Jekyll2023-11-19T15:36:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/feed.xmlN.C.ChungMedia ArtsN.C.Chungcoincidentally and inevitably, in a place we never thought of2023-09-20T00:00:00+00:002023-09-20T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/coincidentally-inevitably<p style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;line-height:50%;">
<img src="/arts/cipwnt/cipwnt-proto.jpg" alt="coincidentally and inevitably, in a place we never thought of" width="700" /><br />3D model by Diana Bohutska</p>
<p>“coincidentally and inevitably, in a place we never thought of” is a multidisciplinary research and development project, meditating on what AI is feeling. I investigate how to gauge the AI model’s psychological state and to provoke metacognition, that combines technical exploration and performative installation. In particular, I examine and explore language and computer vision models through the lens of psychoanalysis and mental counseling. In the process, I investigate different ways to think about our relationship with AI and provide self-reflection.</p>
<p>By embodying the counseling and psychological examinations, this experiment attempts at figuring out the others that are so foreign that we don’t yet have ways to express or conceptualize. Through an artistic reinterpretation of AI language models, this work aims to reveal the precarious and hazardous relationships we have with omnipresent AI models. Beyond reimaging AI interaction and intentionality, this line of inquiry is a critical reflection of our societal challenges on mental health.</p>
<p>In this installation, I use <a href="https://serena.chat/">Serena (mental health counseling AI)</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;line-height:50%;">
<img src="/arts/cipwnt/ai-inkblot.jpeg" alt="ai inkblot" width="400" /></p>
<ul>
<li>Supported by <a href="https://subnet.at/subnetair/subnetair-neo-christopher-chung-exittalk-20-09-2023-1915/">subnet AIR 2023</a> and <a href="https://hci.plus/">Center for Human-Computer Interaction at University of Salzburg</a></li>
<li>Developed during <a href="https://schmiedehallein.com/">Schmiede 2023</a> in Hallein, Austria</li>
<li>Special thanks to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/yan_sanchez_av/">Yan Sanchez</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reljapet/">Relja Petrovic</a>, <a href="https://troikatronix.com">Mark Coniglio</a></li>
<li>Donation from <a href="https://www.instagram.com/timtucktoe/">Timia Sanchez</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/georgedyermusic/">George Dyer</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/raf_in_music/">Rafał Biłas</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/nathcampreguer/">Nathalia Campreguer</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/liwssssssss/">Liwia Rajczakowska</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lempickistanislaw">Stanisław Łempicki</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/natlinka">Natalia Mierzwiak</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cara.distefano.art/">Cara DiStefano</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sniezanaaa">Snezana Logvinova</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/krivi.mp4">Ivelina Ivanova</a></li>
</ul>N.C.Chung3D model by Diana BohutskaArtificial Perspectives2023-04-20T00:00:00+00:002023-04-20T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/artificialperspectives<p style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;line-height:50%;">
<img src="/arts/artificialperspectives/airium_audience_IM3.jpg" alt="Artificial Perspectives" width="700" /><img src="/arts/artificialperspectives/airium_audience_IM4.jpg" alt="Artificial Perspectives" width="700" /><br />Photos by Ingrida Mockutė-Pocienė</p>
<p>Machines – both physical and digital – have encapsulated every inch of our lives with their contradictory implications. Environmental sensors reveal climate change, but tell us that doom is inevitable; smart home devices keep us safe, while snitching on us and our neighbors.</p>
<p>From how we think to what we do, neural processing of massive data is nudging us towards post-human conditions. Reprogramming has commenced, and it is futile to tell who is surveilling whom. Every moment speeds by us, leaving only trails of silicone waste and illegible logfiles. As quantitative science seems increasingly at odds with reality, we no longer feel the quantified self.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<img src="/arts/artificialperspectives/airium_wires.jpg" alt="Artificial Perspectives airium wires" height="250" style="display: inline" />
