The Slideshow below showcase the development of the Robot Head Illustration different tones of red to achieve the style that would’ve been found in old 1930’s/40’s Propaganda Posters (Robot Head Collage Used as Template);
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After adding the different tones to the Robot Head displayed above, it developed a wonderfully macabre appearance mimicking the exterior of raw flesh. This contrast of something Human (Raw Flesh) taking the form of a Mechanical Android really drives home the subject present in the poster as well as clearly depict the fearful bias produced by the fictional political group who will be named at the bottom right of Poster.
The different tones were applied with ‘30% Smoothness’ and with varying brush sizes using the ‘Hard Round Pressure Size’ version of brush to create the affect seen throughout the Gallery above. These Adjustments were to add more fluidity as well as create a more polished outcome although this is subject to change if there are other options for the illustration.
Orange might be considered for the illustration although further tweaks will be provided using Red as the main colour. Slideshow lines up work from Friday 2nd November 2018. Further Experimentation/Final Choices for Font o Political group and Slogan from previous blogs will be worked upon at the end of Week 7.
The gallery that can be seen below highlights screenshots taken during the process of Producing the One Minute Podcast with Jacob Barry;
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Further Editing was performed on the Podcast after the session centered around it concluded and, as stated earlier in this blog, the work produced afterwards is highlighted in the Screenshot Gallery Above.
The only feature that was tricky to rectify was the Volume of the Recordings due to Myself and Jacob being a noisy environment as well not holding the microphone in place creating different pitches of sound making it tricky balance out the volume for the entire track. This is present with my recording being louder than Jacobs.
The line ‘Most Unexpected Country of Innovation’ was removed to create a pacer Run Time as well as avoid accusations of supplying bias (either political or religious) to the podcast itself. Final Product is more in keeping to the informative presentation aimed for in the rough plans by myself and Jacob. Podcast was Further tweaked on Friday 2nd November 2018.
Podcast was Later Tweaked in Volume (Amplify) in regards to the Music due to it being too load when initially completed. The Title of New Podcast is Labelled ‘Podcast(Callum and Jacob) 4 sesx_mixdownon’ on my Hardware/Storage but its original name of ‘Callum and Jacobs Podcast’ remains the same. (Friday 9th November 2018).
The link to the Podcast produced by Jacob and myself can be seen below;
The screenshots below demonstrate the features tweaked on the track utilised for the Podcast using the guidelines of Tina’s Video Tutorial on Adobe Audition. The first two screenshot demonstrating the steps to converting/saving a complete podcast file to the Desktop or Hard Drive. The file is saved as MP3 and a wav file; the Adobe Audition is also present in Desktop and Hard Drive by selecting “Save As’ while on the Multitrack mode on the Audition Programme.
Due to confusion earlier in the task Myself and Jacob produced on long Track (Compiled of the five recordings from earlier) on Waveform rather than on the Multitrack lay out. We both corrected this by placing the extended track we produced by copying and pasting the five tracks together and drag file in ‘Track 1′ above Track 2’ where the Ambient music ‘Hazy Eternal Space’ was tweaked.
In future well not produce the extended track demonstrated in the screenshots above and will focus on placing each audio file in Tracks 1 to 5 so they can be moved about and tweaked without making a change that can’t be reversed to the audio files in question.
The Final Podcast (Or at least the version produced on Thursday 01st November 2018) evolved from following the layout present (rough script plans) in Blog post ‘Week 6; Part 1’ which primarily focused on describing who Sophia is and the questions raised to a final outcome more akin to a Propaganda piece not too dissimilar to the AI Poster’s Theme I utilised within this Semester.
The Propaganda angle came from the lines (Read by myself) depicting a bias or demonstrating a secondary opinion rather than giving out facts; this was demonstrated by line ‘Unexpected Country of Innovation’ which shines an unpopular light upon a nations reputation.
The ambient track present in the final podcast mimics the music that is present in political campaigns. The music often being low key to showcase their political beliefs.
Jacob and I originally didn’t set out for the one minute podcast to be along the lines of subtle propaganda as our original focus was to play about with the Adobe Audition and complete a clear layout of the topic and questions raised as a consequence.
This only changed after an individual within the class pointed out the line referred earlier in this blog leading to the change in Format. In future we will both make sure stick as closely to our original plans as possible as the changes occurred due to us not having a second opinion on areas like script or the subject matter which formed this odd evolution.
