This week we had our presentations on Monday. At first I was fairly uninspired while preparing for this as I didn’t really have my own sort of thesis and key idea yet. After taking a while to think about what my idea was, I wanted to come up with something a bit unique rather than simply AI and its connection to art, not to discredit that, but I find interest in the more niche aspects of different areas and I choose to focus on how AI is can be used as a tool for misinformation and deception in society. While I may seem critical of AI, I think our class focuses on mostly the positive aspects of generative AI so I decided to do something a bit left field in that regard. It ties in with my major project as my group plans to create a piece containing multiple different aspects of societal issues and concerns from politics to conspiracies. With this in mind, we do have to be careful in creating anything too controversial but I still want it to be thought provoking and I know I am going to have so much fun developing this project. The AI we plan to use will mostly be in imagery and voice models of certain figures but we don’t have the fine details planned out yet.

We also had a guest lecture with Prof McCosker. It was quite insightful and helpful especially with the discussions we had in class. Another student, Noah, made a great metaphor for what working with generative AI feels like. Whack-a-mole. You nail one thing down just for another to pop up and it always seems to work like that with AI tools. Both satisfying and frustrating when it happens.

Something interesting I found this week actually came by me by complete surprise. I am an avid listener of the K-Pop music genre and I was taking a look at the music video for a newly debuted girl group. To my complete shock, their music video has AI generated video in it and it looked quite similar to the output we get from Runway. If I am going to be completely honest, it was very poorly done and made it seem cheap. Reception to it’s use is utterly negative. This is could be a concern for generative AI. When it is utilised in poor taste for millions to see, it sort of cheapens and makes AI look uncredible. If it was used in smaller doses with better transitions it could have been fine and went unnoticed but this is a great example of how NOT to use generative AI, especially when your newly debuted group has had a lot of traction. It not only made AI look bad but the group itself seem a bit low budget.

Here is the link timestamped at one of the AI generated scenes.

First week back! I worked on and submitted my Assignment #2 work this week (late) and it was quite the process. Initially I was actually really demotivated after trying out so many of my ideas in Runway. Nothing was coming out the way I envisioned it and I tried so many times with so many different story ideas I had. I gave up for a while feeling burnt out that nothing was fulfilling my vision. This is sort of where generative AI can be great but also lacking. I wouldn’t be able to create these pieces without it since I don’t have the art skills but then again it doesn’t follow what I see in my mind’s eye which is really important to me. I have strong visions and a sense of what I want my media project to look like, feel like and sound like but oh my god can it be a tough cookie to get the right output.

Eventually I stuck down with one of my ideas, something I never tried before, a sort of mini anime episode. Honestly after getting past the initial turmoil I started really getting into it. Sometimes the slow speed of Runway did ruin my steam though but it was also an anticipating wait to see what comes out. I began enjoying creating my media piece, seeing the pieces and vision come together was so satisfying. I did have to cut some corners where the output was lacking. I used black screen moments with sound which I thought still worked as it kind of added a what will happen / tension moment through out (when it wasn’t used as a transition that is). I could’ve rushed my project at the end to get it in by the submission time but I wanted to feel proud of my work so I decided to eat the late penalty and keep toiling on until the early hours of the morning and finish off the next day. Putting the finishing touches really made me feel like I put together something really entertaining that I would watch for fun, and I did watch it over about ten times after finishing it. Overall while it initially was tough to get through the hard parts, the payoff was so worth it and it showed me working with AI really can be a process too and aids in media making especially where I couldn’t do it myself.

This week we also had Kate Geck as a guest lecturer in our class and I found it very inspiring. A lot of her work resonated with me and it was really new for me to see how AI can be implemented into physical forms. To me when I think about AI works, I only think about like digital art and video, but seeing her tapestries and art exhibitions was so eye opening. I also love the colourful nature of her work. I have to create a portfolio soon and it definitely gave me inspiration for new ways I can create art. Art doesn’t have to fit into a category and it doesn’t have to portray a certain characteristic to be seen as true art as long as it means something to you!

