the show, my brain, and an opinion

I had a pretty successful run at the show yesterday. 4 of the 7 pieces I entered got in. But I'm not trying to brag, rather I ask: is it possible that because I (may have) labeled more than the other people in the class (because I always feel bad that I miss class every week) that my tastes/preferences/opinions/whathaveyou that informed DARCI also inform my work, thereby making it easier for me to get into the show?

I know that Naomi doesn't like labeling. That's fine. It's not her thing. She called the days we spent downstairs in the lab like prison. Hilarious.

She wasn't as successful in getting into the show. Could this be because she didn't label as many images as me?

I just wonder what the coorelation is, if any.

Also, I wrote my sister (a mechanical engineer currently serving a mission in Nicaragua) and told her about the show. She said "Your DARCI project sounds super interesting.  I have no idea how those programmers programmed creativity.  It sounds like an oxymoron actually, programmed creativity.  But a really cool idea."

It does sound like an oxymoron. But it makes for a fun show.

a letter

Dear DARCI,

I just wanted to drop you a line and tell you how smart you've made me seem to people when they ask me about my art classes. "Artificial Intelligence carrying out creative processes!? Wow, you must be some sort of genius artists or something." I wasn't sure how to take this at first. It was as if a painter couldn't in anyway be as smart as someone working with artificial intelligence. And it may well be true. But I decided that it's just a different set of smarts. After all we did teach the smarty-pants Dave and Darrel what words like "painterly" and "kitschy" were yesterday.

Also, I would like to compliment you on how far you've come. While you're still young and we have a lot of teaching to do, you have done a pretty good job so far assigning adjectives to images. Kudos DARCI, kudos.

Love, Paige

Feeling

I have concluded in my personal opinion that in some ways DARCI is much like a human. Originally she is programed with a random function. Then depending on the results of that function she begins to build associations with right and wrong. This whole process is very human. As a child we develop patterns through associations. Much like DARCI. My next question is whether or not it is possible to program feeling. A part of thinking (in my opinion) consists of how an individual feels. Feeling takes place after the initial programing/learning. So the ability to learn can be programed. As described in our discussion on randomness. So what does it mean to feel? I can't exactly say, other than I have a feeling. So what is feeling? And can it be programed?

Random

How do you program randomness? By programing it, are you not expecting certain results? Therefore, it is not random. Could someone explain this to me? Please.

labeling is lots of fun

I decided that labeling is way more fun when there are a bunch of people around you. I didn't do the grueling three hours, but i do spend a fair amount of time doing it on my own and let me tell you, it's better with a group.

I like the new way to teach DARCI and I think it's interesting what she comes up with.

Does she only pull images that people have listed as "creepy" for example. Or, based on those images listed "creepy" she tries to find others?

More on associations and what is thinking

I chatted with my husband about our class discussion on Thursday. I told him how my thoughts went flying when Zac asked the question, "does DARCI think?" and Dan said that if we can describe it, we can program a computer to do it. My husband and I got on the subject of what is thinking, how do we think? What processes are considered "carrying out a thought" and how important making associations is. After he referred me to a recent Charlie Rose interview with David Brooks (columnist for the New York Times).

Here's the exerpt that stood out to me:

Brooks: . . . This cognitive revolution is giving us a more accurate view of human nature that we are not only the rational, incentive based, the linguistic, logical parts of our mind, but we have other processes which are associational, which are emotional, and this is how we really navigate the world. 

So to me this is just exciting in its own way, but also solves my problems, my problems of why we've had so many policy failures by giving us a more accurate view of human nature and how people are likely to respond to different situations. 

CHARLIE ROSE:  It's stunning. 

And, you know, when I talk to all these people and frequently say "What's the one question you most want to answer?" It's always about the unconscious.  There is this ultimate fascination with, as what you say, how much of what we do is unconscious, and how deeply influential it is in terms of all relationships we have. 

DAVID BROOKS:  Right.  And to me, the metaphor that helps me understand it is the conscious is like a general, distanced from the world, looking down on it.  The unconscious are like scouts, millions of them, permeating the world, going into other minds, going into an environment and sending back these emotional signals -- go, no, go. 

And so when you look at a menu, you can make a choice of what you want, but you do not have a choice of whether you like broccoli.  That's happening unconsciously.  If you describe to me a story of incest, I have an immediate moral reaction to that.  That's all done unconsciously. 

And, you know, so one of my favorite little science experiments are people named Dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists.  People named Lawrence are disproportionately likely to become lawyers, because unconsciously we have a preference for things that are familiar and we follow those things. 

