Jungle Spirits Revealed

As described in a previous set of postings (Hidden Nature,  Hidden Nature #3) I created a panoramic jungle screen within which to place / hide totem spirits and ancestral figures. At the time I wrote that the adjacent and overlapping leaf patterns are perceived as 'symmetrical totemic / figurative forms.  The impact [is] similar to Rorschach inkblots. If you look carefully (in the enlarged images) you may begin to resolve images of figures and animals concealed in the jungle.'

I noticed that uncovering the hidden figures within shared digital reproductions (e.g.; smaller JPG files) was difficult for many viewers... That figure-ground issues challenging the viewer was fundamental to the work, after all. This could be understood as a metaphor for ongoing 'search & discovery' underlying shamanic and meditational practices.

In the back of my head ever since the Jungle Panoramas were completed, I've envisioned them as coming to life in a way that would shift focus between concealing and revealing the various underlying figurative elements. Of course, hopefully not 'over revealing' so as to maintain some of the mystery.

Hidden Panthers Redux

Here are some new Rorschach panther totem visions. These animations came about as I played around with adding motion via animation to my previous Jungle Panoramas - as described in post above. (Previous Panther visions here.)

Prayer Wheels

Hidden Panthers, Oh My!

The jungle in shamanic practice is a dreamtime filled with plant and animal spirits, as well as ancestors, guides, demons, protectors. Here are some Rorschach panther totem visions.

One More Batch of Forest Goddess Glitches

These particular glitch effects harken back to the 1980's when I was using analog video synthesis and processing equipment at the Experimental Television Center in Oswego, NY. The short "takes" remind me that I have stacks of 3/4", Beta, Hi8 and DV video tapes (many from those days as an artist in residence at the ETC studio) on the shelf that need to be digitized. Fragments. Fluxus. Zen.

Glitch Glitch Glitch

Here are a number of explorations reprocessing a Forest Goddess image with successive glitch filters and processes.

Hidden Nature

After working on the Forest Goddess series, I began to think about visibility / invisibility and it occurred to me that the jungle environment could provide another impenetrable screen, helping to conceal hidden things not quite obvious, dream-like, perhaps secret. And of course, the jungle is a realm of shamanic practice - the realm of ancestors, plant and animal spirits, ayahuasca visions.

I set about creating a leaf 'screen' based upon iconic jungle foliage. I wanted to make this leaf pattern repeating so I could tile a number of such blocks together into a larger  panoramic aspect ratio. In this process, the adjacent and overlapping leaves began to form symmetrical totemic / figurative forms. The impact was similar to Rorschach inkblots.

If you look carefully (in the enlarged images) you may begin to resolve images of figures and animals concealed in the jungle.

Jungle Panorama 01

Jungle Panorama 02

Like any Rorschach image, your interpretation of what you see represents a shifting understanding / vision based upon a mix of cultural indoctrination, personal dreams, phobias, emotions, etc. 

As a viewer embodying a more traditional 20th Century Western mindset, the jungle is dark, all-encompassing, unknown, unspeakable: it is the "Heart of Darkness" to be avoided, symbolizing a potentially life-threatening path into danger, loss of self, even madness.

For other viewers who embrace the 21st Century "archaic revival," this Western view of the jungle as something to be feared and avoided is 're-coded' with an indigenous world view full of respect, awe, and mystery. It can be a place of healing, self-discovery, and revelation.

Hidden Nature #3

The most current jungle landscape in this series is built up from panels of two sizes with various background leaf patterns that can be re-arranged (like lines in poetry stanza: ABBAABBA) to allow reconfiguration of the work. It would also allow the piece to "wrap around" corners in an exhibition space. Reminds me of James Rosenquist's F-111 wall painting.

Jungle Panorama 03

CU: left side

CU: right side

NOISEDIVE - more Deep Dreaming!

Noisedive from Johan Nordberg on Vimeo.

This is what emerges when you recursively feed noise to a artificial neural network trained to recognise places (e.g. you give it an image and the response is something like 90% beach , 20% desert, 2% swimming pool).

The familiar shapes you see floating past is abstractions the network has made for the different categories. Some categories feature more prominently because the amount of images used to train them differ. For example the "fountain" category contains 111,496 images compared to only 883 in the "nuclear_power_plant" one. So that's why you see a lot more fountain like shapes than big chimneys.

There's a lot more to it than that of course, and this visualisation only shows you one of the many abstraction layers the network uses.

Based on the work by Google researches Alexander Mordvintsev, Christopher Olah and Mike Tyka

Read more at Google Research Labs blog:

• http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-into-neural.html
• http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/07/deepdream-code-example-for-visualizing.html

#deepdream #inceptionism

Since sample images were released last month, Google's DEEP DREAM neural network software has spread like wildfire across the meme-scape of the Internet. By now most everyone has seen at least a few of these remarkable, strange and disquieting images created by a sort of feedback processing within the layers of neural net's visual recognition algorithms. Self manifesting eidetic visions of a silicon brain.

Here is a 5 minute deep zoom into random noise - what emerges eventually, magically, is a panoply of animals, insects, faces, eyes - an every changing Rorschach of imaginal species. Wonderful! (Watch it full screen!)

Inside an artificial brain from Johan Nordberg on Vimeo.

Rorschach Re-Imagined: Native American GIFs

Nicholas Galanin (b. 1979, Sitka, Alaska) is a conceptual artist inspired by, and extending, generations of Tlingit creativity. His work strikes a balance between the traditions of his heritage and an incisive contemporary approach to manifesting ideas visually.

To coincide with the exhibition "Your Feast Has Ended" at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Galanin collaborated with Seattle-based artist and designer Christian Petersen on a series of animated GIFs that "deal with the ideas of psychology and interpretation" and how ideas (symbols) transform over time. The traditional Native American imagery created by Galanin transforms into the ink blots of the Rorschach test.

Original article: Rorschach Re-Imagined: Artist Nicholas Galanin’s Native American GIF Psychology

Skulls and Wings - a rorschach visual or Bardo dream?

Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter 2011 Scarves Film from Alexander McQueen on Vimeo - a short film created by Paris-based director/photographer Babette Pauthier. (wait for video to load...)