Real World Media

RWM – Assignment 4 (Blog Post 4 – Week 12)

In the finalisation of our exhibition piece, I revisited the idea of authorship in AI art regarding our exhibition curation.

Ambrosio speaks to how AI art ‘suggest[s] a human touch’ in its presentation (Ambrosio 2019). For me, this then prompts questions surrounding how the AI learned. If it has learned to create or emulate art based on all the art that has come before it, it feels like stealing to take ownership for the artwork as it learned from real people.

However, when speaking of authorship, I am reminded of Patricia Piccinini, a real woman who employs other real people to execute her works for her (Teffer 2021). I find the comparison between Piccinini and AI art confusing. Ambrosio outlines how ‘The digital versions of [AI Artist Ai-Da works] were transferred on canvas and overlaid with oil paint by artist Suzie Emery’ (Ambrosio 2019) and yet they are accredited to Ai-Da, dismantling the clarity Piccinini affect where the mind behind the work is real author.

Anyway, despite questioning much of this before, we were confronted with these questions again in the construction of our exhibition. They were instrumental in creating a shared vision of Codae the planet, and yet does this mean it needs to be included?

In tying back to the idea of history curatorship, we decided that AI is an effective tool for planning, but we wanted to be the authors of all the works in the exhibition as we did not want any blurred lines regarding the authenticity of our work.

~ 254 words

References:

Ambrosio C, 2019, ‘Unsettling robots and the future of art, An AI-driven artist’s exhibition hints at, but never fully explores, the ethics of algorithms’, Science, 365(6448), pg 38–39.

Teffer N, 2021, ‘Patricia Piccinini 1965’, National Gallery of Australia’, Available at:
https://nga.gov.au/knowmyname/artists/patricia-piccinini/#top, Accessed: 04 June 2023

RWM – Assignment 4 (Blog Post 3 – Week 11)

Week 11 prompted questions regarding the digging exercise of our exhibition. The ‘real world’ nature of our projected prompted the use of interactive elements to engage audiences, but further than this, we needed to understand how to make the work more appealing.

Ha and Lim speak to the idea that touch helps to build emotional connections to somewhat distant information (Ha and Lim 2021). In building upon Condie and LoBrutto in week 9, having an interactive artwork will help viewers feel a likeness towards the information, hopefully strengthening the link between the Codans and Humans. And this particular will manifest in our sandbox as it not only invites touch, but unearths the story, symbolic of the purpose of the entire exhibition.

Ha and Lim also speak to the idea that the meaning of an interactive work is only produced when the audience provides the work with movement (Ha and Lim 2021), which I found provocative and enlightening. However, it reminds me semiotics, how the meaning is solely what the audience makes, meaning we can’t totally control the outcome or the readings of the media we produce.

And in this way, moving forward I seek to create jigs (Crawford 2015), or aesthetic/physical indicators of how the work should be read/interacted with to ensure that audiences are guided towards a particular knowledge outcome. This will be the focus of week 12.

~ 229 words

References 

Condie M, 2021 ‘Between the past and the present: Museums and the construction of history’, Teaching History Journal, vol 55, iss 1, pg 15-23

Crawford, M 2015, ‘The Jig, the Nudge, and Local Ecology’, The World Beyond Your Head: How to Flourish in an Age of Distraction, St Ives, Viking, pg 31–41 and 44.

LoBrutto P, 2008, ‘Science Fiction 101: Tips on creating an alternate world’, Madavor Media LLC, Braintree.

Ha, J & Lim, Y K, 2021, ‘Touch: Interactive Exhibition Using the Biometric Information of the Audience’, Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Ntoa, S. (eds), Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1420.

RWM – Assignment 4 (Blog Post 2 – Week 10)

The presence of mushrooms in the formation of our world Codae was greatly informed by the Cordyceps fungi found in the Last of Us series and the ways in the inevitable higher temperatures on earth to make a dystopia. In regard to the formation of a sci-fi world, scholar LoBrutto states that ‘even if all the details don’t come in to play in the [final work], they have to inform’ reminding us to fully flesh out the Codans world in week 10.

Our creative decision to have the mushroom-like inhabitants from our planet need the shade of the Arbor trees was based upon the recent news that ‘global temperature may affect the fungal evolution in unpredictable directions’. Despite being a staple of the series The Last of Us, the Cordyceps fungi is real, and being dramatically changed by the raising temperatures on earth. Whilst the fungai can currently infect bugs creating ‘zombies’, there is now a chance that it could infect humans, thus informing the visuals and story behind the war between the Codans and the trees. And thus, canonically, the Fungai now have an incentive to seek shade and assistance from the trees. The two suns present in the paintings drafts aims to hint at the need for shade.

By building the structure of the plants and animals on the planet based upon how they would evolve to survive their environment makes me feel confident in the Codans world as one that makes sense.

~ 245 Words

References:
Jones, B 2023, ‘The ‘Zombie’ fungus in the last of us, explained by a biologist’, Vox. Accessed 14 May 2023, https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/1/21/23561106/last-of-us-fungus-cordyceps-zombie-infect-humans

LoBrutto P, 2008, ‘Science Fiction 101: Tips on creating an alternate world’, Madavor Media LLC, Braintree.

Ready Camera One – A1 Blog Post 1

The introduction to this week’s studio was a very important first class of the semester for me. This year, being in my second year, I had decided to take classes that are completely out of my comfort zone and which totally removed from my prior media knowledge. In doing so, I was concerned that I was allocated a studio with a narrow focus as I feared that multi camera studios were solely for daytime television, which I was not well versed in or exactly passionate about. However, I was very excited to learn some new technical skills which (in my eyes) Ready Camera One provided a rare opportunity to learn.

I was so pleasantly surprised as the introduction to the studio truly broadened my eyes to the diverse use of the multi camera television studio! Even though I do not study journalism, I am deeply passionate about news coverage and late night TV whilst I find great comfort in reality TV. Hence it was amazing to see the range of creative possibilities I would have in the studio forthcoming.

The possibility to collaborate was also a very attractive quality of the studio as read from the class description and experienced in the first two classes. The nature of the studio (in which every student is provided a role each class to fulfill each week) excited me greatly as the range of people and ideas I would be surrounded by would deeply enrich my learning after isolated study for so long. The buzz of others who felt the same was electric

I honestly balloted the course with no major goals as I was unsure as to how a multi camera studio would manifest. Nevertheless, after the introductory class, I knew I felt strongly towards the set design, the framing of the studio space and the transformation the blank canvas of the studio could undergo to become a program with a professional glow. I truly felt that disguising the set as best as possible would polish any project we make within the studio enough to elevate the quality of the work… even if our acting and camera movements were less than perfect! Despite being provided with an extensive prop closet, I knew after watching some RMITV shows in class, that I would need to source some of my own props to differentiate any shows we make from the others that came before us.

Moreover, the first class was my first introduction to any of the roles required for the multi camera studio to run. Many roles such as the Vision Switcher and EVS were totally new and thus, I felt determined to try every role on set to find the one I enjoyed the most. I would ensure that I try each role over the coming weeks and try working with a range of people in the class to see where my pre established love for editing, polishing finished work, interpersonal communication and the preliminary planning of any project would work best in regards to the rest of the group and the nature of the projects in the upcoming weeks.

After one week, I am very excited to participate in Ready Camera One.