And by now there are now 30,000, 40,000 neuroscientists in the world as well as other fields, and they're reshaping the way we understand how we navigate in this way, how these scouts send back signals.  Sometime they send back very brilliant signals, sometimes they send back biased signals. 

But it doesn't simplify life, but it gives you a sense of why we react or don't react the way we do. 

CHARLIE ROSE:  You've answered the question that I kept saying, why is David writing about this, one?  And why is he at this cognitive conference and this other cognitive conference?  Now I know, because of the book. 

What can you tell me about the book?  Can you tell me more?  Is it about the brain?  Is it about the unconscious? 

DAVID BROOKS:  I'm not a neuroscientist, so it's not really about the brain.  So my goal is to go the whole book without using the word "amygdale," because there's all this stuff with MRIs and brain geography which is very cutting edge and it's not something I'm qualified to write about. 

CHARLIE ROSE:  But it is the frontier of science right now. 

DAVID BROOKS:  But I'm always -- for us outsiders, we really should be worried about it, because the brain has a hundred billion neurons and infinite, almost, numbers of connections, and sometimes I look at the brain scans, the nice color pictures, and you think, OK, they're flying over Los Angeles, they're looking at neighborhoods where the lights are on, and they're trying to guess at what people are talking about at the dinner table.  It's phenomenally complicated . . .

Nonetheless, they don't solve philosophical problems.  They don't give you a new philosophy of life.  But they do confirm or validate some old philosophies. 

If you thought that emotion was not separate from reason, that we were all fundamentally emotional creatures, then this confirms that, the importance of emotion.  And so few if you felt we were fundamentally social creatures, then this confirms that, because we get dopamine surges when we have social conferences. 

If you thought we were utilitarian, purely rational individualists, then this disconfirms all that.  So it confirms certain -- it settles certain philosophical arguments, or at least biases you in one direction.  And I found that just tremendously useful. 

I thought his ideas about associations, the subconscious etc. are really pertinent to our class discussions over the last few weeks. I think that part of the reason why it is so hard for me to describe my artistic process or pinpoint what a thought is, is because it's subconscious. I'm not totally aware of what I do, but I feel like DARCI has to be aware of her every move. Maybe I'm wrong. I just wonder how close she can really mimic artificial intelligence because so much of our intelligence and functioning powers aren't conscious thoughts. Telling my heart to pump, my lungs to breathe, explaining why to put this color there and that color there . . . I can't explain how it happens, I just know it does.   

Associations

I was so fascinated by the associations that we made. Dan said he didn't think it was a big deal that we made "incorrect" (insane, irrational...) associations, but does DARCI make associations that are incorrect? Does anything she do come out of random associations or is all of her information supplied by us? What happens if the associations she makes are incorrect? Maybe nothing. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Could DARCI do this?

I recently read a post about mathematical/computer generated art. Interesting. Could DARCI do what this guy does on his computer?

Read the post HERE.

The artist, Tom Beddard, provides code and other resources for people interested on HIS SITE.

unkown boxes of interpretation

So I've been thinking quite a bit about Dan's post on black boxes that work their magic to create outputs out of inputs. My super long 'brain dump' was essentially outlining all the inputs that I am aware of in my artwork, and trying to correlate them with physical processes and outputs. I am still working on mapping all that out, just because I think it will be helpful to myself, but have postponed posting it, because I don't know how useful it would be (and besides, reading super long posts, or anything for that matter, in sans-serif fonts is painful). But, I have been thinking about the 'box,' what it means or represents, and the meaning of words that I normally associate with creating something of worth to myself. I thought of the word 'intelligence,' and what that means. In our religious context, that word has a lot of connotation and meaning, and perhaps even a tinge of a sense of magical wonder, and I wondered, 'How do interpret that into something definable?' I also have other questions I am still mulling over.
Today I was thinking of interpretation. I interpret a lot of things. I think that's a good word to put to my process of taking a lot of input and making an output that I feel will have significance in a realm beyond my personal self. I am interpreting emotions, thought processes/concepts, words, into a visual language. Other words I think might be synonymous are 'translating,' or 'encoding.' Often times I have heard the word 'feel' used in critiques, or have thought it to myself, where something simply feels consistent, or right, or something feels like it doesn't belong. It is a way of interpreting things across different areas, from visual to emotional, or visual to psychological--a synesthesia of emotion, subconscious, and physical senses.
I read some interesting articles about synesthesia and creative processes, and I think that is something significant to art making--the ability to have ideas cross over from one realm to another, or one language to another, while still maintaining a certain degree of integrity or self sufficiency.