Tag Archives: Task 5

Counter Culture Images

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With the prominent counter culture movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s the arts were exposed to an era of works with a whole new meaning and purpose to the medium that brought new spirit and sensibilities along with it.

 

Artists like William de Kooning and Jackson Pollock introduced the world to abstract expressionism “characterised by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity” (Tate, 2017). This flew in the face of previous ideologies in which paintings where designed as illustrations designed to represent ideas. This new wave created work that would have painters expressing themselves by attacking “their canvases with expressive brush strokes” (Tate, 2017) to illustrate the raw physical passion that they are designed to convey with splatters and splodges unique to the style. Looking at Kooning’s “The visit” we can see these sensibilities being applied within the painting with the organic looking brush strokes and scratches of paint strewn across the canvas.

 

In development of Abstract Expressionism came Colour Field Painting in which artists like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman led the field. In the work “untitled” we can see Rothko’s dramatic use of block colours used in a similar way of expressionism but with “compositions and thinly layered colours” that where “planned deliberately to induce powerful, even spiritual feelings in viewers” (Hodge, 2012). It is with these colours and tones that produce a new spirit to evoke the human psyche to open up and really question its meaning.

 

 

Howard Hodgkin’s “Girl on a Sofa” mixes these ideas abstract expressionism with old fashioned values of modernism. Here we see Hodgkin use the sensibilities that come with the Abstract via his mixture of expressive form of the girl that is on the sofa that makes it hard to make out where exactly it is or how the girl is sat. “this is part of Hodgkin’s objective: to inspire recollections, feelings and sensations rather than solid ideas” (Hodge, 2012).

 

 

 

References

 

Tate. (2017). Abstract expressionism – Art Term | Tate. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/abstract-expressionism [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

de Kooning, W. (1966). The Visit. [image] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/abstract-expressionism [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Hodge, S. (2012). Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That. London: Thames & Hudson, p.81.

Rothko, M. (1968). Untitled. [image] Available at: https://www.worldgallery.co.uk/art-print/mark-rothko-untitled-orange-and-yellow-1956-206317 [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Hodge, S. (2012). Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That. London: Thames & Hudson, p.85.

Hodgkin, H. (1968). Girl on a Sofa. [image] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hodgkin-girl-on-a-sofa-p02300 [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Task 5 Rachel Whiteread’s Untitled (Room 101)

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Rachel Whiteread’s cast of the inside of a Victorian room at the British Broadcasting Company’s head quarters is all that remains of the original space. The room, used by George Orwell during the Second World War and thought to have inspired room 101 in his book Nineteen Eighty- four, was dismantled around the plaster and fibreglass used by Whiteread to cast the space. As the exhibition information says, Whiteread’s sculptures are always on a human scale and the true impact of the size of this piece is lost in images. While looking at an image the piece could be mistaken for overlarge or even daunting but standing in front of the sculpture, the scale feels surprisingly comfortable. It has a human feel and is remarkably easy to take in in the few seconds it takes to walk around it. Similarly, while photographs convey the rough shape, straight walls and protruding windows, only by walking around the object can you see the tiny shadows thrown up by dents in the walls, the skirting board gaps and the negatives of the window handles or their rust stains. For a piece in which the human feeling it is designed to have comes from a comprehensible scale and familiar imperfections, a two dimensional image robs Untitled (Room 101) (2003) of its purpose in the viewer’s experience.

Author of Exhibition Information unnamed (2017) Rachel Whiteread Tate, Exhibition Curated by Anne Gallagher and Linsey young.

 Photograph: © Tate

Emotional AI in Gaming

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Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?
Consider your favourite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents how individualistic are they and their behaviours, and how might you set about improving them? 

The purpose of AI, by definition, is creating technology that can “to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). So when games designers are creating non-player characters (NPCs) the focus is on the emulation of human behaviour. At this point, game designers are getting pretty good at it, NPCs can move, talk, and over-all behave like human beings on a relatively superficial level. But in order to truly capture the human condition, I believe it should be vital to include emotive modelling in the development process, as all decisions we make are based on varying degrees of emotion. If we take into account that “emotions are an essential part of the believability of embodied characters that interact with humans” (Bartneck, 2017), if a designers goal is to evoke an emotional response towards their NPC, then emotion is vital to the equation.

Take The Last of Us, for example (again, I know). With a game that relies so strongly on a character driven plot, its essential to the experience that the NPCs are tangible, believable characters. In the first half of the game, focusing on NPCs Ellie and Tess, both are standout, individual characters who’s constant dialogue makes their personalities distinct. I personally connected with Ellie immediately, but it took me a while to connect to Tess, because her character is written in such a way that makes her stand-offish, sharp tongued and a little petty. Their emotional modelling is fantastic, however. They are both real, believable characters that the player acknowledges as separate entities, and proves the point – at least in my personal opinion – that if a designers goal is to evoke an emotional response towards their AI, emotive modelling is key to that experience.

The Last of Us 2013, Joel and Tess arguing

That being said, there’s a lot about The Last of Us AIs that aren’t perfect. There are plenty of moments, in my experience, in which I have been caught yelling at my TV screen because one of the NPCs has followed me into a dangerous territory that I was sneaking through and just started firing shots at the NPC enemies. Moments like this undermine the intuition and innovation of putting a stealth mechanic in the game to begin with – if an uncontrollable entity is going to compromise your position the game becomes somewhat frustrating to play. It’s a good example of when a programmed “humanistic” behaviour goes awry: the player does want the NPC to follow them, but they don’t want to be tripping over said NPC every time they turn around. In this specific instance it might be helpful to have the AIs recognise that the character was in stealth-mode, activated by a specific button, and lag behind just a touch more instead of charging into the fight guns blazing.

The Last of Us stealth mechanic

So despite AIs and NPCs having come so far in terms of behaving like humans both physically and emotionally, there is still a way to go in creating a truly believable AIs that blend so seamlessly into their surroundings you could forget they were there.

Reference list:
Anon, (2017) Oxford Dictionary, 3rd ed
Bartneck, C. (2017) The Relationship Between Emotion Models and Artificial Intelligence

Helpful links:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/artificial_intelligence

Click to access 1706.09554.pdf

Caroline Perkins: Task 5 Art in the Flesh

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Anslem Kiefer Fur Paul Celan Aschenblume

The digital reproduction of Anslem Kiefer’s work cannot prepare anyone for the experience of seeing these paintings in the flesh.

I first saw the work of Anslem Kiefer at the French Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2016, I was awestruck by the emotion generated by the pieces, particularly, Für Paul Celan: Aschenblume, 2006.   I felt the scope and magnitude of the emotion in the work instantly .

The sheer size of the work is the first thing that I found thrilling, I could stand at a distance from the painting and view it as a real view into a bleak and devastated world as if I had seen everything happen from a window.   I moved toward the painting and felt like I was going to step inside, be immersed in the snow and ash coated soil, the cold bleakness of a post war, post holocaust world. Kiefer says “Art is difficult….,” “It’s not entertainment.”.

I was totally absorbed by the materials used,  mud, ash and  books.  The fact that material was coming away from the work falling onto the pristine gallery floor. This piece of work was  a reflection on Paul Celan’s post Holocaust poetry. When standing in front of this magnificent work, the sense of the pain the suffering screams at you. Up close to the painting I became focused on individual brush strokes the placing of the burnt books, the enormity of the task became real in terms of the actual work that went into the piece.