MA Musings

Lego women of NASA series Hewitt, J. (2017) I have been very much enjoying the guest lecturers this term. First Dr Parik Goswami introduced us to the world of Innovation, Invention and Exploitation. Invention being a new idea and innovation being the development and implementation of an idea, while exploitation is the final stage that of marketing/selling/using the innovation. He encouraged us to think big, not worry about trying to do everything ourselves, join forces, employ others and not limit ourselves. Respecting other disciplines, breaking down boundaries and collaborating to grow beyond our niche interests. He pointed out the importance of observation - looking for a gap in the market or a common problem and gave many useful pointers for dealing with IP, patents, copyright trademarks, etc and suggesting ways of monetising ideas through licensing, franchising and assignment etc. I was reminded of Dorothy Vaughan of NASA in the film Hidden Figures who, discovering her m

Retrieved from wallpaper.com     Futuristic Cities Today I participated in an inaugral workshop organised by the Alan Turing Institute (also the national center for AI research) as part of researcher Helen Olivers PHD at Cambridge University. Based around wearable technologies, creative narratives and the relationship between people, their emotional well being and technology, the workshop was fun and thought provoking. It was also really interesting to see another researchers approach to gathering Data in an area that is, like my own, also crossing the artistic and technological boundaries. Storytelling formed a major part of this workshop alongside some physical prototyping with paper, glue and glitter! I have signed up to participate in the longer research process which may take up to 2 years, with a few workshops a year and some interviews. I hope that it may lead to a deeper understanding of this area as well as forming important academic contacts in my areas of int

Searle, P. (2017) Radium88 in Concert This document, The Ecology of Culture (A Report commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Cultural Value Project) by John Holden Visiting Professor, City University, London Honorary Professor, University of Hong Kong January 2015, was very interesting on a personal level. I paused to consider how the industries I've worked in have been a part of creative ecology model... where they fit into different sections and networks - and realised I've experienced all forms of the 3 spheres that make up his model. Publicly funded, Commercially funded and Amateur/Homemade. I received benefits in the 1990's to be in a band (publicly funded) - which made an enormous difference to my creative potential - I had time to make music (which I still do today - 11 albums and counting) and also created costume and art which led to starting my own business... obviously I hoped at that point that the band would be invested in by

Deepart Algorithm and Hewitt, J. (2018) Intergalactic To develop my own final design to backtrack the algorithmic process through, I created an assortment of work through the deepart algorithm, combining silhouettes of fashion croquis with various neural networking images, chess piece motifs, constellations and other related ideas. These designs will give me an AI generated starting point for the garment I shall be aiming to reach via my manual AI  neural network algorithm.... I shall start with a tube and get a different student each time to alter the shape a little - aiming to get steadily closer to the final design.... and pattern cutting each stage of the designs evolution....

Robot at The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (2017) Putting together teams, who and why? what's the brief? Teams are assembling nicely for the Material Revolution Conference... although we were a large group interested in the digital aspects, we have split fairly naturally into 3 smaller teams. Our task will be to create a promotional poster and website for a new material/way of working/concept or product that relates to one of the themes of the conference, targeting one of more of the companies that will be present at the gala drinks reception. There was a little shyness in the groups at first, perhaps because we are all a little unsure of what exactly we are letting ourselves in for, and also knowing we will be relying on people we have only just met for our grades. That is quite a difficult trust exercise, and reflects fairly accurately concerns of new developmental teams in industry  too. My team has a good spread of complimentary disciplines (a pattern cut

I was struggling a bit with how to proceed in this next term of cutting creativity.... I have the overall procedure in mind... basically working like a neural network from a very basic starting shape and refining it gradually - cutting and patterning each point along the way, and getting my study group to behave as the AI - making changes at each iterative stage to bring the design closer and closer to the end result.. I just hadn't figured out how to achieve the design we'd be aiming for... then I saw these images by Chris Rodley which appear to use the depart algorithm I played with last term to combine shape and style..... I really want a great visual abstract to be aiming towards to really give myself a challenge...

Persson, J. (2017) Wizard of Oz Crucible Theatre Why are you choosing this project? How is it likely to affect your own MA? It was exciting to be back and sharing ideas and progress with the other students, although a pause for the holidays allowed me to catch up with reading and think about the next steps for the major project, I had come to a bit of a grinding halt on the motivation front. I find it's very easy to get distracted by other interesting things without deadlines... Todays lecture focused on Planning for the next module, discussion on how to work to get the best results as a group and what the expectations are for final presentation of information. We started with a you-tube video of a very interesting lecture by Tina Selig on her model of an "Innovation Engine" How to come up with new creative imaginative ideas? 6 core components, connected together like a moebius strip so each piece affects all the others, and you can also start at any point on t

After a busy holiday attempting (very slowly) to teach myself Python Code, it's back to research and development in the first week of term at Huddersfield.... first off I came across an interesting development in the use of CAN networks to develop art which "does not fit the known artistic styles"  as opposed to pieces previously developed by GAN networks to imitate known artists and styles! The report says" “The results [of our study] show that human subjects could not distinguish art generated by the proposed system from art generated by contemporary artists and shown in top art fairs.” This is obviously an interesting development for modern art and creativity, and continues to reinforce the question of What is Creativity? if a unique human like artwork is generated, does the provenance/influences/backstory actually matter? these findings appear to be in direct contrast to this article which claims that arts degrees may have more value in the "new worl