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AI voice models for deceased artists.

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INCLUDES FREE VIRTUAL ITEM

roblox is a very interesting game that I have yet to explore. The experience can be so different from person to person. Anything seems possible on that game from minecraft like mini games to role playing as nazis. The cults it creates reference to this idea of virtual spiritualism. An outlet for our generation that reveals the struggle young people are facing which materialises in our memes, our games and the virtual characters we become.

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https://kingstonuniversity-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/k2231873_kingston_ac_uk/ET6Du0Zgh2hAmlVdmEYx814Bz6DKsE0IfkuRXFk-KKc4RQ?email=D.Johnson%40kingston.ac.uk&e=Tngl31

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Please introduce your chosen subject area. What interests you as potential starting points or areas of research? What influenced this choice?

I am interested in the idea of virtual communities and rituals as a way for people to communicate and connect across continents and past language barriers. A major contributor to this is the internet, video games, social media platforms and virtual reality. Communities on platforms such as reddit, twitch and discord can communicate their shared interests through visual imagery. Interactive virtual worlds on games such as Minecraft and VR allow greater physical presence. We are at a point in history where it is estimated that just under half of the global population play video games. The recent pandemic has left more people open to and appreciative of embodied digital experiences and we are now living in a world where tech corporations are eager to bring the next predicted phase of the internet, the Metaverse, into existence. Interrogating and understanding these sites of shared cultural heritage is not just fascinating but essential.

Even if digital spaces are seemingly ephemeral, they are still real. These are spaces where we have lived. And how have they affected us? The inner workings of the subconscious are a product of one's environment. Although I do not know enough about it yet. Rituals - series of actions - are one way you can connect to your environment (and this is a product of magic. Magic being defined as ‘a purposeful engagement with the phenomena and possibilities of consciousness.’) I have referenced cooking as a personal ritual practice and would like to explore other peoples, as well as more stereotypical ritual practices that link to mysticism and spirituality.

Being able to emotionally connect to people or places virtually is a ritual practice and has negative impacts, for sure, on one's mental health and cognitive development but there are also, a lot of positives. I have noticed Virtual communities imitate society, reflecting real life characters and ideologies. When tasked to complete a video game, hundreds of thousands of people had to work together remotely to advance in it. Good and bad characters emerged. Similarly in R/place communities had to work together to form images by individually placing pixels. Wars began when the whole board was covered. But, in both examples, communities made up of people from around the world were able to communicate and create something spectacular.

As a user of generated worlds in video games and escapist online communities I became interested in these phenomena. Researching into how it allows you to connect with others, and how this virtual environment challenges our conception of space and how we interact with it. Alongside this, these online social rituals influence how we interact with people in real life. How is the mind subconsciously affected by being constantly online, a new phenomenon that did not affect our parents' generation.

I can cross reference this with other ways our subconscious interacts with our environment and different present and historical views on consciousness. E.g., the shamans, the occult, mysticism and bohemianism, integral to the lifestyle my dad grew up which has subsequentally effected mine.

This is influenced by an immense interest in why I am captivated by certain aspects of Japanese culture. Influenced by my exposure to Japanese culture from an early age, e.g., through Studio Ghibli and Nintendo. I am interested in Japan's religious connection to nature and the spirit world (kami), that is referenced subtly in its media outlet - games, anime, music, documentaries, and food etc. One way I love learning about the culture is through online communities. Specifically, foreigners who moved to Japan for distinct reasons and document their day-to-day life, generating a community around it. For example, I love learning how to cook authentic Japanese dishes as I gain nuanced understanding of the culture from subtle changes in technique. For example, the way you chop vegetables and prepare stock has taught me about the history and culture.

Please contextually reference your subject matter. What art, design, cultural, historic references can you look at to gain insight? Describe them and why they are relevant.

As I begin to understand the behavioral patterns of users in more permanent virtual worlds - video games - as well as the multi functionality coded into these landscapes I have been looking at: Video game atlas - Mapping interactive worlds book, by Luke Caspar Pearson and Youkhana. This book maps the synthetic environments in video games, how they challenge us conception of space and how we interact with it. Certain aspects of spatial design have been challenged by the rising prevalence of video games making them the ideal settings for the act of speculation. Each video game world imperfectly reflects the 'physical' world that surrounds us. In giving ourselves permission to take these spaces of play seriously, and to study them in depth, we can understand and re-imagine the 'real' world in new and diverse ways.

Technology in ‘real’ settings can also change how we communicate with others and the environment.