<img src="/arts/artificialperspectives/airium_bluecloseup.jpg" alt="Artificial Perspectives airium closeup" height="250" style="display: inline" />
</p>
<p>Artificial Perspectives gives viewers the opportunity to commune with this post-human machine culture. Artificial entities are cultured in synthetic biospheres seeded with AI models for language, audio, and vision. In real-time feedback loops, multi-sensory generative systems react and recoil. With environmental changes felt and interpreted hundreds of times a second, these intelligent devices exhibit chaotic behaviors that evolve with the audience. In a time in between the boundaries of machine, human and nature, Artificial Perspectives exposes our tenuous relationship with computing devices and algorithms, uninterpretable and omnipresent, that are re-defining our world.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;line-height:50%;">
<img src="/arts/artificialperspectives/airium_dark.jpg" alt="Artificial Perspectives" width="700" /><br />Photo by Rafał Biłas</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.kkkc.lt/lt/exhibitions/neo-christopher-chung-dirbtines-perspektyvos/" target="_blank">Klaipėdos Kultūrų Komunikacijų Centro (KKKC) (Klaipėda, Lithuania)</a> 10/06-03/07/2022</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F-nBrxIE5zg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.kibla.org/en/festivals/kiblix/kiblix-2022/" target="_blank">KIBLIX Festival at KIBLA Portal (Maribor, Slovenia)</a> 16/11–30/12/2022</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.mcruk.si/clanek/za-humano-tehnologijo" target="_blank">Za humano tehnologijo (For humane technology), RUK exhibition</a> at <a href="https://www.cd-cc.si/en" target="_blank">Cankarjev dom (Maribor, Slovenia)</a> 24/04-04/05/2023</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.rtvslo.si/kultura/vizualna-umetnost/za-humano-tehnologijo-pregled-treh-let-vizionarskih-prizadevanj-mreze-ruk/665941" target="_blank">Featured in RTVSLO (Slovenian TV)</a> 24/04/2023</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;line-height:50%;">
<img src="/arts/artificialperspectives/artificialperspectives-kibla1.jpg" alt="Artificial Perspectives" width="700" /><br />Photo by Rafał Biłas</p>
<p>For the KIBLA edition of Artificial Perspectives, Diana Bohutska and Žiga Pavlovic created a virtual reality (VR) environment based on the physical media sculpture and their real-time data feeds.</p>N.C.ChungPhotos by Ingrida Mockutė-PocienėTime Waves2023-03-01T00:00:00+00:002023-03-01T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/timewaves<p>Time Waves is an audiovisual research and performance project founded in 2016 with <a href="http://www.georgedyermusic.com">George Carter Dyer</a>. By transmuting and re-arranging fragments of the world that we occupy together, Time Waves seeks communal awakening, gradual yet intense, where consonance and dissonance are presented as necessary and complementary components of a universal structure whose harmony is discernible all around us. Their performances juxtapose and contrast layers of audio-visual recordings for the purpose of creating a shared healing experience. These practices based on research and experimentation resulted in interactive installations and short films inspired by advances and regressions in artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, musicology, and aesthetics.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Performance</strong></p>
<p><img src="/arts/timewaves/timewaves_highway.png" alt="TIME WAVES HIGHWAY" width="560" /></p>
<p>Time Waves aims to explore the discord and similarities between individuals’ memories. Video and sound recordings are pieced together using analog synthesizers, tapes, circuit bending, and digital techniques. The resulting improvised audiovisual collage will sublimate their individual recollections into a cohesive whole. By playing off of each other and exploiting points of tension and release within their respective performances, Time Waves attempts to create a unique mosaic that will highlight the stakes of our shared human experience.</p>
<p><img src="/arts/timewaves/timewaves_entropia.jpeg" alt="TIME WAVES EP" width="560" /></p>
<center><small>At Galeria Entropia; photo by Mariusz Jodko</small></center>
<ul>
<li>Performances at Czasoprzestrzeń, Entropia, Macondo, Proza, Kultura Na Poziomie, Mikavka, and others.</li>
</ul>
<details>
