no. 03
SERIAL EXPERIMENT

Category: Secondary Research

Categories
Expert Secondary Research Unit 4

Update | My project with Marta

My collaborative project with Marta Abba is coming to an end. Through the past few months, we have interviewed various artists that use generative AI in their creative practice. This has helped me understand the diversity of it’s application and build a language that can be used to communicate them to others looking to explore the tool. We have had experts, add comments and context to our interviews and the article has found publication space, possibly in late December. Without disclosing too much information at this time, we interviewed 7 artists, 1 cultural expert and 3 AI experts.

Artists – Themes

  • Bacchi Moriniello – AI in the present age; counterculture
  • Ilarai Merola – Future and fantasy
  • Roberto Baragnoli – Emotions in time and space
  • Helena Pink – Challenging AI bias
  • Maria Macropoulou – The past reborn
  • Farbod Mojallal-mehr – Iran through the lens of time

Experts:

  • Francesco D’Isa –  Philosopher, theoretician, and prominent digital artist
  • Eugenio Marogiu – Photographer & AI expert
  • Georgia Aiello – Media, Culture and Communication Researcher at the University deli Study di Milano
Categories
reflection Secondary Research Unit 4

Reflecting on my Goals | Artists & AI

Originally written on 13th Oct. 2024

As the year draws to a close and a chill enters the air, I sit down with some hard questions about the goals I hope to achieve with my project. The name, ‘serial experiment no.3’ is symbolic of my third iteration in life. My first experiment was my BA when I pursued fashion design and this was almost 15 years ago. My second experiment was when I decided to pursue my own creator business in India and my MA here at CSM is my third. As the end of my MA gets closer, I wanted to reflect on the impact I’d like to make. My research into Artists and AI has always been to look at the cultural impact of the technology. When envisioning the end use of generative neural netrwork technology as a commercial tool (as it has been intended by its makers) we can see it’s use by companies in the not so far future. As my research as indicated, this is not a magic box and requires human input and expertise to use effectively. Who will be sitting at this system when it is widely adopted? It will probably be an artist or designer. Companies shifting someone from accounting or development to this space is highly unlikely. I spoke to an employee of the company Acer and they confirmed that training has been extended to this who already fulfil creative roles in marketing. Upon application, it is still an artists or designer, or content writer who is expected to fulfil this role. This technology has not replaced the need of such expertise in creative segments of corporations. 

When the end user continues to be visual artists, it is more important than ever that they explore the technology and have a say in its future direction. As stakeholders, the voice of the creative community has largely been overshadowed by those of developers and governments. My goal is to highlight the importance of including creative voices moving forward. The casual user of text-to-image or image-to-video are also people who enjoy the creative aspect of the technology. Many casual users have not been artists before, but with this new tool have become one. What I have noticed through the many interviews I have conducted, is that these artists have something to say. There is a niche to their approach towards generative technology. What is art if not that? What is an artists if not someone who engages in it? The aim of my project thus, is to demystify parts of this discourse and encourage artists to engage in the wider conversation. As primary stakeholders, it is important for me that that their voices are highlighted.

Categories
Expert reflection Secondary Research unit 3

Further correspondence | Experts

As I share my intervention outcomes, my collaboration with Marta Abba saw an introduction from Italian AI artist Francesco D’Isa. His work explores AI data, errors and kitsch. Following is an except from my response to his email on the nature of misinformations and it’s association with vested interest and power:

As I discuss some of my findings on past images and AI, I’d like to put forward some examples I found on this subject, so as to build on the discussion-

Radio: 

The infamous 1938 incident of a halloween special on the book ‘War of the worlds’ preformed by Orson Welles created a mass panic in America. This was a radio show and the public had taken the portrayal of the fictional radio show to be an actual news broadcast. The public had not expected the radio, the main source of information at the time to be broadcasting a fictional show. Today, it is unlikely anyone would it so seriously. Despite many such shows being produced and broadcast, eg. Dragons : Fantasy made real (2004) on the Discovery channel and Doomsday 2012 (2007) on the History channel, it has not cause a similar reaction or panic.