An example of this: Listen to This Space' are compositions you can listen to by the river Thames in Radnor Gardens, produced by someone in the community gardens, using sound recordings made on location. This offers people the chance to hear an unfamiliar perspective of space, creating an exchange with the local community and an insight into how the environment has changed from when it was first recorded. For some who use this space every day it interrupts their daily routine, giving them the opportunity to engage with their surroundings. Allowing people to communicate with a more personal voice shows how virtual communication can be positively harnessed. People across the world can connect with people that share their niche interests and have the capability to collaborate as easily as they would if they were in the same room.

London designer Arthur Carabott has worked with composer Anna Meredith to create an augmented reality app that immerses listeners in a piece of music. Called Moonmoons AR, the application allows users to place six virtual speakers anywhere in their surrounding environment. Meredith's song, also named Moonmoons, is then played by the app with each instrument – from the bass to the cello – played through a different one of these speakers. By physically moving between the different sound sources, users can craft their own personal "aural experience", changing the direction from which they hear the instrument and its volume – the closer they get, the louder it will be. This effect is called spatial audio, which Carabott explains is "a bit like virtual reality for the ears". Further giving the user the ability to personalize a virtual connection.

To gain an understanding of the negative effects of the internet existence, I will highlight the difference between positive use and harmful use. Post-Internet Cities introduces the idea that the internet has, since its cultural inception, been conceived of as an emancipatory technology. Conversely, the "accidents” of the internet—surveillance, fake news, the propagation of ideological evil, doxing, etc.—forces us to critically call into question the value of this emancipation; for who, and at what cost? The glut of information has generated intense competition for people's attention. Psychologist Herbert A. Simon noted, “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. ” One of the first consequences of the so-called attention economy is the loss of high-quality information.

Search engines and social media platforms provide personalized recommendations based on the vast amounts of data they have about users' past preferences. They prioritize information in our feeds that we are most likely to agree with—no matter how fringe—and shield us from information that might change our minds. Advertising, like this, is the most blatant form of bad magic being practiced in the world today. Its practice progresses in leaps and bounds, while our human neurology and our capacity to deal with these techniques progresses at a much more leisurely crawl, impacting your subconscious.

Alan Moore's From Hell details Nicholas Hawksmoor's' use of dark cathedrals in Spitalfields showing the way your environment can subconsciously affect you. They feature obelisks in place of steeples, pyramids for towers, imitation sacrificial altars instead of arches. A rich language of symbols that seem to contradict, even mock, the architectural vocabulary of Christian churches. He relayed his oppressive a-genders that he had been working on through Architecture and succeeded in casting a shadow on all the surrounding streets as well as the people who live/d there. This is an interesting reference as it analyses the capability the buildings around us have of completely dictating our psychologies. The landscape we exist in we internalize. If you are living in a place that appears to be a rat trap, inevitably you are going to think that you are some sort of rat.

How does this subject relate to the bigger picture of your own areas of expertise? Have you explored similar concepts before? Talk about a project(s) you have done in specialism that is relevant either conceptually or technically. Which mediums, techniques, materials that you have mastered on the course so far could you utilize in your FMP?

Space and how people interact with it has been something I have enjoyed exploring on multiple occasions. How the subconscious reacts to the environment and how you can subtly alter people's experiences through design. Mapping human behavior and finding commonalities tells you about the human psyche.

In a project about craft, I interrogated what it means to have complete control over one's environment in a public space. Looking at places of refuge within urban and natural settings I understood the level of self-control required to feel safe. Referencing the internet and ideas of imposed algorithms on search engines, stripping away liberty from the user, led me to design an interactive frame that would give solace to someone that has been separated and feels isolated from their environment. Without instruction, they would stumble across this and choose to interact with it. The aperture left behind by the previous person would give them an insight into what they were viewing, connecting them via nonverbal communication.

Alongside the use of traditional craft techniques employed in that project, I have also learnt a great amount about processing unrefined materials into something useful. I can process raw wool into felt and yarn using hand tools: carders, a spindle, a Diz. I can utilize how these processes become rituals for people and communities and how they link us to the past. Also, how these unrefined materials feel spiritual, powerful, and positive.

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Twitch plays Pokemon: an unintended communal explosion that started from one person coding a game experience that allowed an infinite number of people to control what happens in a video game using the streaming platform chat. The game chosen was Pokemon. A cultural phenomena occurred.

I like this because it demonstrates on a simple level what an online community is capable of achieving and created a mini insight in the human psyche when tasked with something only capable of achieving if worked through together. A mini virtual lifetime occurred within the space of a month as the game progressed.

