At the start of my art practice I was primarily occupied with ideas of memory, and loss or corruption of memory. I used short videos and live video installation pieces to manifest my ideas. I mirrored the breakdown in memories with the breakdown in quality of analog video systems such as VHS. For these projects I began working with computers and other electrical equipment. I had always been interested in the mechanics of capture, manipulation and playback of moving images. An interest that began in the 5 years I spent working on the technical side of school theatre productions. One of the most exciting projects we executed was ‘4 Storeys’, a devised theater piece we created with help from theater company ‘Imitating the Dog’. It was after seeing their piece ‘Zero Hour’ that I realised the potential of moving image in theatre.

In the process of making visuals I quickly began to tire of what I was able to create using standard tools and so experimented with less traditional means. I started misusing conventional applications before beginning to make my own using ‘Processing’ code. It was through ‘Processing’ that I discovered the wealth of artists making work using open source code. Inspired by this I used algorithms and sensors to bring the user into the artwork in a way which had previously been impossible with more choreographed forms of expression. What I found most exciting was the way in which a user decided to interact with my work could change how it worked and how they perceived it. This user interaction forced me to distance myself from the work and grapple with ideas of ownership and creativity.

‘Who is the artist when the audience and the machine are collaborating?’.

When Google released the ‘Deep Dream’ Neural Network models in 2015 I was very eager to experiment with, and try to explain the phenomena they created. Firstly I produced a collection of works detailing the process of interrogating the network, using different inputs to generate interesting outputs. Secondly with a monolithic projection project that attempted to demonstrate the nature of the algorithm at work, and its similarity to the firing of neurons in the brain.

Since I began my Digital Arts Computing degree I have been exposed much more to the political implications of Digital Art, the use of people’s data has come to the fore with recent legislation like GDPR and the role of social media in recent elections. This only serves to make more potent, discussion of the black box nature of the neural networks employed by large web companies. My current work stems from fears of computer sentience and the effect our increasing reliance on machines will have on society.