Diptychs

[photoriot]

<p>Batteries running low, I came up with this useful philosophical item: "Discomfort can be more bearable when it is constant and there is no room to cringe." Went to my page and clicked once or twice while thinking, then drew myself back to the screen and saw this pair of recent pics, which due to my dumbly dark eV setting and hinky subject matter seemed fit for the sentiment. I'm not saying phobrain read my mood, because I know there is no code for what I'm experiencing. Nonetheless, it does analyze my click history in simple ways, so I theorize that that level of complexity somehow makes it seem intelligent, which is my first goal. You are used to seeing a lot of intelligence spent on online ordering forms (a lot of mine, at least :-), never on a new life form.</p><div></div>

[Supriyo]

<blockquote>

<p>Algorithms and robots don't make art. They simulate it. They have to be told by a human what to do, a human that may have flaws in their decision making and possess a lack of awareness to the sensitive nature of creating from an emotional center that will influence the results. Emotion is not included or considered as part of the coding involved with simulating how humans appreciate or create art using robots and algorithms. It's impossible to do that.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I am not going to go into the debate of what emotion is, or how much machines can/will be able to simulate human behavior. However one thing is for sure, a large part of art is based on not just creation from scratch, but selection. Photography is in many ways a process of selection, if we eliminate the post-processing which is not an absolutely essential part of all photos. Many scenes that photography capture are created from natural processes. Those natural processes follow very definite scientific laws without added randomness of conscious minds. Yet the effects produced by those processes can be artistic. By selecting and cherishing them, we transform them into art.<br>

<br>

As for algorithms, stunning artworks have been produced using mathematical algorithms. Mandelbrot set and other fractal algorithms can lead to an explosion of colors, textures and mind boggling mystery. Again, its up to us what we select and throw away. Here Bill selected an example from the pictures his computer program retrieved, because he thought they are worthwhile. I see no issue in that.<br>

<br>

While working on my projects, I once made a terrible mistake in a computer code and produced this (shown below). I have kept this because I find it intriguing. The computer produced it, but I selected it for archival.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>More on the synchronicity of phobrain: since I posted the above, I got into explaining my picture of the structure of consciousness with an old friend, and went looking for illustrations of the brain that match my intuition, <a href="https://youtu.be/jrC8iY6_aZQ">this one</a> being the most compelling. That and life go by, and I finally return to phobrain, which is still on the pair above, click twice, and get this rare sort of pair that again seems like phobrain is trying to match my vision. That's two seemingly apropos comments by phobrain in 4 clicks - not a bad rate.</p><div></div>

[Supriyo]

<p>This is the only example relevant to this discussion I could find in my folders for now. The left one is 2D, the right one being the 3D version of a similar theme, but on a different scale. Also the symmetry of the patterns on the right is broken by the vertical line (which could be good or bad depending on the perspective).<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/2571186-md.jpg" alt="" width="679" height="495" /></p>

[Supriyo]

<p>Also I wanted to refer to this work by Michael Linder, which I like a lot.<br>

<a href="/photo/17851882&size=lg">photo</a></p>

[photoriot]

<p>Supriyo, I find your wayward graphs inspiring deep thought in me like a grove of trees. <a href="http://phobrain.com/pr/home/gallery/higuchi_graph_wiggle.png">Here's a simpler graph</a> involving the derivation of the fractal dimension of a photo (by the free IQM package); only some pics have the wiggly line, but I didn't spot a similar look to them, so I don't use the R value in selecting photos (yet), just the slope of the fit line, which is the standard (Higuchi) fractal dimension.</p>

<p>On the pair, I like the layered space as the pair emerges at you right to left, with the oppositely-angled stripes anchored by the horizontal ones and the rounded motif top right to round out the formal elements, while the speaker seems to say, "Please keep your abstraction under control, we hold public events here."</p><div></div>

[AJHingel]

<p>I still follow this long exchange on algorithms and their merits, although I have decided, since long, not to be interested in the technicalities. <br /> A number of good diptychs above, in my eyes: "pair_color_drab_doorways", "neuronal haze, "2D, 3D" by Supriyo and Bill. Supriyo's "terrible" example of computer art is however something that I would keep too, if it was printed in very big format. <br /> <br /> The one mentioned above, I like most is, however, Michael Linder's work (Untitled), which is a fine example of abstract digital patchwork, based on photography. Love it.</p>

[photoriot]