Article documenting the 1938 incident:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/

VFX and CGI:

Visual effects in films have seen a steady increase in usage and technical expertise, but so has the discernment of the audience. Visual effects considered exceptional a few years ago, now are seen as cringe or clearly unbelievable. The exposure and increase of VFX usage has led to a more discerning audience that now distinguishes between good and bad visual effects.

On the flip side, we have CGI, or computer generated graphics. At one point, CGI struggled to fully generate believable worlds. There was a term that was described this challenge for a long time- the uncanny valley. As recently as 2019, we had debated on the subject with the lion king remake garnering much criticism for its depiction of photorealistic animals juxtaposed with human speech and mouth movement. But there have been examples of pushing past this with movies such as Alita: Battle Angel’s protagonist and Gollum from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the rings being complete CGI characters created through motion capture to great acclaim.

Photoshop:

I found many articles and disclaimers dated back to 2011 with a very similar tone (as being used for AI images today) towards photoshopped images. Allow me to attach two such below- one from the guardian on their policy and the second, a student project (by Stephanie Coffaney) at the California Polytechnic state University. This can be taken as evidence that this was a relevant and serious discussion around the late 2000’s and early 2010’s.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/04/picture-manipulation-news-imagery-photoshop

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/19153916.pdf

Specificity and Historical images:

Currently, AI struggles to generate believable outputs for individual people. My work on recreating past memories of artists (as a form of curating Identity) points to this shortcoming. Outside of famous celebrities and world leaders, it is very hard for AI to easily produce a specific person. The training data is also very limited for spaces and concepts that may be nuanced or regional to the individual. What is easy to produce for AI, are images of generic with well documented concepts. The details are what it really struggles with. Despite this, generative AI is producing photorealistic images of the past, and this is made easier due to the nature of old photographs. The images being in black and white, blurred in areas and having damage accumulated over time can make it incredibly difficult for a common person to distinguish them. Here, the nature of what is expected is being used in the favour of AI’s limitations. It would be a lot harder for AI to generate a believable image in colour with realistic detail from today’s era. But if asked to generate a picture in an old and damaged style of a past time, it plays to the strength of AI’s randomisation.

The problem with historical images is that they can also be difficult to fact check. Many stories and their related images are lost to time, or buried so deep in the archives that it would be a difficult and time consuming task to resurrect it. Many images have never been published and put away in boxes and corners, yet to discovered. Authenticating such images would be hard if only a digital copy is available. This make the possibility of historical images’ authentication lie in a grey area. Some AI generated images may be falsely flagged as real due to close similarities with other archived images, while some genuine images may be flagged as fake if there is no other evidence to corroborate its authenticity.

Refelctions of digital colourist, Marina Amaral on AI images:

https://marinaamaral.substack.com/p/ai-is-creating-fake-historical-photos#:~:text=And%20trust%20me%2C%20these%20generated,indistinguishable%20from%20the%20real%20ones.

Categories
Secondary Research unit 3

Analysis | No One is ready for this

Original Article (accessed 26th August 2024)

No One is ready for this

By Sarah Jeong

For The Verge

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/22/24225972/ai-photo-era-what-is-reality-google-pixel-9

I came across this article through Marta. I felt the need to analyse this article because of it’s proximity to my European press prize submission. The author discusses the new google pixel 9 and it’s AI enabled editing features. The article also touches on the larger cultural context of photography and the cultural impact of AI technologies being integrated into it. While the article is a good example of some the concerns we may have around the emergence of generative AI, it makes some bold assumptions. I’d like to discuss some of the merits and concerns I have with this.

