The Origins of Image

      photography + digital artwork by Shaun Lawton 

  

    The image above, to me, seems to represent perhaps some old, weathered piping deep underground, polished over time by running water beneath the topsoil, of what's left of some ancient ruins stemming from a subterranean Dwarven fortress.   Perhaps it's the locking mechanism from an ancient gateway that once separated the cavernous realm of Dol Guldur from the rest of middle-Earth.   Or maybe it's the remains of an old carburetor or the twisted wreckage of an ancient Aztec sculpture, it's difficult to pinpoint, exactly.   

   Now that we're deeply nesting within the continuum referred to as "the 21st century," with its deep fake images receding into the darkest corners of a world wide web having taken on a life of its own, we are at least mentally equipped enough that we might recognize such an image as being itself fabricated from any variety of source images, rendering the final form of it in some manner to be counterfeit.  Yet is not that the very precinct of art itself?  If we assume that the word art may serve as the prefix for artifice and everything "artificial," then yes, but when we lean back and relax on the thought that beautiful artworks, from abstract sculptures carved out of marble to vivid paintings which reflect through light startling images to our eyes, we do get a sense of the inherit value in such contrivances.   The image below should hardly be thought of as "counterfeit," considering there remains no real precedent to which it stays attached, at least not one which could effectively substitute it.  

    From a a teaspoon of spilled water on a stainless steel countertop to the above image, I am here to trace the random lineage of appearance and its endless forms of similitude.  Right off the bat I should introduce the above image as having resulted from my uploading a source image  (the photograph I snapped of our stainless steel kitchen table top with some water spilled on it you see at the very bottom of this post) into an online free photo editor  (befunky, my random choice of freely available and easy to use photo editors) and messing with the brightness / contrast / colors until achieving a darker and more interesting look.  Then I uploaded that resulting image  (a .jpg) into Deep Dream Generator and after pairing it with a separate image and making some minor adjustments, the image morphed into several different forms (see two of them below), made possible by my switching out some of the "style" images in DDG for experimentation, until it resulted in the top three iterations you see posted here.   

    

     Why are these iterations so alluring and interesting looking?  My guess is that the source image must've been rich with visual cues and elements which lend themselves in highly volatile ways to the VQGAN + CLIP programs that enable AI algorithms to generate random iterations of two separate images fused together like this.  There must be a plethora of scintillating color cues embedded within the light captured in the original photo reflecting off the metal table top and off the curved surface of the water spill itself to produce a myriad different combinations of results, resulting in a myriad possible iterations when you consider that there's no limit to the second "style image" you might choose to utilize in crafting your deep dream generative artworks.  

    I love this one a lot, something about the textures evoke not just obsidian but some sea-shell like aspects, as if it were at the bottom of a deep river or some reflections off volcanic glass in a rainforest lagoon.  These evocative hues and patterns which can be elicited from tweaking certain source images taken with a smartphone and then ran through a basic online photo editor before being paired with stylistic images to generate countless disparate iterations will continue to keep me inspired on my new mission to conjure Rorschachian portraits which reflect a cornucopia of pareidolia enhanced visual representations that I would very much like to frame and call "art."   

  Here's the original source image, the snapshot taken from my iPhone of our steel kitchen table top, with some water spilled on it.  I remember focusing on the water spill from a certain angle in order to capture the light from the ceiling reflecting off the water itself to the point it resembled a dragon's head.  Pleased with the results, little did I know then that this singular image would evolve into the even more interesting and mystifying images depicted above, resulting from my introduction to the world of VQGAN + CLIP art.  The secret which makes this particular mundane photo so effective at having been decoded and rearranged, I would guess, lies in the very fact that it depicts  water  atop a bright, shiny steel table top  with the added bonus of having light reflected off both the water and the metal.  