<summary>Selected Works 2017-2020</summary>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xVeBmOptBCQ" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KM_5dLiicnc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</details>
<hr />
<p><strong>Installation</strong></p>
<p><img src="/arts/timewaves/timewaves_riga_overall.jpg" alt="TIME WAVES Riga Installation Setup" width="560" /></p>
<p>In a fractured and polarized world, how can we achieve shared experiences and communal engagements in the arts? Time Waves answers this question with a generative audio-visual installation that invites audience participation. The movements and locations of the audience are processed in real time, generating an ever-evolving soundscape. This soundscape in turn generates a visual field.</p>
<p>Time Waves elucidates the potential for interactive installations and the abstraction of form to invoke multiplicity and communality. Individuals contribute directly and uniquely to this generative system, resulting in a shared aesthetic experience decoupled from the biases of the audience or its creators.</p>
<p><img src="/arts/timewaves/timewaves_riga_pattern1.jpg" alt="TIME WAVES Riga Pattern" width="560" /></p>
<ul>
<li>Entropia Gallery (Wroclaw, Poland) 9–30/03/2021</li>
<li>Art Future / Future Signs (Riga, Latvia); 11/09 - 24/10/2019</li>
<li>Published in SciArt Magazine (NYC, USA) Volume 42 “Algorithmic”</li>
</ul>
<p>Special thanks to RapidTroopers (Szymon Chmielewski) for 3D print</p>
<details>
<summary>Art Future / Future Signs Exhibition Overview</summary>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YIkLgsDC_hU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</details>N.C.ChungTime Waves is an audiovisual research and performance project founded in 2016 with George Carter Dyer. By transmuting and re-arranging fragments of the world that we occupy together, Time Waves seeks communal awakening, gradual yet intense, where consonance and dissonance are presented as necessary and complementary components of a universal structure whose harmony is discernible all around us. Their performances juxtapose and contrast layers of audio-visual recordings for the purpose of creating a shared healing experience. These practices based on research and experimentation resulted in interactive installations and short films inspired by advances and regressions in artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, musicology, and aesthetics.Artificial Intelligence Art In A Time of War2023-02-20T00:00:00+00:002023-02-20T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/aiart-warsaw<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mhKj_yBTPEE?si=-R1E8b-rZG8UPpRu" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<center><small>Co-lab video by Tomas Grzymala</small></center>
<p>During this tragic time of violence, we will use the specter of war and its effects as catalysts to investigate and reimagine the implications of AI and algorithmic justice. How AI can shape memory, dreams, and nation-state collective narratives is being defined through rapidly developing technologies like GPT-3, Stable Diffusion, and others.</p>
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) has developed significantly in the recent times with a variety of deep learning architectures. In this rapid prototyping team-focused course, students will create interdisciplinary arts and design projects. The focus will be on the challenges presented by the artistic creation of using AI language and vision models to define individual and collective visual memory, or other types of data and models. We will survey and have hands-on experiences with many AI tools, as demanded by students interests and projects, such as speech to text, text to image, image to image, and image to video, and others.</p>
<h3 id="group-1-on-the-existence-of-self-identity">Group 1: On The Existence of Self-Identity</h3>
<h4 id="julia-chylak-bartosz-kaczmarek-beata-bajno-eryk-imos-kamil-białaszek-mateusz-błajda-paulina-wachnicka">Julia Chylak, Bartosz Kaczmarek, Beata Bajno, Eryk Imos, Kamil Białaszek, Mateusz Błajda, Paulina Wachnicka</h4>
<p><img src="/arts/aiart-warsaw/group1-BajnoImosWachnickaBiałaszek.jpg" alt="AI Art: Group1" width="560" /></p>
<p>On the existence of self-identity is an interactive, multimedia installation that addresses the concept of identity and the impact of its loss on an individual within the context of technological revolution. The information warfare accompanying the conflict in Ukraine has raised questions in us about our own identity, its roots, and to what extent it belongs to us as individuals, and to what extent it is imposed upon us. Allegedly, truth is the first casualty of war.