Photographs, like text and ideas are and have always been subjective accounts produced by humans. Photography, since it’s invention has indeed been heralded as an account of “the truth”, however as I discussed in my EPP presentation, it has always been subject to context and framing. What a photograph, even from the early 20th century depicts, can be subject to propagandist intentions. The way it is framed, what is included and what is left out and the social context in which it is published, all affect the reception and interpretation of the image. The use of photography as a propaganda tool to promote colonialism and racism within the home countries has ample evidence. In their article, “Photography as a Tool of Power and Subjugation: How the Camera was Used to Justify Black Racial Inferiority”, Zaha Chouddhary explores the many facets of the early use of photography for generating and reinforcing racial superiority by European powers. 

The biases in early photography aren’t simply due to the user, in fact the very technology behind the camera film can be seen to have racial bias. It wasn’t till the 1990’s that the film technology was corrected to more accurately capture skin tones other than white. An in-depth exploration of this is done in the article “Color film was built for white people. Here’s what it did to dark skin.” By Estelle Caswell for Vox. In some sense, the assumption that, for any moment in history photography had been a standard for objective truth, is wrong. Such notions largely depend on who is being asked the question. A good example of this subjectivity lies in the topic of police brutality in the US, used in the original Verge article to demonstrate the use of film and photography to challenge the official/dominant view of the state. But this too, is entirely subjective. For most privileged communities in America, the idea that personal recordings disprove what the police are saying is understandable. However, given the long history of racial tension and police brutality in the US, most working class and coloured individual would navigate the world in a less naive way. Photos are not required to prove that the police are lying. As individuals in society, we navigate the world in a complex and multi faceted way, photo evidence being only one part of it. Social expectations, urban legends, neighbours, word of mouth and community history all play a part in how we see reality.

In the coming age, photography and videography may be seen with greater suspicion, however we have been on this journey for some time now. Before we had “fake images” we have had “fake news articles”. In fact, this idea of fake information may go as far back as we can information itself. We are lucky that we are more aware now than ever before, about not directly trusting what we see online. If our growing concern around manipulated images and videos is founded on being able to distinguish them, it would be more productive to educate the public on how to verify images based on metadata. Even so, the legitimacy of any media can and has never been a 100% reliable.

Photography as a Tool of Power and Subjugation: How the Camera was Used to Justify Black Racial Inferiority, by Zara Choudhary:

https://sacredfootsteps.com/2020/06/08/photography-as-a-tool-of-power-and-subjugation-how-the-camera-was-used-to-justify-black-racial-inferiority/

Color film was built for white people. Here’s what it did to dark skin, by Estelle Caswell for Vox:

Categories
reflection Secondary Research unit 3

Hyperculture by Byung-Chul Han | Reflections

Byung-Chul Han’s work “Hyperculture” is an eye opening piece of literature published in 2005. The book contains a series of short articles discussing ideas of globalisation, the internet and our existence as humans in a post modern and hyperconnected reality. The text, written at a time when the ideas of globalisation were popular and just before the 2008 financial crisis was to arrive, weaves a dream of society as an unbound and unrestricted space through which people navigate as a connected tribe. Some ideas that held great promise, such as, an open and free international marketplace, global citizens and a decentralised internet, have lost takers over the years. We have seen a very different reality emerge since the publishing of this book. The rise of nationalism, regional protectionism and fall of the World trade organisation by the same nations that once championed it, has lead to a very different economic reality. On the Internet as well, intimate and independently created spaces have shrunk in favour of large social media sites that have created cookie cutter profiles of individuals. But I do not believe these to be evidence of the failure of the global experiment. 

Many aspects discussed, such as that of the global wanderer or hyper culture tourist, as discussed in the chapter ‘the eros of interconnectedness’ still hold true today. Han discusses how we live in an age where we are disconnected from the regional. The internet allows us to be global travellers and by interacting with other people’s lives, we become tourists looking at them. I would argue that this still largely hold true, it’s just different than what had been imagined. We are no longer truly venturing into the spaces and lives of other people from around the world, but are observing it through the lens of social media and its algorithms and layouts. In the later chapter “Hyperlogue”, there is an understanding of how this may come to pass. I wonder if Han knew how close to the truth he was stepping. The loss of the free internet in favour of a consumer driven model is recognised through the changing of language associated with it. Han points to the use of terminology and its changing nature over time. In the early days of the internet, we used the term ‘surfing the internet’ creating an image of nautical exploration and free movement. The more popular term now is ‘browsing the internet’, evoking images of a consumer act. He points throughout the book towards Microsoft, and its role in creating this language. Think ‘internet explorer’ and ‘windows’. Today however, most people do not have a digital footprint outside of social media.