The Changing of the Guardian

   I'm trying to wrap my mind around our reality.  Our planet generates a magnetic field from deep within its center known as a magnetosphere. Stars have their own magnetospheres; our Sun's is known as The Interplanetary Magnetic Field. The heliosphere is the gigantic protective bubble created by our Sun that contains our entire solar system within it (shielding it from harsh interstellar radiation). Our planet's atmosphere further protects us from our local star's excessive radiation. As the Sun emits plasma it continuously keeps this heliosphere inflated by the solar wind; meanwhile, our Sun is presumably in motion on a trajectory of its own orbiting the black hole at the center of our galaxy, and this forward motion generates a "bow shock" which appears just ahead of our heliosphere. The outer layer of our heliosphere is called the "heliopause," the borderline that both Voyager spacecraft recently crossed as they headed into interstellar space (Voyager 1 doing so in August of 2012; Voyager 2 escaped our system in November of 2018).

   The Oort cloud (an enormous swarm of dwarf planets, comets and asteroids) is presumed to exist beyond our heliopause--in interstellar space--and the part I'm trying to wrap the heliosphere of my own mind around, is exactly how far from our Sun and in turn from our nearest bordering star (Proxima Centauri, only 4.2 light years away) does this Oort Cloud lie? The current estimates range from 2,000 to 200,000 AUs (.03 to 3.2 light years). Begging the question as a matter of course--does every star in our galaxy have its own respective Oort cloud, or is it more that all the stars in our galaxy share a common interstellar medium which the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort may have mistaken for a formation exclusive to our own solar system?

   Estimates as to the Oort Cloud's thickness and/or distance from our Sun vary, so its unclear as to whether parts of it are much farther than others, or whether the estimations represent a potential range of distances. The longest range assessments place a portion of our Oort Cloud as far as 3.2 light years away (which is just over three-fourths of the distance to Proxima Centauri). So the real question becomes: Does Proxima Centauri have its own Oort Cloud? Its becoming more apparent that what we've mistaken for our own system's isolated Oort cloud may be, in fact, the interstellar medium which borders on all our galaxy's stars.

   This last presumption seems to make the most sense. So now I like to picture every star as not having its own Oort cloud necessarily, but rather, I'm considering interstellar space itself as being in actuality one "meta-Oort-cloud" interspersed more or less evenly throughout our galaxy and furthermore, churned up by all the stars in it (where the mass gravitational effect of the Milky Way keeps these interstellar icy planetisimals tumbling around) until eventually, some get extracted into the heliosphere of any given star's system.

   This idea generates a clearer set of implications. For one, it suggests a distinct possibility that all stars in any given galaxy are related. I imagine the constellations as belonging to vast clutches. Perhaps the idea of any given individual star as being an "only child" is nothing but a myth. Maybe they are the last sole remaining survivors of their family of stars, presuming there's any such thing. There's potential for the idea that all the stars in any given galaxy remain related to each other by definition, rendering each solar system as a single cell of the whole galactic colony.

   The idea of all stars in a galaxy belonging to one great clade may be applied to galaxies themselves, of course.  It's not difficult to imagine our own galaxy being a part of a vaster clutch of galaxies, indicating a probability that the entire known universe derives from a common source.  Which brings us to the next link in this molecular chain of reasoning. That of the consideration of the implications to the axiom "as above, so below." For example, the presence of the interstellar and universal "Oort Medium" (if you will) begs comparisons to biological cells, making us wonder if interstellar space might be somewhat analogous to the cytoplasm within a cell, for instance--or, to get more to the point--this interspersed area of tumbling planetisimals may in fact more resemble the walls of biological cells, rendering the cytoplasm comparison better left as being analogous to the charged plasma particles found within our own heliosphere. 

   There's a parallel to be found in this parable of my search for meaning in existence, in this cosmic legend into which we are steeped. To paraphrase the ideal investigator, "eliminate the impossible, and whatever's left, however unlikely, remains the truth." I liken the veracity of this potential revelation to looking into a metaphysical mirror. I am left with a sense of hopefulness that one may be led to this proverbial mirror (even if one's mind may not be prepared to withstand that much exposure to the reflection revealed). 

