Ideas come and ideas go but by thinking aloud and recording the ideas you can have an ever ready source of inspiration.
In the spirit of Ryan Gander I felt I needed my own 'wall of ideas'. These need to be realised or at least explored. Ideas can sometimes be explored, developed and completed in your head. This doesn't allow for what happens when you actually try and realise an idea and see how it changes on the journey, loses it's direction or evolves into something new, something better perhaps. However, as Gander states in an interview with Elizabeth Fullerton in 'Art In America magazine. 'The wall makes me panic a bit. It’s like having so many children that you can’t feed them all. I made a resolution––not at New Year’s––to finish more things before starting new ones. There were too many on the go.' (https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/in-the-studio-ryan-gander-63261/).
For the time being I want to keep juggling some of these ideas. I have already started a concertina sketchbook, it is in the very early stages but I want it to become more than a sketchbook and by layering up work on the various pages I am hoping it will evolve into something new.
Scanning a model and printing in 3D
I have always found that trying a new method, technique or process can lead to unexpected outcomes, this just reinforces the methodology of 'not knowing' and 'unknowing' which has been so much of my experimentation through my time at Norwich University of the Arts. From group discussions about the Model Project as part of ASU2 the suggestion of how my outcomes could be scanned and reproduced by the 3D printer we have on site. Having never used this technology I arranged a meeting with 3D and discussed the possibilities and how to go about the process. To start with all you need is to download a piece of software to allow the recording of the image and this can be down by photographing around the image or rotating the image on a disk or similar. The free version of the software KIRI Engine (https://www.kiriengine.app/) allows you x3 scans a week ( a series of x70 photographs it maps into a 3D image), unlimited if you sign up for the full version, which is available on site at uni. I thought I would have a play to start with and see what happened. I clearly need more practice as you will see below.
Here's the item I scanned/photographed, one of my model outcomes. Maybe quite a complicated object to start with...
Here's how it turned out...
And here's the software output as a jpg.
Clearly something is wrong but so right. No idea what happened but I am finding both of the outcomes quite fascinating and potentially offering either new work in it's own right or something to take forward in another medium. I can't actually see anything that resembles the actual object from these outputs, which I like, it makes me think that this could potentially be a continuation of my disruption to communication, how something can be lost in translation and the interpretation of an item using technology. The way technology has abstracted the original piece to a place I couldn't have envisaged and the jeopardy of allowing the software to decide how it should be visualised.
2nd attempt
This time I set up a makeshift booth to see if I could control the taking of the images. I tried a record turntable with a light and white background. A bit Heath Robinson (interesting side note about Heath Robinson - Heath Robinson: a museum fit for the cobbled-together contraption king - by Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/19/heath-robinson-museum-review-contraption-king) but it sort of worked.
This time the output seemed to have recorded the item, even though I didn't use all 70 images available, more of a test than anything. I also know that although it looks quite similar to the actual item it will be much simplified when rendered after speaking to Stephen in 3D.
It is quite fascinating seeing it in the round and how you can spin it, maybe it should something that is suspended and left to freely rotate? I need to try other versions and items but it is looking more promising and now need to consider if I want to output this as a 3D model and to what scale. I will also need to consider repetition and the idea of possibly casting from the 3D model, which you can do using the waste method, so lots to consider. What would this look like in bronze or aluminium and at what size.
The jpg you get as part of the output is also a piece of work in itself. Another iteration...
No idea what you are supposed to do with this but it looks like a mushroom and pasta meal with elements of metal in. Could be worth going in close on a section and seeing what that looks like...
Dark, digital, menacing and potentially something to persue.
Explore AI using CHAT GPT.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool driven by AI technology that allows you to have human-like conversations and much more with the chatbot. The language model can answer questions and assist you with tasks, such as composing emails, essays, and code. Also: How does ChatGPT work? Usage is currently open to the public free of charge because ChatGPT is in its research and feedback-collection phase. A paid subscription version called ChatGPT Plus launched at the beginning of February.
How big a deal is ChatGPT?
It's a big deal -- think internet-level disruption. "ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI," said Elon Musk, who was one of the founders of OpenAI before leaving. Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief, said on Twitter that ChatGPT had more than one million users in the first five days after it launched. According to analysis by Swiss bank UBS, ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app of all time. The analysis estimates that ChatGPT had 100 million active users in January, only two months after its launch. For comparison, it took nine months for TikTok to reach 100 million users.
Our daughter, who is a Fine Art graduate and currently finalising her teacher training had been discussing the merits of ChatGPT with her tutors and fellow students. It can do quite scary things. They tested it by asking it to write a 200 word passage in Spanish about a specific subject. It did in seconds. Not only that but it was checked by a Spanish speaking student and was word perfect. They then asked it to create a lesson plan to teach the passage covering all the aspects required for the level they were looking at. Again, seconds later it was all there, word perfect. That is scary. they also asked it to write a sitcom featuring the Winnie The Pooh characters, which it did.
After my discussions with India I tried these questions:
Stumped it there but tried other angles.
Not quite obtuse enough but fairly vague.
It might be quick to respond but I still question it's ability to think laterally. I intend to test it some more and see if I can use it to generate instructions to follow that I have no idea what the object or place is.
Here's my interpretation. Although the instructions are clear I found my self having to make a lot of decisions, length of line, angle, relationship between items and therefore if several different people were to undertake the same instructions the results, I am sure, would differ.
So I tried a more complicated set of instructions.
Again, I found the instructions only gave a vague idea of how to draw the object. I was having to make many judgements and decisions as to where to start, how long to draw a line and my interpretation of the list is only my interpretation. It doesn't seem like and object, so I will try again.
Here's my interpretation. Which I found quite technical, repetitive and again limited in information, which I like. This feels much more like the Bad Narrator experiments I was using earlier in the unit when delivering workshops.
I know the software can't draw but I wondered if it would be able to tell what the object was from the instructions it gave me. So I asked it.
This raises many questions... How does it know? Did it use the instructions it gave me to construct the answer? or was it more likely it used the actual contents of the instructions and even possibility the fact that I had created that unique list of instructions to then describe and object, which it could reverse the process?...
I also tried to see how it would work with a 3D object. Something to possibly explore further at a later date and then reverse the question again. Although I actually prefer not to know what the object is and to just use the instructions as a way of generating a drawing, painting or object.
Just to summarise I thought I would ask it to write a short piece about Instruction Art.
Concertina Sketchbook
I do have a sketchbook, however, I use my notebook and phone more to record things and after a recent evening at a Norwich20 meeting I was discussing the merits of how a sketchbook can be both an inspiration and a piece in itself. So I have made it one of my challenges to develop a series or just one very large one that I can keep adding to until it can surround a room and therefore become something more, a playground for thoughts and a visual dumping ground for anything that catches my Magpie like eye. It could also be a very therapeutic way of creating, an hour here and there just adding elements, drawing over, painting in, stitching in... or whatever I feel like, just keep adding.
So far it has a mixture of collages, sections of previously created work, drawings, prints of the model work photographed close up and other imagery that has just caught my eye. I will keep adding, I will keep extending. Maybe it will become more than a sketchbook for future reference and maybe it will just be my visual diary, a collection of my thoughts and iterations of past and current work. I don't know. I rarely do.
The concept of the 'Ideas Wall' or 'Thinking Aloud' really can be inspirational and gives much food for thought with a ready supply of start points to explore creatively. It will grow and hopefully so will the output. In all sorts of different directions. But for now I am looking to focus on looking deeper at the two main strands from this unit that have come from my investigation into networks, communication and the disruption to language.