The way we are interacting with AI today is also uncharted and exploratory. Outside of the boxed AI such as Chat GPT and Midjourney, there is a desire for more open source models. Humans, I believe will instinctually seek out the kind of freedom promised by hyperculturism and that is reflected in the novel users of AI technology. If my reading of this text tells me anything, it is that predictions and outcome are often very different. If history is a testament, the technology moving forward will be surrounded by those who desire to restrict or regionalise it.

Categories
Secondary Research unit 3

The Glaze project [University of Chicago]

The glaze project is a research project by lead Shawn Shan and Prof. Ben Zhou at the University of Chicago that lead to the development of tools including Glaze, Nightshade, Web Glaze and others. These tools were developed with the specific intent to prevent the appropriation of digital art taken for training generative AI models without the consent of Artists. They use adversarial perturbations, or small changes to input images in order to change the perception of the image by machine learning models. These take the form of tiny changes in specific pixels in order to confuse the training model using the image. It is currently open source and free to use by artists.

While the image is slightly altered (as demonstrated by the research team) the changes are negligible to an a average human viewer but vastly changes the perception of the image by AI models. The two most popular models currently available are Glaze and Nightshade. They have been named to communicate the purpose of each software.

Glaze, named after the glazing of pottery to protect the final project acts as something of a shield. It tricks some diffusion models into assuming that the style of the image if different from what it actually is. Some models might recognise glazed images as noise or an altered style. Since humans cannot see this difference, the model becomes trained to associate these altered styles as correct and creates increasingly chaotic outputs over time.

Nightshade, as the name suggests is advertised as a form of poison for model training. It changes the perception of a model to assume that an image with concept A actually contains a different concept B. Again, since the humans training the models cannot see these difference, it currents the training model to mix and confuse different concepts. As demonstrated by the researchers, as mode nightshade images are fed to a large model, the output may change the image of a dog into that of a cat, or that of a car into a kettle.

Since the development and popularisation of these models, companies developing AI training models have argued that they are a form of vandalism, however the researchers of the glaze project argue that these images would only make it into these system if they have been used by image creators to protect their work and their work has been used without consent.

For more details and to use these software, please check out their official website:

https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/index.html

A useful explanation that helped me understand the subject better came from a reddit post, linked below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/s/gj6PPGlKbU

Categories
Secondary Research unit 3

Digital spaces | visuals artist:

This list is based on global website traffic data collected by ahrefs.com , a big data company that tracks website traffic and is ranked amongst the top 50 supercomputers of the world. (As listed by top500.org , a project launched in 1993 to measure and improve supercomputer statistics)

This list also takes into account websites that are relevant and popular for use visual artists and designers in traditional and digital media, crafts, film and photography. It excludes highly professional platforms that do not have a free to use option.

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Display:

behance.net

Behance, owned by Adobe is a professional portfolio website. Behance is a free platform to share project portfolios and is well known within the art and design community.

instagram.com

Instagram is a social media network owned by meta and it’s primary image and video sharing platform. Instagram is popular amongst a wide range of users and a great first point of contact.

deviantart.com

Deviant Art is one of the oldest art sharing platforms on the internet and continues to stay relevant especially within the digital art community.

youtube.com

YouTube is one of the Internet’s largest search engines dedicated primarily to video. It is a great platform to engage and build a following. It also offers the ability to link and share work and merchandise.

vimeo.com

Vimeo is an alternative video hosting website that offers better privacy options and software to edit and create high quality videos.

pinterest.com

Pinterest is owned by meta and is regarded as a high quality image hosting website. It is a tool used by many creatives to create mood boards.

artstation.com

Artstation is as popular website for games, film, media and entertainment artist. It specialises in digital assets and tools developed by independent creators.

the-dots.com

The dots is a portfolio hosting website that also works as a social network for finding collaborators and clients.