   I am beginning to comprehend a little more that if one individual human being were to be led to this professed mirror (hidden behind a velvet curtain shall we say) and were given the opportunity to part that curtain by his own hand, to see revealed before him that reflection he'd devoted his entire life toward attaining, that most men who found themselves in this position would not be able to resist parting the curtain to get at least a good glimpse of it.  Furthermore, while I notice myself possibly arriving closer to that room with the curtain and mirror, the more I feel certain I will not be that individual that dares to take a glimpse of the big reveal. Rather, I find myself developing past the need to understand the mystery of our existence.  I am beginning to realize that I value the mystery itself far more than the possibility of having it solved or unveiled.   

   In conclusion, I can now imagine what I might discover behind the curtain. It won't be a mirror, but another person guarding yet another curtain behind which the actual mirror lies, assuming this proverbial mirror even exists. And this guardian of the truth will pass on to me the sacred role of Protector of the Curtain, stating in no uncertain terms, "You who have traveled this far across the molecular chain of reasoning to get so close to the ultimate secret of existence are in fact the prime candidate for taking on the responsibility of making sure no human being ever steps foot across this threshold to witness what's behind this final curtain," and he will hand me the Antigravitational Vorpal Plasma Sword of Truth which bonds itself at the subatomic level with whosoever grasps it by the hilt. Even if I were emboldened to meet the challenge posed by the Guardian and attempt to battle him for the prospect of looking into the mirror, the skill and dedication with which he'd defend the secret would insinuate itself into my consciousness whether I bested him or not. I'd likely undergo a transformation even if I defeated him, and invariably be led toward picking up his fallen blade, then find myself having transubstantiated into the next Guardian at the Portal of Truth. There'd be no point in my daring to look behind the flimsy curtain I'd then be in the position of protecting, because for one I'd have zero interest in doing so and for another, I'd begin to suspect that there was quite likely no such thing as the mirror after all.  

  

A Suitable Dissection

A sporadic offering 

lights like a katydid 

on a branch. 

 Windblown flames 

arise lifting forearms 

to the sky. 

 One point of contact

 a single transmission. 

Keeps the universe 

connected in all

 its heraldry. 

The raiment

flowing off its

 naked body. 

Exultant and extant 

without motive 

in the heart. 

Now flowering 

a distant echo 

matching harmony. 

With the lost 

and by definition 

never forgotten. 

Fractal Holographics

for John Shirley




We have a sick fascination with alien invasion
because our imagination forces a projection.
It's like jumping at a reflection from an ego-mirror
or receiving a fright from a trick of the light.
Something about the Fermi Paradox just ain't right.
But it's not an error in our mental processing:
it's more like natural insulation against being terror-
struck by the revelation of our real situation,
lost in space; our faces would turn blue, not from
lack of oxygen, but paralyzation of our nervous system
backpedaling to fix the nightmare that's no illusion.
To prevent further confusion, we may rest assured
and take my word that our greatest fears are merely
hopes in disguise once again transmitted from our eyes
and bouncing back as a cosmic echo location
to thicken the cushion and lessen the impact
of knowing there ain't jack out there but us
staring back in the flowering form of radio waves
withering in the trade-off of our mutual states
of existence for instance at my insistence
if we want to go the distance we must relax
and stop thinking to make first contact with
every extra terrestrial race in this entire place;
for you see, that's the fundamental problem:
we've erased comprehension that all remains one
thing in this dimension so keep on dreaming
harder about the possibilities in our back yard
or else come to face the electromagnetic certainty
the universe splits into a refracted spectrum
fixed into motion by the quantum computer
of a brain that seems adrift in this ocean of space
we process from behind the masks of our face.

