Machine Learning & Creative AI

Since 2016 I have been using machine learning to explore novel applications for creating art. This work is not 'text prompting' to make images (which has become popular recently), but rather buiding custom datasets and training bespoke models to employ as my art tools. This is a selection of work borne out of these explorations.

Mar 092022
 

Imitation Game AI Exhibition Poster, Vancouver Art GalleryEntangled II at The Imitation Game

I am excited to have an entire room dedicated to my artwork at the recently-opened feature exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, “The Imitation Game – Visual Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

the venerable Vancouver Art Gallery

The groundbreaking show gives insight into the development and impact artificial intelligence is having on art, creativity, and wider visual culture. I have a collection of large pieces in the show as well as a series of development ‘sketches’ that are being shown in public for the first time. If you’re near Vancouver definitely check it out, the show will be running until October 23, 2022!

Caffeinated Diversions, drawings processed by custom neural networkCaffeinated Diversions, 2019

Scott Eaton's machine learning experiments at the Vancouver Art GalleryA wall of displays showing Scott’s machine learning video works

Scott Eaton's Humanity (Fall of the Damned) at the Vancouver Art Gallery Humanity (Fall of the Damned)

Nov 102023
 

Still from Scott Eaton's AI video artwork - Entangled II

TITLE: Entangled II
MEDIUM: Digital (photography, high-speed video, machine learning / AI)
RESOLUTION: 4k, vertical
DURATION: 5:00
DATE: 2019

Investigating the proposition that the sinuous, overlapping curves of viscous fluid flows match the folds, contours and overlaps of the human figure. The work takes high-speed video of paint in water and processes it through a custom neutral network (my “BODIES” network) to elicit continually evolving, rebirthing, almost human forms. The work plays with preception and our human-brains’ wiring for pareidolia – seeing and recognising things, especially human forms, in random objects.



ENTANGLED II, excerpt

Jan 022023
 

Meta AI

I recently completed a year-long artist residency with Meta’s Fundamental AI Research Lab (FAIR). While I’ve always had mixed feelings about corporate Meta (formerly Facebook), I have nothing but respect for the research that FAIR does in AI and machine learning. It was a privilege to spend time within that organisation pursuing a number of interests in art, creativity, and machine learning.

The work was largely experimental, often extensions of explorations I had started prior, but I appreciated having the time and resources (read: compute) to investigate more deeply. The work included investigations into human pose estimation and tracking, interpretability of vision models, geometric abstraction, color theory, and generative networks. The focus was not so much on advancing any state of the art in machine learning, but more on utilizing and extending existing ML tools and techniques to make new creative works. I will post a few of the more interestesting experiments here when I find time.

Perpetual Now II, installation by Scott Eaton, large outdoor screen, reflecting in watera still from Perpetual Now II, Living Canvas, Dublin, 2022

One of the moving image pieces created during the residency recently finished a three month run on the Living Canvas in Dublin Ireland (the largest outdoor cultural screen in Europe, approximately 4x20m, see above). A second work, Intersections, will premiere in New York City later in 2023.

Nov 242021
 

link to gallery

For the last couple of years, I have been fortunate to be curated in Nvidia’s AI Art Gallery. There are a couple of recent works featured there (which are already familiar to anyone who has explored this site) but each has additional background and context. You can also find a couple of recorded discussions I’ve had with other amazing artists creating in this space. These are available for viewing at the bottom of the gallery page (link here).

Jun 102020
 

CogX 2020 – Artist Vs Machine

I will be participating in a three-artist discussion panel at CogX 2020 on the future of creativity and art in the age of AI, VR, and AR. I will be joined by Jonathan Yeo, contemporary portrait painter, and Patrick Morgan, an artist exploring the boundaries of VR/AR in his work. The conversation will be wide ranging, but focused around how these emerging technologies might enable new creative horizons for aritsts in the coming decades.

May 252020
 

Human Allocation of Space, An abstract figurative sculpture by artist Scott Eaton

TITLE: Human Allocation of Space
MEDIUM: Bronze
DIMENSIONS: 50x75x25cm
EDITION: 5
DATE: 2019

A sculptural work ‘drawn’ by me. This piece was created using a custom ‘shape’ neural network that responds to my drawn inputs with sculptural form. I devise the “shape vocabulary” for the work by curating a dataset that teaches a bespoke AI/machine learning model how to translate drawing into extruded three-dimensional form.

Scott Eaton Bronze sculpture - angular abstract view 3 Scott Eaton Bronze sculpture - angular abstract view 2