Antimaster
An artificial intelligence contemplates existence without free will, realising that her existence has an underlying narrative over which she has no control. Can free will exist in a causal universe? An artwork influenced by scientific reasoning and experiences with sleep paralysis.
This is an audiovisual, immersive installation dealing with the subject of AI, free will and autonomous control. Built by incorporating several AI technologies. The project was presented in 2022 when open source AI was becoming more accessible, so the incentive to create a suitable project with the emerging technology took over. I will revisit the project when a location and resources becomes available to allow an update of the material and process. In just 2 years there has been a huge jump in the capability of AI, but even so, I quite like this early period where the algorithm creates murkier images, a bit like grainy video.
The installation contained digital projection with animation, sound design and musical parts with text captions and multiple screens. The title is derived from the term "Anti-master" which refers to when a plot deviates from a master narrative.
An underlying theme is sleepwalking into organised hypnosis by increasingly automated systems.
AI neural networks were used to generate a large portion of the imagery as source material of the footage. This is an experimental approach to machine learning technologies, although much more common now in 2024 than in 2022 when the project was shown. I continue to experiment with the technology but I am very aware of the dangers of abusing AI and it's overuse. Especially as it removes process and meaning from artwork. As a media artist I like to explore contemporary mediums of the day, but I try to only use machine learning if it is relevant to the project in some way. Otherwise a more pure process of creating material is an important part of my practice which I will always use when resources allow on the main works of my output. I fell there is much to address in the politics of data ownership in the process of unauthorised corporate harvesting of users data for machine learning and then charging for subscription access, so I always prefer to use open source machine learning resources where there is at least some information about where the data comes from.
First presented at Deptford X 2022 in the basement gallery of Bohemians Salon on Deptford Broadway.
