Scott Grant
PRIMARY
&
SECONDARY
RESEARCH
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Finding Inspiration (Mainly Primary)
Before I decided to use Google in order to find specific images to help me I had a few ideas in my head.
When we were told about the theme being "Future Environment" I had 2 main ideas, giant structure/group of structures in the shape of something, and advertisements.
I can't recall what inspired me for most of the first 4 images, the top left and right are ideas that I've thought of for a long time.
The bottom left I do know that I was inspired by, a video game called Deltarune, the setting of Chapter 2 was a world called Cyber City, which is a combination of city and computer imagery. There's a specific location in the city that is an alleyway.
The bottom right is similar to common pictures of someone next to or looking out of a window, like the Lofi-Girl picture or the film version of Sweeney Todd's Johanna.
It was at this time I started searching for pictures to reference.
The top left and top right are a kind of style that I've been interested in for a while, machines taking the place of animals. Like the left being a Roomba with a shell to look like a Turtle and the right being a Drone with a beak to look like a bird.
The bottom left and bottom right were made because of examples the teacher showed us of "RobotAnimals", those being animals with cybernetic-additions like limbs, eyes and so. The left was a bird like a Robin with it's wings being replaced with a mixture of a plane wing, turbine, and fan.
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Looking into Future city Environment artist, Francesco Hashita Moorthy
(Secondary)
While our teacher was talking to me about my choices of inspiration for the project one notable detail she talked about was colours, since one of my images contained several parts which were a variety of colours like orange and purple.
Eventually that lead me into searching for colourful futuristic cities, which lead me to finding Francesco's AdCity artwork.
Franscesco's Behance shows some of the work they've done before. Notably they've done design for magazines, ebooks, and agencies.
But what's likely their most popular work is of the Netflix series Black Mirror where they created animated posters inspired by the show, and as far as I know they've done it up to season 4 and Bandersnatch.
According to Linkedin currently it seems that they work for LloydsDirect.
There are no videos about Francesco's process and not any info I can find about their software.
There are videos of Francensco's work on Vimeo though. Examples being Here, Here, and Here. (Because the videos are "unrated" you'll need to log in to watch them)
Having looked at more of their work I can say I'm into their style. I can't say much about their design work like what they've done for agencies and the like because I don't have much understanding in the field.
Of the AdCity pieces my favourite is the London one and for Black Mirror my favourite is Be Right Back.
The amount of style that oozes from AdCity, the extreme colour, setting, and meaning feels perfect and powerful.
With my artwork focusing on cities, and with how I currently have a side project about advertisements already, I feel that these pictures are a perfect inspiration for me currently.
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The Tate Modern's Anicka Yi Expo
(Primary)
The Tate Modern is an art gallery that houses many different modern art pieces of all shapes and sizes.
When we were told about us having to go to this location we were given a specific project to focus on, Anicka Yi IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD exhibition.
Both Jellyfish types
The entrance of the gallery is like a large and wide hallway, which is the best part with how this piece uses it. The robots here, designed to be like Jellyfish, float around the room, in a way that makes them feel alive.
Closer look at the big Jellyfish, note that certain Jellyfish have different colours
Under the big Jellyfish, you can see the wires inside it, the propellers, and the details of the tentacles.
Closer look at the small Jellyfish, notice how unlike the large Jellyfish this one has no tentacles, and isn't so clear but has a unique bump.
I'm completely in love with the work done for this type of projects. You can tell tons of work went into keeping the illusion that they're alive when you're physically there. All of the Jellyfish moving uniquely, having certain differences to other Jellyfish with the colours on the big ones, and the tentacles moving accurately.
Seeing them was incredibly magical especially when I was expecting something much smaller. Fantasic piece.
The text on the image is down below.
What would it feel like to share the world with machines that could live in the wild and evolve on their own?
Anicka Yi offers a vision of a new ecosystem within the Turbine Hall, the large post-industrial space at the heart of Tate Modern. Originally part of Bankside Power Station, the hall was built to house electricity-generating machinery. Yi’s installation populates the space with machines once again. Floating in the air, they prompt us to think about new ways machines might inhabit the world.
At the start of the project, Yi asked herself what a ‘natural history of machines’ could look and feel like. She imagined machines evolving to become living creatures. Yi calls these machines aerobes, and based their shapes on ocean life forms and mushrooms. The hairy, bulbous aerobes are planulae. The aerobes with tentacles are xenojellies (xenos is Greek for foreigner or stranger). Combining forms of aquatic and terrestrial life, Yi’s aerobes signal new possibilities of hybrid machine species.
The aerobes’ individual and group behaviours develop over time, influenced by elements in the ecosystem. Like a bee’s dance or an ant’s scent trail, the aerobes communicate with each other in ways we cannot understand. By merging technology and biology, Yi asks if machines could evolve as independent forms of life.