One Final Improvement that Jacob and I will bear in mind if we work with each other again or individually is to find a better sound proof area for the recordings as well as talk closer to the Dictaphone as there were a lot of instances where the volume varied from recording to recording from being very load to very quiet. Even the background noise was picked up rather than the speaker talking directly to the Dictaphone.
These adjustments will save the use of changing the Volume through the ‘Amplify’ method or cancelling out background noise/echoes which makes it trickier to create a consistent quality throughout the podcast. The process went well and final product was done as best as it can be despite the errors highlighted in the last two blogs.
Clip from Video (Saudi Robot claiming citizenship or someone explaining briefly what the robot is all about).
Second Half of Podcast will focus on the questions/arguments brought by the subject involving Sophia. Both Callum and Jacobs 500-word Research will be briefly utilised within more source expanding upon Sophia
Went to Media Services (H1 Recorder with headphones).
First Script Draft (Callum Will Provide Vocals for One Minute Podcast);
Introduction from Sophia (YouTube video audio)
First Half;
On October 25th, 2017, Sophia, an Android manufactured within the state of Saudi Arabia made international headlines; she became the first non-human citizen of a sovereign nation.
The announcement ofSophia’s existence was initially nothing more than a publicity stunt to generate headlines to boost the world’s attention to Saudi Arabia, the most unexpected country of innovation. Thisstunt was also given the go ahead for political objectives to push forward to a more post-oil era.
Second Half;
Questions in regards to Sophia’s artificial rights are as follows;
Should non-human life forms gain same citizenship?
Are we as humans, a different species, have a right to grant her a citizenship?
Or does a new form of system need to be implemented for this new group?
Topics in relation to Human criticism also needs to addressed, both the supporters and the naysayer’s views on AI’s Inevitable Independence?
The written work that can be seen above showcase the rough plans before the recording commence using the recorder and headphones borrowed from the Media Services within the University. The added Headphones during the recordings gave a clearer interpretation of the sound picked up in the recordings which became vital to the final podcast outcomes.
0.24 seconds to 0.31 seconds (Sophia’s Introduction). Sophia’s introduction was originally considered but this soon changed to the music ‘Hazy-Eternal Space’, felt more appropriate to have ambient music to add to the wonder and daunting reality that will accompany the subject matter expanded upon during the Podcast project.
The audio was converted from a YouTube Video to a MP3 Download using a free site on the internet. The file was dragged to my Desktop and Hard Drive. Jacob provided his vocals for the first paragraphs with my vocals utilised for the rest of the Podcast.
All work present in this blog produced on 26/10/18.
Slideshow below showcases the experimentation performed on Photoshop demonstrating the Pen Tool and its appliance to the robot head on the AI Poster. Each screenshot is labelled with what was performed within it;
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Pen Tool was used to bring up the Variants for the brushes/pencils by clicking the top button on the pen tool (not the bottom of the two). This can be achieved used a mouse as well by clicking the right end of the mouse. ‘test006’ layer now changed to ‘Collage’.
The reason the Hammer in the centre of the collage as monochrome with grey pattern (Appearing like static on a TV) is due to the printer not printing image correctly first time around. I sticked with it anyway as I felt it has the right digital aesthetic to link nicely to question of AI and Rights I explored in the research, the outcome appearing like static as mentioned earlier in this paragraph.
The Robot Head (Illustration) will be made up of Orange and Red with the background behind the Collage/Digital Illustration being dark blue to light with use of Gradient Tool. ‘Collage’ Layer will be tweaked in adjustments to give more colour and saturation if deemed appropriate.
The Colour Wheel/Palette that is prevalent to the Final AI Poster I will produce can be seen in the screenshot below (This can be subject to change);
The four photos below showcase the final chosen collages that were scanned into a mac using the EPSON Expression 10000 XL Scanner within the University. The reason these four images were chosen out of the thirty created beforehand is I felt they linked more to the theme I delved into during the period spent on the 500 word Research period.
The designs also have a wonderfully minimalist yet clear visual presentation that clearly display the key areas expanded upon in the research I done prior. The Research revolved around the Rights of Artificial Intelligence and chain reactions that would follow this scenario).
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The Collage that I will expand upon further in this project is ‘Chosen Collage 3 (Although Chosen Collage 1 was considered). The Original Idea is to have the poster split half and half with the original collage presented on the left and the digital illustration on the right, inspired by Communist/Fascist propaganda posters found in the early 20th Century.
Another idea I had was to illustrate the head/figure of the Robots present in Collage 1 and 3 (If they were further expanded upon for this project) with the other imagery retaining the original collage aesthetic.