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Retail:

etsy.com

Etsy marketer place specialises in hand made and unique creations, primarily from small scale and independent creators. It is favoured as the leading website for many small businesses.

Facebook marketplace (facebook.com)

Facebook marketplace expands over multiple platforms owned by meta, such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. It is popular due to its large and diverse user base.

ebay.com

Ebay is large marketplace for selling a variety of items and functions as a connect between sellers and buyers. It also allows bidding functions.

Amazon marketplace (amazon.com)

Amazon is the world’s leading marketplace and has different option for different types of businesses including those for artists and handmade goods. Amazon also helps with packaging and shipping in certain areas allowing for a quick start up for new creatives.

artstation.com

Artstation is as popular website for games, film, media and entertainment artist. It specialises in digital assets and tools developed by independent creators.

saatchiart.com

Saatchi art gallery is ash online art retail space that deals in physical art products. It has a high level of curation and requires engagement on the artist’s side but presents as a reliable space to retail physical products.

shopify.com

Shopify is a platform that can be integrated into personal websites and other platforms that allows e-commerce and help track sales data.

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Engage:

X.com (formerly twitter)

Formerly known as twitter, X continues to have a large user base and is a platforms to engage directly with consumers, discourse and peers.

reddit.com 

Reddit is a popular microblogging site and has a large user base in almost every area of interest. It is utilised by people in all fields to enagage, connect and seek advice from other people with similar interests.

instagram.com

Instagram is a social media network owned by meta and it’s primary image and video sharing platform. Instagram is popular amongst a wide range of users and a great first point of contact.

LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It is a trusted site for curating a CV, work history and networking with industry proffesionals.

YouTube.com

YouTube is one of the Internet’s largest search engines dedicated primarily to video. It is a great platform to engage and build a following. It also offers the ability to link and share work and merchandise.

DeviantArt.com

Deviant Art is one of the oldest art sharing platforms on the internet and continues to stay relevant especially within the digital art community.

TikTok.com

Tiktok is a short format video sharing site that has heavy engagement amongst younger demographics and is becoming an important platform for brand relevance on social media.

Categories
Secondary Research unit 3

A simple guide to using Digital spaces for Artists

Website: when venturing into a career in visual arts, it’s almost essential to not rely solely on social media to host your work. It’s pertinent to invest in a domain that is controlled by the artist. There are many domain hosting services and website builders available to use such as wix, square space, go daddy and many more. Most of these include easy to use website builders and support for e-commerce.

Social media: social media accounts should be used to display processes and engage with potential interest holders. It should act as a space for discovery and rarely be used as your sole space to display and sell work. Social media acts as a great tool to engage new clients, answer client enquiries and redirect people to your website. Different platforms offer different niches.

Use of images: it important when uploading images, to ensure that images you use can be traced back to you. Watermarking may not suit everyone’s style but it acts as a first line of defence against misuse and theft. Using compressed formats for images rather than high resolution is recommended online. Disabling right clicks and blocking screenshots work as good deterrents as well.

Copyright: it can be hard to copyright everything you may choose to share on the internet, but simply maintains original files with their created date can act as evidence in case of infringements. Sharing low resolution images on platforms can also date stamp your creations.

Terms and conditions: it is recommended to invest some time when setting up a creative practice to engage and create a privacy policy and terms and conditions for users visiting your website. The strength of these vary from region to region, but can be upheld if legal action is required.

Image cloaking tools: in the recent claims of AI models copying works from vast digital spaces, image cloaking tools are an interesting option to investigate. Tools such as glazing and nightshade are generating interest. For individual artists, using the glaze tool is recommended.