The piece that I selected is The Event of a Thread by Ann Hamilton. I enjoy that there is more than one way to interact with this piece, and multiple dimensions within each manner of interaction. You can choose to just sit on one of the swings, or move around on one, alternatively you can sit under the curtain and watch is shift above you, and as a third option, you can take a view from further back and watch the overall shifting of the piece and how it relates to the motion of the people on the swings. This is what I feel like interactive pieces should be all about. You should be able to see how external stimulus affects the piece as this works as an implicit user’s manual that allows people who interact with the piece to manipulate it in the ways that they would like to. Without that aspect, the piece may as well be moving without any input as the point of interactivity is to be able to see what effects your input has upon the piece. The Event of a Thread captures this perfectly as you can trace any one of the swings to its terminus at the curtain and see how the motion of the swing effects the curtain locally.
This piece takes up a total of 55,000 square feet between the curtain and the swings!
“Cyber Fish” is a project done by a Chinese artist who goes by the name “Contra.” It is a collection of AI-generated cyberpunk fish.
This Blog is an explanation on how the images are generated, but it is very hard to understand if the reader does not have AI-background. It uses analogy of cooking fish to explain data processing.
Raw data from biodiversitylibrary.org
After downloading data from biodiversitylibrary.org, the artist first use image processing techniques to clean up the background.
It is unclear to me how the video was generated. I guess he first trained a GAN generating fish from latent space. And then do a walk on latent space using genetic algorithm based on pixel-wise error.
The artist then applied the same algorithm on many different dataset, got different results. But he didn’t cite where the data was coming from.
Submarine dataset from unknown sourceCyberpunk dataset from unknown sourceSquid dataset from unknown sourceSteampunk dataset from unknown sourceGuns dataset from unknown sourceAnd I found an image that I don’t know whether it is the original dataset or from the artist
It looks like after genetic algorithm, the artist tried style transform to get the following results: But it is unclear which algorithm are used.
Cyberpunk dataset style transformThe artist had many tries on the algorithm
From the images themself, I can tell that they are generated by CNNs due to some texture quality. This seems to be resolved with higher processing power from the graphics card with the later generations of the fish. This let me think instead of end-to-end generation, would it be better to have the network generate the model and render it though traditional computer graphics. This way, pixel quality could be ensured.
From those artwork and failures, I see a general theme and interest from the artist. The game cyberpunk 2077 and the collection Bored Ape Yacht Club was mentioned in his documentation. And therefore I suspect those influence this collection.
Documentations From Artist:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DAY7H0D9iToYN7Jc0nPB3w
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6rbQAD-D8RAvzLploWDF1Q
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xNSzv7NuJJnsp69HDpb2qg
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2jut4J7_H0l9jFnGlqgnzQ
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_6czZD0LDXe3a1j50KqaXw
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pBxyywg8PY87YEKq5fa-sg
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Vk5PXTu78NIMXMiP9hDiAA
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZLYNJe32imCYrz3NG2KlIw
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Haz3T2dlj-Cj_rdfGhlU1Q
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gPnDAy-E9hIIy9wvluWlVw
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Nds0Wbxu_XVLE8w3iHisxQ
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/e2NBMx0oyasNevad5OEg8w
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6nSl07Xi2sxGB-wrstBFBg
The artist also tried to sell those artwork on Opensea.
Cao Fei’s RMB City, 2008 is a virtual adaptation of China’s urban landscape, where audiences are players with a personalized avatar. Cao Fei features landmarks that are symbols of China’s prosperity in her virtual world, providing a land of open possibilities, yet she presents them in ruins to reveal the harsh realities of China’s industrial growth.
One of the main elements of the work that I admire is its continual evolution as users build their own desires in this virtual utopia and are updated with new events that mimick the transformations in China in real life. More interestingly, such interplay between the real and the virtual is able to successfully construct a cyber-space where residents carry out lives satisfying their fantasies and escape harsh realities. I also admire the programming of the movement of the avatar panning the environment, tilting its head, and walking around, which resembles human behaviour and provides a higher element of virtual life and immersion of the environment. RMB City also features background sounds that often reflect the loud constructions of a developing urban city, as one would in real life. This work seems to stem from some of her previous works that explore China’s cosplay culture and the popularity of gaming in the younger generations and the routine of waking up and immersing oneself in the fictional realm.
The video attached goes deeper into how Cao Fei built RMB City:
Shape of the World is a single-player video game that allows the player to explore procedurally generated, beautiful, and colorful ecosystems. This game aims to encourage curiosity and a sense of being comfortably lost in an immersive and interactive landscape that constantly changes as the player moves so that even if they return to the same spot, the environment is different. I find this project inspirational because of it’s simplistic yet radiating style and because what seems to be painstakingly created landscapes are actually procedurally made.
I have not played the game myself, so I can’t touch upon critiques for the project, but I believe that the project effectively accomplished what the creators wanted it to accomplish: a relaxing journey. The lead developer and artist, Stu Maxwell, was inspired to create Shape of the World after playing Journey, Flower, Windosill, and 140. These games full of exploration and whimsical style as well as Stu’s own love of wandering prompted him to use Unreal Engine 4 to develop Shape of the World.
One of my favorite video game series from my childhood is Riddle School, a point-and-click game where you have to solve little puzzles (or, I suppose, riddles) to break out of school.
I admire it so much— not just for the nostalgia— but for its ability to take such simple artwork and (in the grand scheme of modern gaming) simple code and make something really memorable and rich with lore. This is exactly the kind of game I want to be able to make.
The art, animation, and programming is done entirely by JonBro (now Jonochrome), and music is by Pepsileo and Cheshyre. Jonochrome was inspired by Pico’s School by Tom Fulp, and he created this game as a non-violent spoof of it. It was made with Adobe Flash (rest in sweet peace).
You can play the first game in the series here. If you continue with it, there are some really crazy plot-twists.
One interactive art piece I admire is Nikolas Diamant’s MoCap Head.
This project sticks out to me because I think it is an example of the perfect mix of fine art + computer science that is appealing to audiences including and beyond the fields of art and of computer science. It is visually very charming and satisfying and is very computationally impressive, but it is not so distant and unappealing to the average person. Additionally, I am drawn to this piece because it is made with programs and languages I am somewhat comfortable with (Blender, blender python). It inspires me to take my interest in 3D rendering a step further by learning bpy.
I think Nik made the project himself with perhaps some help from Golan. I am assuming it was made for a class, so it probably took a week or two to make.