Harvard Reference (Images used for Final Image, ‘Electronic Images’);
Emerging Tech= AI, Virtual Reality (VR), 3D Printing.
Affective Computing Computing= Development of systems that can recognise, interpret, process and simulate human affects.
Sentiment Analysis/ Affective Computing can be used for text as well as facial expression (Detect positives, negatives, happy, sad etc).
Virtual Reality Headsets been about since the 1960’s. Used to watch films, play games and training for firefighters etc.
Augmented Reality; Similar to VR but instead of being in a completely virtual world, aspects that are from digital realm overlaid over the real world (Sat Nav-esque; digital path leading to chosen path). Can be used to visualize architecture plans to demonstrate what architecture will be like in unfinished section of building (3D Holograms).
3D Printing;
Device prints out physical objects. Builds up object in layers. 12 hours to print object in plastic, glass or ceramic (Later two being most expensive). Can’t print objects with moving parts, objects like vases are what the printer is capable to print at the time of writing. 3D Rendering Programme used to provide basis on computer for printer. Used to provide prototypes for products before making final outcome.
Blockchain/Cryptocurrencies (Formed in 1991);
Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum. It’s a list of transactions, everyone keeps a list and every time a new transaction occurs everyone updates the lists. Can be made anonymous with trading currencies (Leads to problems such as money laundering).
Blockchain is open to anybody. Date; Receiver, Hash; Fingerprint (Used to detect changes in block) if Hash is changed it won’t be the same block. All blocks after tweaked block will not be the same/valid. Used to collect Taxes. More Distributist and Secure than most storage systems.
Proof of Work; Security.
Peer to Peer group communication used to detect block that has been tampered with, new blocks only accepted if all members accept the contents of said block.
The technology that will be presented in the slideshow is the developments and uses of the Augmented Reality. Group Members include Tara and Vita. The work below showcases what I uncovered for the second of three sections of the slideshow focusing upon theories and predictions for the usage of Augmented Reality.
Augmented Reality is development from the virtual reality technology involving the process of superimposing a computer generated image through a users views of the real world, providing a composite (made up of several parts) view.
Information and Links to Articles Research can be presented below;
Article 1 ‘Hanker Hoon’ and 2 ‘Tech.co’ (Expanded Predictions of both articles combined together) =
The usage of AR will expand and evolve rapidly in the near future with seven key areas that will affect different areas of society in its economy and growth.
Areas AR can now be utilised is listed to Video games, Health Care, Engineering, Live Events, Video Entertainment, Real Estate, Retail, Military and Education.
One of features the AR can produce entails the inevitable expansion of handheld devices being more social and better with the camera becoming the primary mobile interface. This will create unique environment such as telling virtual storybooks that come to life in a child’s bedroom. Virtual measuring tape to measure areas/objects that normally be measured or produce a virtual map (Sat-Nav composed over real world) to guide you to the right direction.
The feature above is also stretched to the industry of Real Estate and Home Improvement with the application of 3D Walkthrough of a property under construction, giving users the chance to see finished product. The IKEA PLACE App focuses on showcasing information about how an object or piece of furniture will be within the dimensions of the room with 98% accuracy.
An ‘FX Mirror and Memory Mirror’ can envision what clothing you want to buy and place over your over on a mirror to see how the clothes look without having to wear the clothes physically.
The area of ‘Medicine and Health Care’ can vary from a scanner that projects where the different valves and veins are so nurses and doctor can identify it on the first try. VA-ST Visor (Smart Space) primarily focuses on the people who are partially blind or legally blind; the device is taught identify 3D objects and identify them with a scene which can also be used for finding lost items.
‘Google Expeditions’ is another prediction circulating on the idea of taking children on field trips around the world without leaving classroom which would benefit people with physical disabilities. The use of AR can also Enhance Museum Exhibits with extra material or animations provided to display information in a personal way as well as creating interaction with the information given out.
The screenshots over the next few blogs will centre on the rough Collage arrangements/concepts of what the main imagery of the AI poster will look like linked to the subject of said AI gaining rights and Political and social consequences of this possible change, demonstrated by the poster ill produced mimicking a group against the individualism of AI.
Collage Arrangements (2 or 3) will be highlighted (*) to showcase their further development for the fruition of the final poster, both for the collage and possible Pen Tool Illustration in the form of a Silhouette at the time of writing this down (20/10/18).
Callum Forster 