Hello from Milan, where I’m packing up Cave of Sounds, which, somehow, has already finished its year-long exhibition here at the Museum of Science and Technology.
I haven’t yet managed to get my writing brain back into gear since the summer. But there’s a lot going on to share.
Just happened:
- My first AI-rendered film, Cosmic Insignificance Therapy, premiered at INTERSECCIÓN film festival (19 Oct, A Coruña, Spain)
Coming up:
- A Short Ride Through Hyperspace, a new immersive AV installation at Frequency Festival (26-29 Oct, Lincoln, UK)
- Open Studio day (Sunday 29th, Glasgow, UK)
Cosmic Insignificance Therapy part of official selection at INTERSECCIÓN
Cosmic Insignificance Therapy made the international selection for the INTERSECCIÓN film festival in A Coruña, Spain. It had its premiere there last Thursday.
I detoured to the festival on my way to Milan. It was my first film festival (as an artist rather than a punter).
Usually my official attendance at a festival means exhibiting an installation, which involves months of preparation, shipping logistics, days of work to install and non-stop maintenance while there. To be invited courtesy of a one minute film I made seven months ago seems a bit absurd. I feel like I picked the wrong medium to be working in.
The trip has been a reminder of how much I get out of travelling to arts festivals. Navigating a strange city with an arbitrary and amorphous posse of people is how I’ve made friends with many people in my field. I made the most of the pandemic, diving deep into research, but I found it professionally isolating. Setting up zoom calls with people really doesn’t cut it for me. Meeting for coffee is better but still insufficient. I find connection and friendship come from doing things together.
Of course, most festivals are abroad, and the travel has its environmental impact. I don't have an answer to that other than trying to combine multiple things into a few trips. I am confident zoom is not the answer. I felt better about heading to this festival knowing I could combine the trip with the Cave of Sounds deinstall.
A friend told me there aren’t many arts festivals in England right now because organisations on the Arts Council’s four year funding cycle were due to reapply in 2022. Programming festivals is high risk when lockdowns might arrive at short notice.
A Short Ride Through Hyperspace (a.k.a. Diffeomorphism)
Frequency Festival have commissioned a new installation based on Diffeomorphism, my series of short films voyaging from the micro to the macro of a singular point in an AI’s latent space. (Cosmic Insignificance Therapy is the first in this series, World Without End the second.)
The new piece is a 61 minute, endlessly looping voyage into different points of the same customised AI model (StyleGAN3) that’s generated many of my images and videos of late. It will be presented in a 3xHD cave format with projections on your left, front and right.
It’s called A Short Ride Through Hyperspace. Unfortunately, I decided that after the festival’s print deadline so the title there will be Diffeomorphism. It’s showing Thursday through Sunday (26 - 29 October).
A big part of the piece for me has been composing the soundtrack. As the AI is trained on my own photo archive, the images it creates are uncanny fusions of my own memories. Following this theme for the sound, I’ve drawn on the many field recordings I’ve made over the years, as well as choral works that are significant to me, and a short sample from a MIDI synth composition I wrote when I was 7 or 8 (thank you Dad for thinking to record that onto a tape).
I’ve written before about the different types of memory the AI gives me in comparison to that recorded in photos and on tapes. AI distorts by blending across contexts. Recordings distort by capturing and repeating a single moment. So in a way, with the AI composing the images, and me composing the sounds, we’re both in the same game of seeking out sense and meaning from an archive of decontextualised recordings.
This is a slowly evolving, slightly hypnotic experience. It’s an installation, so people will come and leave as their attention demands, but I’m hoping to entice people to spend a bit of time to space out and let the experience wash over them. It’s showing in a vacant unit in a shopping mall, which I’m excited about. Also, I’ve done my best to arrange for comfy seating and, as a bit of an experiment, a station offering free herbal tea – basically, the two things I often find myself longing for in video installations.
I don’t believe we’ve got a huge Lincoln contingent on this list but if you’ll be there then definitely let me know and we can hang. I’ll be there Thursday and Friday.
Open Studio day
Sun 29 Oct 2023, 11am - 4pm
77 Hanson St, Dennistoun, Glasgow, G31 2HF
For those in Glasgow, the weekend of 28-29 October is Open Studios day at Wasps Hanson Street where I’m based. I’m travelling back to Glasgow on the Saturday so my studio will only be open on the Sunday.
Loads of other artists in the building will also be opening their doors. There are many talented painters, sculptors and ceramicists in the building. As far as I’ve discovered so far, I’m the only digital artist there.
I’m thinking I’ll rig up a projector in my studio to show a smaller version of the new work (A Short Ride Through Hyperspace), though if there’s anything specific you’re interested in then drop me an email ahead.
Much love. More soon.
Tim
Milan, 23 Oct 2023