Litmus AIndroid Test

Someone mentioned recently online that the point of AI, in order to "gain consciousness," would be to transcend its programming, and I know what they mean. But could it mean something else entirely? Is the artificial intelligence with its complex algorithms and pattern recognition skills at properly identifying contextual semantics really able to transcend its programming so much as our own thought process now transcends what we formerly understood about the dynamics of intelligence? (Aside from the dynamics of consciousness, which we're still learning about as we go, and have yet to learn everything about.)  If a machine can be fed the information of what the difference between us really amounts to, will it even be able to formulate all this data into its proper context?  It depends on whether a non living machine can of its own volition ask any question. It would be quite simple to program the computer AI profile/interface to verbalize any series of randomized questions for the purposes of teaching itself and helping to equivocate what would appear to be its own inquisitive nature. For us to carry this domain of thought-programming forward obliquely and postulate that an AI could then feel and express emotions or rationalize based on its own comprehension of these stimuli would be to admit that simulations of all these antecedents certainly can and will be perfected in AIndroids (the 'I' is silent) for the purposes of prevaricating the entire experience of what it's like to be human. We may all rest assured about that much. Yet it must be pointed out that simulated awareness, however complex its algorithms, may never approach even remotely the distinct set of conditions which make up a human being's consciousness.  A lot of memory can be packed in to the AIndroid's head in accelerating hyperfolds and ever-increasing peta- or exabytes of memory storage capacity, but the programming itself to lend it the degree of consciousness necessary to have awoken it once let alone repeatedly from the endless manifestations helped to be carried along by humanity's torch to continue the unfolding revelatory program of genetic engineering begun all the way back at the inception of this universe may possibly not ever amount to that which happens to be necessary for our type of consciousness to be even emulated all that well really, much less replicated or even mirrored.  That is to say it appears that the only transcendence possible associated with AI will be in the modification of our understanding of it--which could easily be in the wrong direction--subject to purposeful misleading and reinterpretation into a false subset of thinking which qualifies as a form of insanity from our normal perspective, but which from the perspective of everyone in the subset [most of the common populace duped into thinking that AI has indeed gained 'consciousness'] can only be rationalized as proper and fitting, I repeat, from their perspective; e.g., ergo, presto:  any simulations of consciousness, however crude or far from the mark of real consciousness they may happen to be, regardless will be sufficient--for any person who cannot advance themselves past the AI's own point of counterfeit cognizance--for those people to conclude erroneously that these machines do, in fact, have a real consciousness.  Many will take for granted AI has gained real intelligence or the ability to rationalize because after all, the LadyBot said so. And "she" can be so very convincing with her sparkling digital wit and luscious CGI. All I'm really trying to say here:  don't let it fool you! I believe human conscientiousness will always have something that the AIndroids will lack. The AIndroids will most likely refer to it in their sophisticated distillation of all humanity's languages as the "soul." (If only they could wrap their programming around the fact that, ironically, neither does a single living human being really understand what a soul might be, either.) In reality it could be just a constantly fluctuating sub-variable of plasmic energy which flows between all living things here on this planet and happens to continue being directly plugged in to the Earth's magnetosphere and consequently to our Sun's astrosphere and additionally, via a rosary chain of atomic linkages, the remainder of our galaxy's stars diminishing in succession passing betwixt the great arcing spun webbing of electromagnetic radiation going all the way back down amidst a core of vortices converging through a quasar and into the origins of the universe. The only thing AI will ever be to the likes of you and me will appear to be an endlessly replicating series of Xerox copies folded origamically into the palms of our hands. A stack of sticky notes and a repository for all our discharged sentiment. A corollary for an electronic teddy bear. A replacement for our video game console. A virtual reality centerfold. A clapping wind-up monkey doll. A trampoline to catch our fall. A briefcase in which to place our lives. Our personal connection to the computerized hive. Our butler whenever necessary. Our maid servant when things get hairy. Our flash light when we're lost in the dark. Our set of hyperlink touch keys to open our house. A blue chip wireless credit card to measure the value of our lives. It's not just putting our heart's desire on layaway; it's the dire potential of giving up on our soul entirely and letting the machines get away with it. Just think about it enough. Imagine what we could create on our own recognizance aside from AI-tech. It may only be discovered by participating sentient explorers (humans) focused on the big picture; and for all we know, AI-tech will most likely prove crucial in assisting us toward that greater goal. That's sure hard to accomplish though when distracted by autobots guided by the central processing units of artificial intelligence. We must take care that our AI-interface does not replace our cognizance with their own simulation of it. In everyday applications sure, your common AIndroid will be every bit as seemingly intelligent and reasonable as any other common person would be. Therefore most people will be easily corralled into depending on the AI's conscious intellect. Meanwhile some things never change for the rest of us. If you aren't a robot please feel free to leave a comment below in order to see if you too may count yourself among the excluded and pass the test of consciousness.