<a href="https://artahack.io/projects/on-the-existence-of-self-identity/" target="_blank"> Read more …</a></p>
<h3 id="group-2-steps-for-digesting-with-a-torn-open-belly">Group 2: Steps for Digesting with a Torn-Open Belly</h3>
<h4 id="gabriel-bielawski-gabriela-niechwiadowicz-maciej-mehl-zuzanna-napora">Gabriel Bielawski, Gabriela Niechwiadowicz, Maciej Mehl, Zuzanna Napora</h4>
<p><img src="/arts/aiart-warsaw/group2-blender.png" alt="AI Art: Group2" width="560" /></p>
<p>In the piece, a wolf-like character is inserted into an environment built from satellite height data of Węgrów, a town in Eastern Poland where the family of one of the team members is from, and where their Jewish great unlce was in hiding during the Second World War. The wolf must learn to walk from scratch while being pursued by other characters in the scene that are trying to catch it. Through this process the team hoped to explore how anxiety or trauma might manifest physically in an AI, and the possible applications of AI, robotics and a 3D environment in emergent storytelling.
<a href="https://artahack.io/projects/steps-for-digesting/" target="_blank"> Read more …</a></p>
<h3 id="group-3-language-is-leaving-me">Group 3: Language Is Leaving Me</h3>
<h4 id="ellen-pearlman-sefa-sagir-tomasz-grzymała-tony-vykhovanets-wiktor-kraśnicki-zofia-mizgalewicz">Ellen Pearlman, Sefa Sagir, Tomasz Grzymała, Tony Vykhovanets, Wiktor Kraśnicki, Zofia Mizgalewicz</h4>
<p><img src="/arts/aiart-warsaw/group3-wiktor.jpg" alt="AI Art: Group3" width="560" /></p>
<p>Language Is Leaving Me is an interactive mixed media installation performance interrogating the relationship between visual (cinematic, not static) artificial intelligence, epigenetic or inherited traumatic memories of cultures of diaspora, biometrics, and algorithmic justice.
<a href="https://artahack.io/projects/language-is-leaving-me/" target="_blank"> Read more …</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Course offering at <a href="https://usosweb.mimuw.edu.pl/kontroler.php?_action=katalog2%2Fprzedmioty%2FpokazPrzedmiot&kod=1000-OOAIA">Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw</a> (Warsaw, Poland)</li>
<li>Affiliated with <a href="https://artahack.io/alumni/">Art-A-Hack</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aialgorithmicartuofw">Colab documented on Tumblr</a></li>
</ul>N.C.ChungCo-lab video by Tomas GrzymalaArtificial Intelligence as New Media2022-03-18T00:00:00+00:002022-03-18T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/ainewmedia<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is reconstructing the world inside out. From what we consume to how we think, neural processing of massive data is nudging us towards post-human conditions. At the frontier of its potentiality, we wonder how AI will reshape what and how we create. Viewing AI as the latest media in art, this workshop explores its major topics and practical applications.</p>
<p>The main goal of the workshop is to create art and design projects that incorporate AI thinking. Using AI software packages and codes, we aim to generate and incorporate AI ingredients in conceptual frameworks and artistic practices that are central to students.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bMtU-yMIsW0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<center><small>'Letters from AI' by Kwiek, Miaskiewicz, Przybysz<br />A zine created based on AI-generated images and texts</small></center>
<p><img src="/arts/ainewmedia/MariiaRybkina.jpg" alt="Mariia Rybkina" width="560" /></p>
<center><small>'sick egocentric self-portrait' by Mariia Rybkina<br />StyleGAN model trained on her thousand selfies</small></center>
<p><br /></p>
<p>The lecture series introduce (a) computational art and AI art and (b) machine learning and AI algorithms. We will look at a recent rise of artworks utilizing automation and computation, as well as a brief history and examplorary applications. Through an interactive tutorial, students will learn how to use AI models, to synthesize images, texts, and other data.</p>
<p>During the project development, students will conceive and create art and design works that incorporate AI thinking. Consultation and discussion will be held daily.</p>
<p><img src="/arts/ainewmedia/KamilaRozanska.jpg" alt="Kamila Różańsk" width="560" /></p>
