Here is a description and a video link to some recent work by Russian media artist Vadim Epstein.<\/p>\n
I’m working on a post about the psychological significance of AI contributions to art. I would<\/p>\n
appreciate your sending any comments about this post and video to me directly at ral@ralockhart.com<\/p>\n
Many thanks,<\/p>\n
Russ<\/p>\n
Warning: this film features visual effects that could be unsuitable for photosensitive viewers.<\/p>\n
Ghosts\u00a0is part of an ongoing project in which the Moscow-based media artist Vadim Epstein explores AI technology via animation. Epstein created the video\u2019s trippy, shapeshifting visuals through a program called\u00a0StarGAN v2,\u00a0which uses a neural network to generate new images by pulling from a user-created dataset. The image-to-image technology is similar to what\u2019s used to change one\u2019s hair colour or age \u00e0 la Snapchat face filters, but anyone who has tried re-inputting a filtered image back into a feed multiple times, as Epstein does here, knows that the results can get pretty strange. For the piece, Epstein built a dataset consisting of celebrity faces, cats, paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, pencil drawings and other artworks, creating a feedback loop of abstract art and digital information that builds upon itself in uncanny, unexpected ways. With\u00a0StarGAN v2\u00a0given almost full control over the process, the result is an ever-changing wave of obscure and expressive visuals that seem unbound from the world of human art and aesthetics. It\u2019s hard to predict what neural networks like\u00a0StarGAN v2\u00a0will produce as machine learning technologies continue to develop, but\u00a0Ghosts\u00a0cleverly shows how far the technology has come, and how weird the results can (already) get.
\nDirector:\u00a0Vadim Epstein<\/p>\n
Here is the link:<\/p>\n