Week 11 Lecture Research & Reflection
Emerging technology and design, generative design and machine learning.
This lecture I found particularly interesting. There was a large focus on emerging technology and its relationship with design. Andy and Karen mentioned generative design, parametric design, A.I. design, machine learning and robotics and design.
Most of the discussed works push boundaries. I like how art can be created from visualising data and transforming information into imagery. Andy and Karen raised interesting questions such as how much of your design is done by you? Or is it the tools which do it for you?
I picked a few areas I wanted to do deeper research on:
F.A.T Lab (Free Art and Technology LAb)
In the lecture, projects such as the Eyewriter and QR hobocodes was mentioned. These projects were both involved with Free Art and Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab) as Andy touched on. F.A.T. Lab is an organisation dedicated to enriching the public domain. It was founded in 2007 by Evan Roth and James Powderly, also associated with Graffiti Research Lab. Their network of artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and musicians are committed to supporting open values and the public domain.Â
Their website was http://fffff.at/. I genuinely thought that I was on the wrong website or got redirected to some spam but thatâs really their website!! Sadly, I found that they actually closed as of August 1, 2015. But their website is still online as an archive.Â
I have huge respect for all those involved in the group, and very fond memories of the laughs weâve had and things weâve built (hopefully some of this will continue under different banners). The excitement of F.A.T. closing is in seeing what its former members will do next.
P.S. @NBCâŚ. 8 years and really no complaints about the logo??!! ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
-Post by Evan Roth, found on their website:Â http://fffff.at/
As mentioned in the lecture, they worked on some amazing projects such as the Eyewriter. F.A.T. Labs, along with OpenFrameworks, the Graffiti Research Lab, and The Ebeling Group teamed up with TEMPTONE. Tempt1 is a LA graffiti writer, publister and activist who was diagnosed with ALS in 2003. He is nearly completely paralysed except for his eyes. The Eyewriter is a low-cost, open source eye-tracking technology which allows Tempt1 to draw using just his eyes.
Another project was QR_STENCILER and QR_HOBO_CODES. This is what Golan Levin posted on http://fffff.at/ about it:Â
Yep, itâs a QR code stencil generator! The F.A.T. Lab is pleased to present QR_STENCILER, a free, fully-automated utility which converts QR codes into vector-based stencil patterns suitable for laser-cutting. Additionally, we present QR_HOBO_CODES, a series of one hundred QR stencil designs which, covertly marked in urban spaces, may be used to warn people about danger or clue them into good situations. The QR_STENCILER and the QR_HOBO_CODES join the Adjustable Pie Chart Stencil in our suite of homebrew "infoviz graffiti" tools for locative and situated information display.
I really love how F.A.T. is is dedicated to the public domain and releasing open-source software. Anybody is free to distribute, remix, and modify QR_STENCILER, so long as they share and provide attribution to FFFFF.AT. "he 100 QR_HOBO_CODES and their respective stencils are hereby dedicated to the public domain.â
Golan levin intrigued me as well and I did a bit of research on him. I watched this interesting TED talk he did: https://www.ted.com/talks/golan_levin_art_that_looks_back_at_you?language=en#t-6790. He is a hybrid of an artist and an engineer. Both my sister and my dad are in the engineering field and Iâve always considered us to be in completely different/opposite fields. However, thinking about it more, technology connects engineering and design. They can work together to create fascinating works just like Golan Levin. You can find more of his projects here: http://www.flong.com/projects/. I personally like âEyecodeâ and âFootfalls.âÂ
Generative Adversarial Network (GANs)Â
Ok so, GANs was something I knew nothing about but became veryyy interesting to me after researching it a bit more.Â
Definition (more-so for my purposes than yours):Â Generative adversarial networks (GANs) are algorithmic architectures that use two neural networks, pitting one against the other (thus the âadversarialâ) in order to generate new, synthetic instances of data that can pass for real data. They are used widely in image generation, video generation and voice generation.
I read up on how the actual algorithm works but it was like a different language to me and I really didnât quite understand the jargon.Â
Different applications and potential uses of GANs:
Fashion, art and advertising
Age face photographs to show how an individual's appearance might change with age
A GAN model called Speech2Face can reconstruct an image of a person's face after listening to their voice
In the lecture, Karen and Andy mentioned thispersondoesnotexist.com which was created by Uber engineer Phillip Wang. He used the software called StyleGAN, a GAN for producing an unlimited number of portraits of fake human faces. Itâs important to be wary of the potential evil purposes of this technology. This type of image synthesis can lead to the production of fake, possibly incriminating, photographs and videos. People can also use realistic photos of nonexistent people to create fake social media profiles. Scary stuff.Â
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/moviebarcodes-interview
https://pathmind.com/wiki/generative-adversarial-network-gan
http://www.eyewriter.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StyleGAN
https://transmediale.de/free-art-and-technology-lab-ft-lab
http://fffff.at/qr-stenciler-and-qr-hobo-codes/
https://pathmind.com/wiki/generative-adversarial-network-gan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StyleGAN
https://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4804610224/the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy-2001-2003-prints
http://www.eyewriter.org/
http://fffff.at/qr-stenciler-and-qr-hobo-codes/