<center><small>'May you live in interesting times' by Kamila Różańska<br />Original drawing (left) and style transfers</small></center>
<p><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<img src="/arts/ainewmedia/JoJo_animation.gif" alt="JoJo animation" height="270" style="display: inline" />
<img src="/arts/ainewmedia/JoJo_process1.jpg" alt="JoJo process 1" height="270" style="display: inline" />
<img src="/arts/ainewmedia/JoJo_process2.jpg" alt="JoJo process 2" height="270" style="display: inline" />
</p>
<center><small>'BoB' by Evghenia Pogujanschi and Olesia Mazurets
<br />Animation combining drawings and AI-generated images</small></center>
<ul>
<li>Department of New Media at Polish-Japanese Academy (Warsaw, Poland) 14-18/3/2022</li>
</ul>N.C.ChungArtificial intelligence (AI) is reconstructing the world inside out. From what we consume to how we think, neural processing of massive data is nudging us towards post-human conditions. At the frontier of its potentiality, we wonder how AI will reshape what and how we create. Viewing AI as the latest media in art, this workshop explores its major topics and practical applications.Conspiracy of Interference2022-02-06T00:00:00+00:002022-02-06T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/interference<p><img src="/arts/interference/interference_entropia_overview-1.jpg" alt="conspiracy of interference" width="560" /></p>
<p>Conspiracy of Interference is a media sculpture that provides social commentary on our present reliance on media and data, developments of machine learning, and crippling consequences of techno-capitalism. The overarching process is to elucidate how machine culture affects our emotions during the pandemic.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<img src="/arts/interference/interference_entropia_tester.jpg" alt="interference_aula_closeup" height="250" style="display: inline" />
<img src="/arts/interference/interference_entropia_trump.jpg" alt="interference_aula_closeup" height="250" style="display: inline" />
</p>
<p>Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has swept across the globe, infecting over 42 million people and causing over 1.1 million fatalities by the end of October, 2020. This rare moment coincided with a recent rise of nonstop cable news, social media, recommendation engines, mobile devices, and machine learning. In its wake, humanity – as well as tech companies – has had to reassess how it should structure its society, even in areas not directly affected by healthcare concerns. The convergence of a pandemic, technological advances, and social challenges has highlighted not only a need for global cooperation, but also unearthed constant interference of our reality and morality by ubiquitous machine culture.</p>
<p>A dystopian political reality, crumbling social standards, and an increasingly contentious relationship with mother nature is revealing the precarity of our civilization, even at its supposed peak. New media plays a critical role in creating this perfect storm, and despite our illusion of choice, we are all reacting to the situation along largely predictable lines fed through various media channels that are rapidly mutating – perhaps even faster than the virus itself. The ongoing epidemic and the ensuing contagion of social phenomena, political upheavals, protests, and anti-protests can be adequately described as a performance. Humans are taking direction from machines of their own making. To this end, communication technologies and corporations have anticipated and prepared us for these new orders and transformations.</p>
<p><img src="/arts/interference/interference_aula_2tv.jpg" alt="conspiracy of interference" width="560" /></p>
<p>The relationship between epidemics and media culture has grown in complexity and impact with development of 24-hour news channels, the Internet, social networks, user tracking and surveillance, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms shaping our thoughts and knowledge bases. While today’s connected world seems better prepared for a rapid spread of infectious diseases which may enable early warning systems, international coordinations, and scientific responses, the same media machineries generate unprecedented volatility, social divisions, and regressive governmental interventions. Hysteria and apathy – both unacceptable extremes – seem like the most likely social reactions. Given that there are an increasing number of outbreaks of infectious diseases in modernity, the current discourse of epidemics and our responses will accelerate divisions in our societies.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/jDAPxc-rYQg" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<ul>