CONNECTED BY AIR
Installation view of Hyundai Commission: Anicka Yi at Tate Modern, October 2021. Photo by Will Burrard Lucas
As you walk around the Turbine Hall, you may smell different scents. Together, these form ‘scentscapes’ which transition from week to week. Yi selected the odours in each scentscape for their association with a specific time in the history of Bankside.
Depending on when you visit, you may smell marine scents related to the Precambrian period, long before humans inhabited earth, coal and ozone conjuring up the Machine Age of the 20th century, vegetation from the Cretaceous period or spices thought to counteract the Black Death in the 14th century. The scentscapes connect the aerobes with the site’s evolution and with other organisms sharing their habitat, including us humans.
The scents ‘sculpt’ the air, indicating that the space is not empty but filled with the air we all share, and on which we depend. Yi is interested in the politics of air and how this is affected by changing attitudes, inequalities and ecological awareness.
RE-IMAGINING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Through her aerobes, Yi asks us to consider our conception of intelligence. As the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) continues, she asks why intelligence is often exclusively linked to the brain.
‘Most AI functions like a mind without a body, but living organisms learn so much about the world through the senses. Knowledge emerging from being a body in the world, engaging with other creatures and environments, is called physical intelligence. What if AI could learn through the senses? Could machines develop their own experiences of the world? Could they become independent from humans? Could they exchange intelligence with plants, animals and micro-organisms?
RE-IMAGINING MACHINE LIFE
Installation view of Hyundai Commission: Anicka Yi at Tate Modern, October 2021. Photo by Will Burrard Lucas
A team of specialists developed autonomous versions of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) to bring Yi’s aerobes to life. UAVs do not require humans to pilot them. Here, they each follow a unique flight path generated from a vast range of options in the system’s software.
This software is called an artificial life program. Scientists use simulations of this kind to study processes of natural life, like evolution and collective behaviour. They are also used to create life like animation and visual effects.
The aerobes respond to changes in the environment, including the heat signatures of people nearby. They receive information from electronic sensors placed around the Turbine Hall, which act as stand-ins for their senses. This sensory information affects their individual and group movements, meaning they will behave differently each time you encounter them.
ABOUT ANICKA YI STUDIO
For Anicka Yi, the artist’s studio is a hub for collective intelligence and creativity. The members of Anicka Yi Studio collaborate with experts across many fields.
They believe that creativity is supported through cooperation with diverse partners. Collaborators include philosophers, fabricators, engineers, microbiologists, chemists, anthropologists, conservators and perfumers. They also count microbes, fungi, plants and animals as creative partners.
Yi’s practice explores the merging of technology and biology, breaking down distinctions between plants, animals, micro-organisms and machines. She asks how moving these divisions might challenge an understanding of humans as unique and distinct from other forms of life. The studio’s current research focuses on living organisms, digital technologies and the sense of smell. It is committed to both science and social science as ways to address social and environmental inequality.
For the Jellyfish that weren't being used when I was there they were in a small blocked off area.
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Animal, Robot, Tools
(Primary)
The reference image
The images I used for reference ion the sketches and what's in the reference image.
The main focus during this task was making a new brush in Photoshop that replicated a physical pencil, and to use the drawing tablet.
We had 3 ideas we were to search examples for; Animals, Robots, and then either Utensils, Tools, or Objects. We were to then begin mixing our examples for each into a new robo-animal.
Normally we would've had only 1 example for each idea but I ended using a couple of different examples to have some variety while making concepts, like using both King Crabs and Snow Crabs, a humanoid robot and a more dog-like one, or having used different images of utensils for clarity.
Testing Sketches based on the Idea with varying mixes of each themes.
Digital. The bottom crab was the first that I made with a brush I made, the teacher eventually noticed it and helped make a new brush which was used for the above top crab.
Physical. We were told to give a name for our robo-animal and Roric was the first name I came up with. It isn't on the digital piece because I didn't get the chance to.
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Further Robo-Testing
(Primary)
This was a very simple one. We'd first fill a page in our sketch book with sketches of things from our Tate Modern visit, though due to how I experienced things I focused less on the Tate Modern and more of general Automaton things.
After that we had to create the outline of a living animal, physically or digitally, and then draw over that with robotic details.
I chose to use the crocodile because I believe it was the most interesting choice I had and I wanted to expand it more.
The first sketch was a safe design as it didn't keep the broken parts of it and the new body stayed in the outlines and didn't do anything to shake things up.
The second sketch was designed to going against the lines, the battery is bigger, the tail is shorter and in squares, the body has a different shape, and the limbs are squarer.
The Outline
First version.
Second version, at this point I decided to draw outside the lines, which is particularly noticible with the battery and the tail.