last week. As such, I have chosen the artist Robbie Barrat.

Robbie Barrat is an artist who works with artificial intelligence. Only 19 years old, he only recently graduated high school and is now working in a research lab at Stanford. There is not much documented about him, because he keeps life private. To be honest, I don’t even know if it’s a he, but at this point i think it doesn’t even matter anymore. While he doesn’t have that much work out in the public, his work is already very phenomenal, and there are many articles written about him already. 

Even though he might be young, or has never exhibited in a gallery or any public space, I feel that being present online is an even bigger platform where he is able to share his work to more people. And the best thing is, he is also able to show his process in creating some of these artworks because of his affinity to social media. Going as @DrBeef_ on twitter, Robbie’s work can be summarised in one word: INSANE. Just because it just is so…i cant even describe. Just insane. And I LOVE it.

 

Key Work Selection: AI generated Nudes

An example of this is when he created paintings of nudes using Artificial Intelligence:

Painting of nudes by AI trained by Robbie Barrat
Another painting of a nude by AI

The work sits at the perfect spot on the spectrum of ‘mechanical’ and ‘human’ like to give it that creepy, uncanny valley feeling. Even though it is not a “perfect” painting of a nude, It makes me very uncomfortable that he was able to train an AI to even do this. How these paintings were created was by Robbie feeding the GANs with 10,000 nude portraits, and he sees where it goes from there as the two networks try to fool each other.

 

Here, the non-sequential aspect comes in the fact that the AI is trying to paint an organic human shape using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which are two neural networks that compete. From Robbie himself, he says that “The generator tries to make images to fool the discriminator, and the discriminator’s whole job is to tell the difference between generated images and real images.” As such, while there are two AIs trying to do “sequential” things by doing what they were made for, the interaction of the two AIs create this creepy, weird, and un-anticipated results. 

 

Other Works by Robbie Barrat

Another artwork of his is when he trained the AIs to paint landscapes.

Landscape by AI

This work looks much better than the nudes, because we can actually see a form of a tree. Maybe the AI is better at painting landscapes?

 

Currently, he is also working on AI generated Balenciaga fashion show, where the AI generates different walkways, models, audience, and clothes based on what it is being fed. I know, it’s so crazy and scary, but it’s so amazing.

Initially, i wanted to talk about this, but as this is not a completed work yet, there hasnt been anything written on it. I appreciate the fact that he’s putting his codes on github and sharing snippets of his work in progress on a public space though!

 

How does this interact with the human? 

Without given context, i feel that it is open to conversation because it looks like something that a human would make and put in the Museum of Modern Art. Even with the work being titled ‘nudes’, the artwork is abstract enough to the point that i honestly thought it was a painting of two hogs.

However,  when humans see this work, and learn the context that this work is not created by a human, it will instantly freak us out because of how good it is. It freaks us out because there is something artificial that can now produce “creative” things, something that was unique to only humankind. Emotionally, this scars us. I know I was.

 

As such, i think that working on an artist like Robbie would be very interesting as it allows us to interpret from many different angles, and can give us conflicting or uncomfortable emotions. This is such surreal work, i think Salvador Dali would be proud.

 

Sources:

https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/3/29/ai-art-just-got-awesome

https://www.twitter.com/DrBeef_

boing boing