Category: LookingOutwards-08

Kyle McDonald

The artist I will present for this weekly assignment is Kyle McDonald. McDonald works on the intersection between artificial intelligence and art, and creates tools to allow artists to apply machine learning to their work. He is a professor at NYU ITP and a artist in residence at CMU.

What I like about his work is that McDonald focuses on understanding artificial intelligence, and does this by placing it in contrast to human intelligence, asking questions about its meaning, how is it different from human intelligence, and where it might lead to in the future.

Some of the interesting aspects Kyle explores in his work are the biases AI currently has, for example, by asking “who isn’t in the training data?”, as well as looking at patterns of AI and playing around with what various data sets can result in.

McDonald’s work combines exploration of AI – what is it capable of doing and how can you leverage it to create art, along with thoughts on the results, problems and philosophical questions this developing technology creates.

Kyle McDonald talking about AI in his talk “Weird Intelligence”, as part of the Eyeo annual conference. source. 

Eyeo 2015 – Jesse Louis-Rosenburg and Jessica Rosenkrantz from Eyeo Festival // INSTINT on Vimeo.

Nervous System: Jesse Louis-Rosenburg and Jessica Rosenkrantz

Their website: http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/index.php

I watched the video by Jesse Louis-Rosenburg and Jessica Rosenkrantz from the “Nervous System” studio. Jesse has a background in math and computer science, and Jessica has a background in biology and architecture. They both attended MIT for college, and their joint studio is based in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Jesse and Jessica teamed up to create Nervous System, a cross-disciplinary studio that explores how patterns emerge and how to create computer-controlled digital fabrication algorithms based on those patterns. Their body of work is very interesting to me, as an interdisciplinary student myself who is interested in science and art. A lot of their projects explained in the video explored the development of form and pattern in biological processes, such as vein growth in leaves and cellular growth and differentiation. They study these patterns and use digital fabrication to bring their knowledge of these patterns to the general public, in the form of products like jewelry or lamps. I admire their work because, not only are they deeply exploring these scientific topics of biological pattern-making, but they are also making this knowledge accessible to the general public.

Jesse and Jessica’s presentation style was effective. They used visuals to aid their discussion, and they explained each project from start to finish: from idea creation, process/problem solving, and the final product. From their presentation, I can take note of how they motivated each of their projects to the audience, and how they explained each project in a way that anyone in the audience could understand.

Below is a video explanation of “Kinematics”, a project by Nervous System that actually does not replicate biological patterns but rather uses computation to create flowy/foldable 3D-printed “fabrics” or jewelry. As the video shows, they scanned the body of the human model and fit a 3D-model of a dress to the human model. Super cool!

"4D-printed" shape-changing dress and jewellery by Nervous System from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Burak Arikan and Network Mapping

Burak Arikan is an artist who finds his inspiration in two worlds, New York City and Istanbul. Arikan completed his master’s degree at the MIT Media Laboratory, where he explored networked systems that address “the transition from connectivity to collectivity” (eyeo speaker bio) in creative expression. Before his MIT experience, he received a M.A. degree in Visual Communication Design from Istanbul Bilgi University and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Yildiz Technical University.

Post MIT, Arikan founded Graph Commons Platform, which is dedicated to provide “network intelligence.” In his own words, he describes Graph Commons as a “collaborative network mapping platform and knowledge base of relationships.” Arikan believes that the modern day networks, whether it is social media input or social or economic issues, are rich with information and yet we have no handy tool to tap into such a resource. This is the exact vacuum where Graph Commons fits in, as a machinery which generates maps that render the relationship visible. Like how Arikan intended it to be, Graph Commons is a powerful tool that enables not only face collaboration, but also easy subtraction and isolation of information within a network. For example, this cumulative project timeline-map he presented at Eyeo below. Based on the infrastructure of the dataset, the resulting interactive map could be in various appearances, which are both interesting and informative to look at. A networked piece of information powered by Graph Commons can also shed new light on a discussed issue, by revealing previously overlooked connections.