First piece, Shadow Tresses, 2024, Liang Luscombe. In this piece it depicted almost witch like hag hands and tree branches through the shadows of the canvas it was being displayed upon. I had no idea what the material was at first, maybe some type of leather? I even thought maybe that’s what dried out human skin looks like at one point. Upon reading the description panel, it is Kombucha leather which I have never heard of before, but I am assuming its an ethical type of leather. I thought it was quite cool though and was a great canvas for the artwork. I wonder how artist decide on the material they are going to use. It was immediately my favourite artwork in the exhibition, hidden away in its own corner away from everything else. Maybe it was the inner child in me? It almost seemed like a creepy children’s story come to life in the best way. Maybe it was just me being easily amused by something simple because it was moving, I am not sure… To be honest, I didn’t really feel anything besides wonder and intrigue looking at it. I find it one of my faults. I just like looking for art for what is visually stimulating or pretty without ever really caring about the deep thought behind it. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I am truly artistic. I get bored easily when viewing art, but this piece did keep my attention the longest. In fact, the second thing that kept my attention the longest was the pretty hanging lights which weren’t really art pieces. Looking behind the artwork and seeing all the intricate pieces playing their role to create the art was so interesting. You don’t often think about how much effort goes into these things. My only question is where AI comes into this art. I just realised that the artwork I found most connected to was the art work that had the least amount of AI involved and the most amount of real moving parts, physically there for me to see. I realise all my favourite artworks were more physical pieces compared to things through a screen or flat writing. The lighting of this specific art was really dark and moody and the closed of nature of it added to the atmosphere.

The second art work I found intriguing was the four changing panels, Nobody has real friends anymore, The gunman gives ‘pop music’ a new meaning, life sucks in bear country, This is where humans will move when we destroy earth, 2016. I was also wondering what this material was and it was lenticular print, which I also had never heard of before interestingly enough. I don’t seem to know much about the unique ways art can be displayed. I found this one cool because depending on where you stand, the words you see on the panels changed, kind of like how the way someone views something or the place they come from can change their view or the way they see things. It was amusing to see myself and other students walking backwards and forwards together to try to see the words differently. I wish society could do the same and try to see things from different angles rather than black or white. The art was also black and white though. I enjoy interactive artwork like this. To make me move and use my body to appreciate something is to make me moved. This piece of artwork was rather small in size in regard to each individual panel, but it felt like a larger piece because of the space it took up. You could really focus on it despite the other nearby art, specifically the rather loud physical piece that I actually couldn’t find the name for. The lighting also played a big role in this.

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, and I hope I can one day learn to appreciate the deeper meaning and ideas behind artwork perhaps. If I never do learn it then perhaps its not for me to view art and the world in that way but rather from my own wonderous mindset, to only see the beauty in everything.

This week we started off with the AI prompting battle in class! It was really fun and I got a chance to work with students I hadn’t previously spoken to before. It was interesting to work with new peers because their thought process was so different to my own. I thought the ideas they came up with were very out there compared to my own. I find my own creativity when I’m given a time limit is restricted compared to when I am free to wonder. However with the use of AI, I can start to take more risk with the work I create. In fact now I have been using AI quite a lot more than I had been in the past. I never actually actively used it often besides the previous studio I participated in but now It has become a valuable tool for me especially as I struggle with academic work and planning. It has helped me plan assignments and now I think I can try use it to assist me in my media creation as I haven’t yet tried that and our Assignment 2 would be the perfect time to practice.

All that random babbling aside, It was enjoyable to see everyone’s work and how each group approached the prompt differently, although at times, a lot of our work was quite similar despite not knowing what each other prompted. I was very competitive in wanting to win and in the end my group won and took home our mini trophies which I am very proud of. Bragging rights! Thanks to our very generous tutor/teacher (I still don’t know what to call it) Daniel for providing us with the prizes and snacks a long the way. Much Appreciated.

Assignment #2 is one I’m weary about as every attempt so far of creating a video through text to video generation has varied wildly making it quite difficult to create a consistent character and setting for the story. Hopefully I can still create something I can be proud of but we shall see.

Recently I have heard good things about Google’s AI assistant, Gemini. Well in terms of helping with more academic tasks which ChatGPT often gets wrong. It would make sense for Google to create a very capable AI assistant as they have access to the widest database on the internet through their platform, however ChatGPT has already been established as the top dog in AI. It will be interesting to see if any future applications can take out the top spot, either way, competition drives companies to do better so I’m all for it!