Emil Polyak: Homeostasis
Artist(s):
Title:
- Homeostasis
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2019
Medium:
- Interactive, generative art on GPU
Size:
- 6ft x 6ft x 6ft
Category:
Artist Statement:
The project “Homeostasis” is a speculative, interactive visual experience. It is a metaphorical representation of human interference with data interpretations. The animated artwork is generated in real time, reflecting cumulative and dramatic changes in sea level for the world’s oceans for over the past 100 years. The viewer can manipulate the data through a unique, interactive vapor cloud that also modulates the generative process, providing a natural flow and rhythm to digital motion. During the interaction, the viewer disrupts the phenomenon that alters the abstraction as an “aftermath” effect.
Extended Summary:
Emerging technologies are more than ever impacting human interactions, while public perception of automation, artificial intelligence, and human enhancement remains critical. In creative fields innovative ideas are often triggered by intersecting dissimilar phenomena filtered through aesthetic considerations. It can be argued that introducing Ai in artistic practice destroys spontaneity, intuition, and serendipity; consequently, the outcome is deliberate and premeditated. However, art is open to interpretations and through designing of unorthodox digital artifacts, interfaces, and experiences in contrast with main stream processes we can challenge existing beliefs and provoke new ideas to reach a better understanding of how our culture is affected by technology. The project “Homeostasis” is a speculative interactive visual experience. It connects a unique interface design with generative art and meaningful data to communicate an important topic. Shapes, colors, form, and timing is manipulated based on a set of design principles, while the pattern of a vapor cloud from an ultrasonic vaporizer is analyzed and processed in a machine learning model in real time. The variations of the vapor pattern enable infinite possibilities between the natural boundaries and provide exciting data through computer vision which is then driving the spatial and temporal attributes of the animation. The design is a biologically inspired and it attempts to create an illusion of cellular lifeforms in deep waters.
Other Information:
A small vapor cloud of an ultrasonic vaporizer is observed through a camera in real time and fed into a machine learning (ML) model. The output of the ML is used to modulate the animation and the processing of the data set. A 72 inch 4k screen is projecting the visual content while the viewer manipulates the vapor cloud. In an inactive state the natural movement of the vapor cloud drives the animations.
