Sofia Crespo and Entangled Others Studio

Can artificial lifeforms help us rethink our connection with nature? Sofia Crespo and Entangled Others Studio use the lens of new technology to explore how life forms built on AI in the digital world can help us explore our common bonds.

The Experience

Beneath the Neural Waves

2021
3D GAN, 3D style-transfer

Beneath the Neural Waves explores biodiversity through an attempt at creating (digitally) an aquatic ecosystem as a means of attempting to engage with the very abstract concept of relationship.

Explore a neurally generated fragment of coral reef and some of the specimens that reside there.

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The Process

Datasets used included synthetic coral data produced by Joel Simon, publicly available data on aquatic specimens and hand-generated data.

The datasets were processed with Blender, and the specimens generated with 3D-GANs, CNNs (thanks to Alex Mordvintsev), and GANs.

AI is used as a means of exploring what we know of critical parts of our natural world through an “essential” re-enactment that at once is a reflection of what we do, and do not, know about these essential ecosystems and how they relate internally and to us.

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The Experience

Artificial Remnants 2.0

2020
3D GAN, 3D-Style Transfer, GPT-2

This project is part of an ongoing exploration of artificial life using machine learning to generate insects, as well as their names and anatomical description. This gives us a way to engage with the rich diversity of the natural world in a virtual, digital space. The artists invite you to to explore and interact with the specimens on display.

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Experience optimized for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

The Process

The artists used 3D models of hundreds of insects, literature about their life cycles, and close-ups of their textures to create this unique work. The lack of large, open datasets led to a fair deal of data augmentation.

The insects were generated using a GAN trained on data from 3D models. They were then textured with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and given names and descriptions from a fine-tuned GPT-2 language model. The process included NVIDIA Quadro and GeForce RTX GPUs with TensorFlow and PyTorch frameworks, and cables.gl for the web experience.

Artificial intelligence is used in all parts of the process—from generating 3D forms to giving them surface texture and finally, descriptions.

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About Sofia Crespo

Sofia Crespo is an artist with a huge interest in biology-inspired technologies. One of her main focuses is the way organic life uses artificial mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve. This implies the idea that technologies are a biased product of the organic life that created them and not a completely separated object. On the side, she’s also hugely concerned with the dynamic change in the role of the artists working with machine learning techniques.

www.sofiacrespo.com
Instagram | Twitter

About Entangled Others

Entangled Others is the shared studio practice of artists Feileacan McCormick and Sofia Crespo. Their work focuses upon ecology, nature, and generative arts, with an emphasis on giving the more-than-human new forms a presence and life in digital space. This involves exploring questions of relationship, biodiversity, and awareness through biology-inspired technologies. In turn, they highlight how through conscious efforts, new technology can be used to bring attention and awareness to the unseen that we are tightly interwoven with.

entangledothers.studio
Instagram | Twitter

Featured Sessions

AI Representing Natural Forms in Art

It's said that art imitates life, but what if that art is flora and fauna created by an artist using artificial intelligence? Join a discussion with artists Sofia Crespo, Feileacan McCormick, Anna Ridler, and Daniel Ambrosi and NVIDIA technical specialist Chris Hebert to explore how they use AI in their creative process of generating interpretations of natural forms.

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A Conversation with Artists Using AI

This panel discussion with the GTC AI Art Gallery artists, Anna Ridler, Scott Eaton, and Sofia Crespo will explore their personal journeys that led to connecting AI and fine art, how the technology has influenced their artistic process, why AI is important in the broader field of fine art, how art education intersects with AI education, and whether AI will be capable of achieving autonomous control over the creative process.

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