Interactivity and Computation • 60-212
CMU School of Art / IDeATe, Spring 2022 • Prof. Golan Levin
It was really fascinating to see how small clicks are able to completely alter the images. It was also interesting to see how my final outputs are mystical and ocean-like when original images are composed of unrelated objects, such as traffic lights, flowers, steel boxes, etc. Through this platform, I have experienced an iterative process in creating, where I swift the direction of my final output based on each selection of the image.
This tool allowed me to eliminate my preceding knowledge of cats and buildings while making these drawings. I felt that this tool gets me to be more creative with the final output. It was interesting to be able to observe the output changing by minor changes that I make, such as adding a new rectangle.
I found this project interesting because it gathers pieces of information across thousands of digital images and generates a cohesive piece. I also like how it is interactive in that the original images appear when a user clicks on a certain part of the image. I personally would also like to explore ways to receive user input and derive information from such input to generate an interactive work.
My creature is named Dollar Chaser – by moving the mouse, the user is able to control the position of the creature. In order to emphasize the life-like movement of the creature, the easing function was used to smoothly alter the position of the creature. Further, its eye movements were also set to follow the mouse positions. When the white circles are added, they are added as spring particles to further promote lively movements. Through such interactions between the user and the creature, I intended to build a puppeteer/puppet relationship as if the creature is a representation of the user.
To further explain the intentions behind my work, the number of little circles that also follow the creature increases exponentially when it collides with a yellow dot representative of a coin. All movement stops when any part of the creature or the circles that have become a part of the creature hits the edges of the canvas. At this point, the phrase “too much?” appears on the canvas. Through such interactions, I wanted to play around with the basic notion in the game settings, where coins essentially help you win. You are encouraged to follow the coins much like many parts of the society that is driven by money. My interactions are unlike such basic notions in that you eventually lose when you have consumed too many coins. Moreover, the user is able to resume the game by moving the cursor to the middle and hitting “enter.” When this happens, the color of the creature fades to black and only its red eyes remain to signify that the creature has been overtaken by the ambition of the user. I wanted these interactions to serve as a reminder that money has limitations – and that it cannot be the sole motive of life.
In order to better foster my intentions, I believe that several features could be added. For instance, a coin could disappear when the user hasn’t interacted with it for a certain period of time or the user could remove some branches of the white circles by sharing them with other creatures. In terms of the flow of the movements, having a larger canvas or reducing the sizes of the creatures and the margins between the white circles could help. Lastly, significant improvements could be made to the visual aspects to make the interactions more engaging for the user.
I have already played with ArtBreeder, but I’ve never used ProsePainter. This image took about 30 minutes to make. I had a lot of fun using different inputs in different areas, and am very pleased with the resulting image. It is funny how my taste does not vary at all across platforms.
I used input such as “poland tulip field”, “water flowing stream in forest flowers”, “messy bedroom in sunny afternoon”, and “koreatown on a nice afternoon”. I tried not to use proper grammar and tried to make it as specific as possible as to most accurately capture the desired vibe.
Since I have already played with the edges2cats software, I decided to play around with myHeritage instead.
This first video is of my grandfather who just passed away last week. I thought of using him because I was maybe considering sending it to my parents; however, even though the intentions of this software are good, it can also be seen as creepy and lacking awareness, which is something that needs to be overcome with this type of technology as a whole.
I am including this second video of my still living grandma because it shows how the technology is not yet perfect(even though we cannot expect it to be perfect when the only data it has is from a flat picture and not a 360 view). Her face is warped slightly.
1. InferKit
My input is bolded:
“I’m waiting for my roommate to finish his orchestra practice.
2. Narrative Device:
This was very funny to me. I wanted a prediction of my spring break and I got a Wattpad fan fiction. I also understand that “Jean Cho” means nothing to the machine but I wanted it to be personalized.
This project was commissioned by Google in 2018 by the Google Brand Studio. The project uses neural networks to identify real-life versions of emojis captured by one’s phone camera. More info
This project truly baffled me because of its implications. For people who were already adults at the conception of the Emoji / people who spent their later development years growing with the Emoji, it is taken for granted that emojis are cartoonish representations of real-life objects. For example, the thought process is that there is a dog emoji which represents a real-life thing: a dog; however, this project inverses this logic: that there is a real-life version of the dog-emoji: a dog. The thing which is considered first is flipped. This subconsciously gives more weight to the emoji rather than the object the emoji represents. The “real” thing is no longer the dog, but the emoji.
This writing is just an extremely deep dive into an objectively shallow thing, but regardless there is more to say. Thinking back, it was mentioned in the above paragraph that current adults/older adolescents accept that emojis are representations of real-life things. However, this is not the case for younger children who have seen or experienced more through the phone than in real life. This is especially true due to the pandemic. Those who are around 0-7 right now have likely grown up more online than in person, and therefore have seen more emojis than the “real” versions of emojis. It is therefore likely that they consider the emojis to be more “real” than their “real” counterparts, meaning they consider first the emoji and then the object, meaning logic is backwards in respect to ours (the adults/older adolescents).
This project, the Emoji Scavenger Hunt, forces this backwards perspective onto its user. While it may initially seem like a harmless and fun iSpy game, it is also on some level a commentary on the difference in perspective or logical journey of the older versus newer generation in respect to technology.
I went to a coffee shop downtown the other day and was in a corner by myself.
After reading a few pages of a book I noticed a boy come in alone and sit down in a chair at the table next to me.
He opened a pad of paper and started writing.
Every so often he glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody was coming.
He was in deep thought.
Then he put his pen down and a moment later got up and left.
A short time later a woman entered the coffee shop alone.
She sat down at a table across from me.
She put her coat down on a nearby chair and leaned back in the chair.
I thought, “Aw, that’s nice,” and continued reading my book.
When it seemed like she’d waited a long time for her drink she left the shop again and started walking down the street.
I thought, “Hmm … interesting.”
Then a man sat down at my table and started reading.
After a few minutes of quiet conversation I thought, “That is a lot of coffee.”
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
I thought, “He’s napping,
A Duck
Wall to wall carpeting
The duckling was sitting on the roof of the duck house, watching the birds fly by. As the sun started to set, the ducklings could see the carpet in the distance, stretching all the way to the horizon. They knew that they would have to find a way to get over the wall to get to the carpet, and they were excited to do so.
I find it interesting how these two different tools approach the same idea differently. One just asks for themes while the other asks for the start of a story. I wonder if both algorithms use the given information in the same way.
Artbreeder generally seems to create images that fit into the uncanny valley. They seem like any second I’m going to be able to interpret what is happening in the picture but it never quite happens.