<p>I forgot to mention the pole - it shows the photo is tilted, as confirmed by the corner. The tilting allows horizontal stripe alignment between photos, but since the photo on the left has no vertical reference points, my first instinct would be to have the pole on the right be vertical, and adjust the photo on the left to match the right's horizontal stripes. If I didn't have to fire up my Win2K photo editing machine to do it, I'd give it a try, but better with larger originals anyway :-)</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>Anyone who likes what I'm posting might like at least one out of three seen when clicking on my page. For me it is disturbing to have to click by so many good pairs without recording them. I almost hope it settles down when I have been through a few sessions with the current regime, because I have in mind a cooler algorithm, but for now I'm totally respectful of what the one I have is doing.</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Phil, I think the intention or consciousness part begins when Bill decides he likes what the algorithm chose and posts it here. The next step would be to make the algorithm skip Bill's decision making and post in this thread using some type of upload script.</p>

<p>It makes the creative process fun, fun, fun!</p>

[photoriot]

<blockquote>

<p>But it's also different than how photographers have been making such intentional image pairings that start from the idea of the images having an interconnected relationship with each other on a thematic, formal, or conceptual level, etc.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The way I was putting images together (slides or prints spread all over the place) was by figuring out the next photo to put in my slide show or book, and I would weigh so many pairs and reasons that I gave up trying and took a 10 year hiatus from SLR photography while thinking about it. I have reproduced the thematic approach with my keyword matches (the + option for example) and the rest by using color-based matching, which has more possibilities for interesting juxtapositions. The best way one can test for bias directly is by comparing the pure random option on the single-photo page with the color and keyword options. I should make the random option on the pairs page pick a random pair, instead of a random keyword-matched pair, so pure randomness could be compared using side-by-side pics.<br>

I totally agree with Tim - no fun at all for me to be out of the loop, and moreover I'm not into simulating people, I want to create a new kind of optical illusion that seems like a life form (new formulation). People can go to my site if they want a dialog with phobrain.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure Bill that if you're seeking to have your image pairs match as closely as possible to those that were made by a human to show that there's an intention or consciousness behind it</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As a tool, it's a cross between a portfolio manager, a brain teaser, and a psychoanalyst trainer. I've followed my nose to find ways of matching that seem productive, going back and forth working on different approaches, and most critically perhaps, the user responsiveness in choosing which methods to use each time so that it doesn't get boring (those are the algorithms I'm working on). But all that is as a tool for humans, not a simulation of the human point of view. I almost want to avoid normal cognitive intelligence to get at simulating what it takes for us to feel something is alive. It's a projection of the life that pairs seem to make stir in me (oxytocin, I presume). In a way I'm letting myself be a tray of magnetic filings orienting around each pair to get a little reward.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>or if you're seeking to creatively exploit and make the very subject of the work the confirmation bias that is occurring when we're looking at the diptychs made by the algorithm. The latter raises much more interesting questions in an art context.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's exactly the first step in my project of creating the illusion of life.<br /><br /> Based on recent results, I'm leaning to the notion that being close to each other in color space makes a pair look compatible enough that the eye forgivingly goes on to find stuff that otherwise might not stand out, e.g. the 'umami' pair. This effect is far more pronounced when the photos are side by side than when seen in series, as in my single-photo page. It may be that my algorithm selection algorithm is contributing to this by entraining the results with user timing, or simply by varying the color algorithms used.<br /> <br /> Another sort of confirmation bias comes because of the story of me coming out of my shell with something novel, e.g. experiencing some censorship along the way, and exemplifying how phobrain can play an almost Tarot or I Ching role at times. If I ever get money for research, I'd be doing experiments to eliminate that effect, but in the real world I just want to have fun.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>Looking at more pics with my expanding-on-color-match theory in mind, here's a pair that illustrates it perfectly - it meets no consciously-recognizable criteria such as Phil was describing, yet the pair gives me a little buzz, which is enough to start me analyzing it like I did with Supriyo's pair.</p>

<p>This raises the question, if color-similar pairs have a high hit rate, how would color-opposite ones do? They could be equally interesting. And all this leaves out more modern image analysis technology.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>Yes, that's the use-it-as-a-tool approach which could be productive for people wanting to make books.</p>

<p>I am in a bad mood because I just made an opposite-colors option, and changed random-keyword-pair to pure-random, and for now at least I find these choices as interesting as the color-match ones I've been posting. They maybe seem like more work to look at, which is what wore me down with random serial photos a while ago, but there are still enough congruences to make for interesting matches when placed side-by-side. This implies that the photos themselves are correlated enough by my photographer's eye so that lots of side-by-side pairings work, and as Tim suggested for algorithmic purposes I should be working with more generic material from the public domain. The opposite-color option is the yellow '-', the random option '|' for those who want to compare.</p><div></div>