Network is an unique medium for expression and for action.

Burak Arikan, Eyeo Festival 2014

 

Watch Arikan’s speech at Eyeo 2014 here

Burak Arikan: Eyeo Speaker bio 

Check out Graph Commons here

 

Eyeo 2015 – Deray Mckesson and Samuel Sinyangwe from Eyeo Festival // INSTINT on Vimeo.

In light of the news regarding race relations and police violence, I was immediately interested by Deray Mckesson and Samuel Swey’s project, “Mapping Police Violence,” which was presented at the Eyeo Festival 2015. Mckesson is a civil rights protestor, educator, and is known as one of the most prominent figures in the Black Lives Matter movement. Swey is a policy analyst and data scientist focused on using policy to end systemic racism.

In their presentation, Mckesson and Swey highlight the power of storytelling and social media in bringing police violence experiences and race issues to light. For instance, Twitter has been instrumental in generating a dialogue about these topics. However, while these stories shared through social media platforms were hugely impactful, they saw a lack of (and thus a need) for backing them up with quantitative data. Thus, “Mapping Police Violence” was born out of a desire to conduct more research on police violence and create visualization of the data. From infographics based on the most highly concentrated locations of police violence, statistics on national trends in violence, and reports coded by race, the project’s website aims to present as much data and quantitative context as possible from the past 300 days of protests. These infographics help uncover patterns of severity and provide better solutions.

This project (and the presentation) really interests me for a very obvious reason — these men see a lack of information in a highly-salient topic and aim to deliver solutions. They present the information in a way that is easy to follow. Before listening to their lecture, I had never considered that there was such little data being collected by the government related to police violence. It also helped emphasize how truly powerful social media can be used as a tool for telling these unheard experiences. The infographics provided on their site (especially the police violence map on the home page) really provides a powerful image of the extent of this issue.

“Mapping Police Violence” isn’t the only project the two men have worked on together. You can also check out another project they’ve worked on called Campaign Zero, which aims at creating effective policy solutions to end police violence.

 

 

For this weeks Looking Outwards post, I’m going to write about Deray Mckesson and Samuel Sinyangwe. What’s funny is that I just randomly stumbled upon the video of this talk, but this isn’t actually the first time I’ve heard about Deray Mckesson. In fact, back when the Black Lives Matter movement was being stirred up on twitter because of Mike Brown, I happened to see some of Deray’s tweets and even followed him for a bit. I didn’t even recognise him at first until he posted the image of his tweets in the talk, and then I thought “oh wait I know this guy”.

Deray Mckesson is a civil rights activist, an active protester, and a member of the Black Lives Matter movement (of which I also actively support of course). He studied government and legal studies at Bowdoin College. Samuel Sinyanwe is also a civil rights and racial justice activist, graduating from Stanford where he studied race and how it intersects with politics, society and class. Samuel is also a member of the Black Lives Matter movement. Together they founded the project, “Mapping Police Violence”. For a more extensive biography on the two, you can go here.

Here is a link to the website.

What I admire the most about their work, is because it pertains to human rights. I’m actually very big on social justice and issues like these, was a member of my high school’s social justice and activism club and I helped to put on events that would spread awareness of issues like these. I think what these two are doing is admirable because a lot of the time people sweep issues like these under the rug because they have the privilege of it not affecting them. Mapping Police Violence is admirable because it raises awareness of the current issue of racially charged police violence in America. Looking at the figures and statistics kind of shoves in your face that there is an immediate problem, and denying the existence of these issues can’t work when the facts are right there.

How they present their work is by getting right to the heart of the matter and present the facts. Personally I think this is very effective. If I get into an argument with someone about the Black Lives Matter movement, for example (and this happens a lot more than I would like), I have somewhere to go where I can immediately just pull facts. People always ask for the facts, you can’t argue with someone or present a point without backing it up factually.

Here are some images from the Mapping Police Violence project website:

Here the eyeof video:

Some of their other projects besides Mapping Police Violence include:

Check The Police

 

Protesters Progress