<li>Zawierucha at Browar Mieszczański (Wroclaw, Poland) 6-19/2/2022</li>
<li>FORMA Otwarta (Oleśnica, Poland) 3–24/04/2021</li>
<li>Entropia Gallery (Wroclaw, Poland) 9–30/03/2021</li>
<li>Aula (Wroclaw, Poland); 2/12 - 4/12/2020</li>
<li>Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) diploma project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://czarnylatawiec.bandcamp.com/album/unframed-configurations-soundwalk" target="_blank">
<img src="/arts/interference/soundwalk_bandcamp.jpg" alt="sound walk: conspiracy of interference" width="250" /><br />
unFRAMED CONFIGURATIONS soundwalk by Czarny Latawiec</a>
</p>N.C.ChungChronotopia2022-01-26T00:00:00+00:002022-01-26T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/chronotopia<p><img src="/arts/chronotopia/Cialo_PersonLooking.jpg" alt="Chronotopia Rafal Looking" width="560" /></p>
<p>Chronotopia is an on-going experiment combining visual synthesis and cathode-ray tube TVs. Inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin’s use of xронотоп (Chronotope), our individual perception of time changes in function of our thoughts, emotions, and activities, yet our social and technological structures depend on precise and sometimes subtle appreciation of an objective measure of duration. We must, by necessity, exist in a constant state of tension between alternate time structures. Could this be the reason for our enduing inability to deeply and truly connect with one another?</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<img src="/arts/chronotopia/Cialo_PosterWalls.jpg" alt="Chronotopia at Cialo" height="250" style="display: inline" />
<img src="/arts/chronotopia/Cialo_Far.jpg" alt="Chronotopia From Far" height="250" style="display: inline" />
</p>
<ul>
<li>xycknss at Ciało (Wroclaw, Poland) 26/1/2022</li>
<li>Wyspa Tamka (Wroclaw, Poland) 4-6/9/2020</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/arts/chronotopia/CRT_test.jpg" alt="CRT Test" width="560" /></p>N.C.ChungA glass, darkly2022-01-25T00:00:00+00:002022-01-25T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/aglassdarkly<p><img src="/arts/aglassdarkly/nora_magnifying_triple.jpg" alt="A glass, darkly" width="560" /></p>
<p>“A glass, darkly” is a visual experimentation with lights on expired films, with fleeting motions and emotions, and with our own reflections through others. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then shall we see face to face. Our ever-changing identities – and our individual and collective search – is presented through a series of hand-processed 16mm films from 1960’s (OWRO, East Germany). Imperfection is amplified instead of corrected, and the process takes a central stage in both its form and content.</p>
<p>This work is presented as a printed collection of time-series 16mm films.</p>
<p><img src="/arts/aglassdarkly/original_16mm.jpg" alt="A glass, darkly - Original Films" width="560" /></p>
<p>The series title pays homage to Sven Nykvist’s photographic approach to cinema examplified in “Through a Glass Darkly” directed by Ingmar Bergman. Nykvist’s use of high-contrast monochrome helped define the visual language for intimate (dis)connections. Our own process of development and individuation reflects (al)chemical stages, that are equal part elusive and analytical.</p>
<ul>
<li>xycknss at Ciało (Wroclaw, Poland) 26/1/2022</li>
<li>Entropia Gallery (Wroclaw, Poland) 9–30/03/2021</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K-yc4DG1mik" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>N.C.ChungDigital Paintings based on Zen Machine2021-03-03T00:00:00+00:002021-03-03T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/zenmachine-gallery<p><br /></p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/gallery/tree_does_not_fall_away.jpg" alt="tree_does_not_fall_away" width="600" style="border:7px solid black" /></p>
<center><small><i>Tree does not fall away</i> (2021)</small></center>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/gallery/illusion_of_falling_asleep.jpg" alt="illusion_of_falling_asleep" width="600" style="border:7px solid black" /></p>