[Julie H]

<p>Without making any comment on the pictures posted to this thread, this goes to what Bill Ross is doing. Not randomness, but ongoing, never-ending, unfinished-ness:</p>

<p>From the book <em>Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible</em>, this is Kelly Baum:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>For all of these artists, the finished work of art was anathema. Vexed by the problem of what it meant to finish an object, they adopted myriad strategies intended to defer or delay completion. As a result, the works of art they made dramatize the predicament of finishedness in an artistic landscape defined by abstraction; by seriality, modularity, and repetition; by the embrace of contingency, metamorphosis, duration, and unpredictability; by the dematerialization of objects; by the displacement of craft and artistic skill; by the acceptance of unconventional materials and procedures; and, finally, by the arrival of the viewer as an equal partner in the creative process. These factors compelled practitioners in every medium to fundamentally recalibrate the definition, as well as the value, of finish and finishedness.</p>

</blockquote>

[photoriot]

<blockquote>

<p>the finished work of art was anathema</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I can get on board with that. I think a self-perpetuating work has a much better chance of still being online and viewed 1,000 years from now. In a way, I want to create a golem that will live after me, reading the web, drinking coffee (I would seriously build this in), and providing a wise presence to those who can use it. Add a research institute to back it up.</p>

<p>I realize now that since I got worn down by random sequencing of single photos a while back, I have winnowed my photos, so that's one reason random pairs looks better than I expected. Putting matching orientation side-by-side makes them go down easier, and I always like the newest thing, too.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>The synchronicity seems to persist with the opposite option, at least. This opposite pair (in RGB 12x12x12 space) seems to put words in my mouth confirming what I wrote above. The color-opposite pairs use the same user-sensitive code that the color-close pairs use, so maybe underneath it is the world's first synchronicity generator. :-) One step toward personal proof would be Tim's suggestion to import pics I don't care about personally.</p>

<p>I find that the color matches are relaxing after the opposites and randoms, but have revised my page so all options are available; the icons are almost-symmetrically "+-|+" in different primary colors, where the +'s are the two match methods.</p>

<p>I played with opposite colors before, but sequentially and with only one color distance function, vs. 10 now.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>After all my work on keywords and color, I have a weird horror of random, which can easily get the answers of the methods I have worked hard on, as well as make whatever blind mistakes I can decide on. But in this scientific talk, <a href="http://www.voicesfromoxford.org/video/dance-to-the-tune-of-life-lecture/699">Dance to the Tune of Lif</a>e, major Oxford brain Denis Noble makes a convincing claim that life has harnessed randomness from the get-go. In my case, keyword and color based selection constrain randomness the most, so maybe that qualifies. I randomly went with a color similarity for this selection because the method remains closest to my heart, and seems to have the subtlest joins.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>A color match in a different region.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>This opposite one does something novel to me.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>Back to synchronicity - looking for an off-the-shelf expression of spasming internal pain, I found this one after 5-10 keyword pairs.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>Great idea Phil, I like the idea of playing poems. I've been holding off on diving into deep learning like Google Vision in favor of solving some life issues, since it looks like it will be absorbing and likely expensive.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>There's a Russian saying for when you want to introduce something out of the blue into the conversation, "Speaking of birds," in which context here's another color match I like.</p><div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>Going back to the beginning:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>But again, it would be interesting to hear your ideas on why your examples of two abstract photos in a diptych is more than just two abstract photos shown together, side by side - or one above/below another.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have been finding abstraction in the juxtapositions more than classifying images as abstract and then juxtaposing them. But here is a case where abstractions mirror, like the old year meeting the new. (The photo on the left is probably from the 90's, the one on the right is less than a week old.)</p><div></div>

[AJHingel]

<p>This never ending exchange starts reminding me of the craze about "Hexastix sculptures". See <br /> here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Geometric-sculpture-from-72-pencils/</p>

[photoriot]

<p>Corner shadows raise budget questions, put whole political system under scrutiny, Hexastix sculptures now also implicated, roots may go even deeper. Another decades-spanning diptych throws light on all of reality: children only, please. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>reminding me of the craze</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If there's only one person, some might think more a 'crazy' than a craze. :-) Still looking for someone else to get on board.</p><div></div>