Half Cheetah is a series of artworks using Reinforcement Learning behaviours generated from quadruped and ‘half cheetah’ models in a 3D space. These behaviours are then transposed onto real human 3D scans and integrated into a real-time environment.
The dm_control model is a self-learning agent which learns to move its body in an ‘imagined’ environment before transferring those movements to physical space. The model is run using similar parameters to commercial robotics and military tests. The performance optimisation process takes days and includes millions of steps, as the model progresses from incapability to competence.
The behaviours from these learning agents are then transposed onto 3D models of humans, whose physical bodies have been scanned, reduced to an efficient file size and the rights sold online, usually to be used in games or advertising. The body motions are adapted where required to fit the human frame.
These combined behavioural elements are then wrapped in a custom-designed real-time dynamic environment, where the linear progression in performance is broken down and re-ordered, resulting in a displaced flow of body actions.
Half Cheetah live
The dm_control model is a self-learning agent which learns to move its body in an ‘imagined’ environment before transferring those movements to physical space. The model is run using similar parameters to commercial robotics and military tests. The performance optimisation process takes days and includes millions of steps, as the model progresses from incapability to competence.
The behaviours from these learning agents are then transposed onto 3D models of humans, whose physical bodies have been scanned, reduced to an efficient file size and the rights sold online, usually to be used in games or advertising. The body motions are adapted where required to fit the human frame.
These combined behavioural elements are then wrapped in a custom-designed real-time dynamic environment, where the linear progression in performance is broken down and re-ordered, resulting in a displaced flow of body actions.
Half Cheetah live
Loss Surface visualises the statistical output of a deep neural network as it analyses a dataset of images for visual recognition. The artwork makes visible the process of optimisation the model employs as it goes about the task of image classification, a process which is normally invisible.
The loss surface is a 3D graph of a Resnet 56 model’s performance. Where the model is unsuccessful the loss function is high, producing a mountain. Where it is successful a valley appears, representing low loss. This landscape is a frozen moment-in-process in the task of visual interpretation, realised as a monolithic carved physical relief.
A problem with the encroachment of AI into the classification of the world is that it generates a landscape in which people are alienated. As John Tagg put it, these systems “instantiate a machine regime indifferent to the human ego, eye and body”. They are also the product of a human drive to compartmentalise the world. The Loss Surface investigates this statistical landscape, the impulse to classify and the act of seeing.
The loss surface is a 3D graph of a Resnet 56 model’s performance. Where the model is unsuccessful the loss function is high, producing a mountain. Where it is successful a valley appears, representing low loss. This landscape is a frozen moment-in-process in the task of visual interpretation, realised as a monolithic carved physical relief.
A problem with the encroachment of AI into the classification of the world is that it generates a landscape in which people are alienated. As John Tagg put it, these systems “instantiate a machine regime indifferent to the human ego, eye and body”. They are also the product of a human drive to compartmentalise the world. The Loss Surface investigates this statistical landscape, the impulse to classify and the act of seeing.
Mass is a shared 3D interactive space that lives on the blockchain. Everyone shares the same space, but it appears differently to each viewer and changes in unexpected ways over time.
Mass is a surveillance machine, recording every action its owners take on-chain and communicating them back to the group through changes in the dynamic 3D compositions. But there are bugs deliberately introduced into the code, making the communication of events unreliable. The visual environment and its digital objects are also fragmented.
The artwork brings together a community, but also distances them from each other. It’s a reimagining of our shared online environment, stripped of its agency to direct behaviour. An ever-changing structure that overturns the problematic nature of the network it exists within.
More about Mass
Mass is a surveillance machine, recording every action its owners take on-chain and communicating them back to the group through changes in the dynamic 3D compositions. But there are bugs deliberately introduced into the code, making the communication of events unreliable. The visual environment and its digital objects are also fragmented.
The artwork brings together a community, but also distances them from each other. It’s a reimagining of our shared online environment, stripped of its agency to direct behaviour. An ever-changing structure that overturns the problematic nature of the network it exists within.
More about Mass
‘Without their market, most NFTs would simply be digital art, like back when people still talked about computer art,
net art and new media art without the blockchain and everyone knew what was meant.
Without the blockchain and its market, MASS by James Bloom could not live.’
Anika Meier
Imagine NFTs Are Alive
net art and new media art without the blockchain and everyone knew what was meant.
Without the blockchain and its market, MASS by James Bloom could not live.’
Anika Meier
Imagine NFTs Are Alive
‘Physicals’ is a series of reliefs carved with a 3-axis CNC router into polyurethane model board. The artworks are based on CAM 3D models constructed on screen.
All the objects appearing in the works are taken from popular online 3D object libraries. These commercially-available internet objects include user interface elements, digitally-constructed painters brushstrokes and 3D primitives.
These separate objects are subjected to multiple processes before being placed together in dimensional compositions and carved into monolithic physical artworks. Each piece is a single presence from a design of many parts.
The artworks follow complex and opaque production processes commonly used for the manufacturing of new and desirable aesthetic objects through appropriation and strategic refinement.