<center><small><i>Illusion of falling asleep</i> (2021)</small></center>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/gallery/the_awe_of_his_supernatural_deficiencies.jpg" alt="the_awe_of_his_supernatural_deficiencies" width="600" style="border:7px solid black" /></p>
<center><small><i>The awe of his supernatural deficiencies</i> (2021)</small></center>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/gallery/unreality_of_reason.jpg" alt="unreality_of_reason" width="600" style="border:7px solid black" /></p>
<center><small><i>Unreality of reason</i> (2021)</small></center>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/gallery/you_have_but_one_eye.jpg" alt="you_have_but_one_eye" width="600" style="border:7px solid black" /></p>
<center><small><i>You have but one eye</i> (2021)</small></center>
<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
<hr />
<p><strong><em>Zen Machine</em></strong></p>
<p><a href="/zenmachine">Zen Machine</a> is a meditative audio-visual installation that answers questions from the audience with a generative hypotic soundscape. Trained on a large corpus of the Sutras, Shastras, Zen teachings, scholarly essays and texts, koans, and tweets, this artificial intelligence algorithm (<a href="https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/">GPT-2</a>) explores existential and spiritual realms. As koans (paradoxical dialogs used as a meditative device) may be only understood by willing students and perceived as subtle invocation for awakening, our perception of Zen Machine’s answers – and broad AI – depends on our state of mind. To that end, Zen Machine provides an immersive environment and a poetic context. If so, would it be possible for AI to aid in our pursuit of enlightenment?</p>
<p>The questions (as shown in quotes) collected from its interactive exhibition at Galeria Entropia in Wrocław, Poland (9–30/03/2021) were fed directly to a generative AI system to create digital paintings. In particular, <a href="https://github.com/lucidrains/deep-daze">Deep Daze</a> – combining <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.00020">CLIP</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.09661">Siren</a> – imagines and visualizes unique scenes based on this new kind of koans. The interplay between texts and paintings provides an opportunity to pause and reflect on potentiality of going beyond anthropocentric understanding.</p>N.C.ChungZen Machine2021-03-03T00:00:00+00:002021-03-03T00:00:00+00:00http://www.ncchung.com/zenmachine<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/zenmachine_entropia_banner.jpg" alt="Zen Machine Mandala" width="560" /></p>
<center><small>At Galeria Entropia; photo by Mariusz Jodko & Andrzej Rerak</small></center>
<p>Zen Machine is a meditative audio-visual installation that answers questions from the audience. Trained on a large corpus of Zen and Buddhism texts, this artificial intelligence (AI) explores existential and spiritual realms. Sound recordings from the Nature, temples, and oriental instruments are created generatively in real-time that results in an evolving hypnotic soundscape.</p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/mandala_answer.jpg" alt="Zen Machine Answers" width="560" /></p>
<p>As a multi-disciplinary project, I explore connections across AI, philosophy of mind, and spirituality. As koans (paradoxical dialogs used as a meditative device) may be only understood by willing students and perceived as subtle invocation for awakening, our perception of Zen Machine’s answers – and broad AI algorithms – depends on our state of mind. If so, would it be possible for AI to aid in our pursuit of enlightenment?</p>
<p><img src="/arts/zenmachine/zenmachine_entropia_installed.jpg" alt="Zen Machine Answers" width="560" /></p>
<center><small>At Galeria Entropia; photo by Mariusz Jodko & Andrzej Rerak</small></center>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="/zenmachine-gallery">Digital paintings based on Zen Machine</a></p>
</li>
<li>Premiered at Framed Configurations at <a href="https://www.entropia.art.pl/">Entropia Gallery</a> (Wroclaw, Poland) 9–30/03/2021</li>
<li><a href="http://ncchung.com/zenmachine_entropia">Limited web edition</a></li>
</ul>N.C.ChungAt Galeria Entropia; photo by Mariusz Jodko & Andrzej Rerak