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Exploring a space so familiar to my dad and so new to me. He grew up in Twickenham so Bushy Park, Richmond park and Hampton Court and the Thames toe paths are among places he spent most of his childhood. Explaining the gentrification of the area and yet showing me hidden spots that remain bubbles of past beauty was incredible. We stopped off at the white swan pub by the riverside. He told me how he was once pushed as a baby in a tram down the cobbled lanes.

I had not been around this area once before. Exploring Bushy park and making my own memories after coming to Kingston allows me to connect in a new way with my Dad. Imagining how he would have interacted with the space.

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The 2017 experiment involved an online canvas located at a subreddit called r/place. Registered users could edit the canvas by changing the color of a single pixel with a replacement from a 16-color palette. After each pixel was placed, a timer prevented the user from placing any more pixels for a period of time varying from 5 to 20 minutes.

It was ended by Reddit administrators about 72 hours after its creation, on 3 April 2017. Over 1 million users edited the canvas, placing a total of approximately 16 million pixels, and, at the time the experiment was ended, over 90,000 users were actively viewing or editing the canvas. The experiment was commended for its representation of the culture of Reddit's online communities, and of Internet culture as a whole.

On 1 April 2022, Reddit began a reboot of the experiment that lasted for four days.

Online communities came together to fight for a space on this board that would a become a permanent residant after the site was locked. It acts as a physical memory of the international diaspora of culture that existed at that time. Something that cannot be shown in any other way. It also acted as a way for communites to interact that would otherwise never, and crossed language barriers as it was purely visual.

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The Crows caw. Communicating through a large range of sound and movement. The film 'Kiki's delivery service' beautifully conveys the mysterious and sublime nature of these creatures, their intense loyalty and intelligence.

I find the sound relaxing because it is reminicent of the rawness and magic in nature. I am interested in the stereotypical link to witchcraft and the symbol that the crow has in mythology.

Crows are often associated with death and considered messengers from the other side. Crows are considered an intermediary between this world and the spirit world.

But death doesn't have to be scary: Crows can be an omen of change. Change always asks for the death of something and a rebirth of something new.

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Abandoned tunnel in Japan becomes revitalised. The “Light Cave” where a shallow pool of water gently ripples with the breeze of the wind. The views of the surrounding landscape reflected from the cave’s semi-polished stainless steel lining are cast onto the water, creating an infinite illusion of nature. Lightness and stillness sit within a once dark, dewy tunnel evoking a feeling of eternal solitude.

The view of the landscape is constantly changing through the water ripples. The person becomes enveloped in the space.

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Abandoned tunnels in Japan are where most spirits reside. Belief about spirits hiding everywhere is less common in the modern age. Referenced in popular culture like Mob Psycho and Spirited away. Similar to Western Fairy tales like Alice and Wonderland. Tunnels, bridges, mountains, and crossroads are often viewed as gateways between this world and the spirit realm.

Travelling through tunnels can lead people into another world. The tunnel serves as the gateway between the human world and that of the spirits

Gateways to other universes and parallel timezones

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Underground pipes. A compex system running underneath everyones feet. It feels infinite, the way the pipes stretch across kilometers. If one part is damaged, it affects the whole system. Like a heart and its veins and arterys. The idea of being alone amongst the pipes and hearing the liquid pass through makes you feel powerful.

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Pictures of underground derelict mineshafts. There is a majestic wonder in how these spaces were created.

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One of the earliest forms of Chinese writing is preserved in the simple inscriptions on bronze vessels. Shang inscriptions tend to be highy pictographic, many resembling birds, weapons, or humanoid figures.

Having struggled with words and gravitated towards images my whole life, I find symbols instead of alphabet easier to digest. Looking into the history of the british language, Runes were used to write various Germanic alphabets but represented concepts after which they were named ideoographs.

I am interested in the history of language and how it has evolved and how pictograph is still used in language today. For example pictograph Kanji.

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A haunting image of a shop that burnt down in my local area. This key merchant had been in Palace since before I was born and had been wiped out in the space of an hour. Affecting only this building, it now stands isolated on the street acting like a looking glass into devastation.

I am compelled by peoples interaction to this space. Pausing, looking in, taking photos or ignoring completely. Looking glass into devastation. Wonders of what happens next and how long it will remain dormant.

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The ancient body map shows the hundreds of energy points running through the human body. The chakras are conceived of as focal points where psychic forces and bodily functions merge with and interact with each other. They are part of the “subtle body”, which is the mental and “non-physical” portion of the human body.

I am interested in internal powers, magic: as any purposeful engagement with the phenomena and possibilities of consciousness including most thinking. Originally we would have had an awareness like most animals which is very different from modern consciousness. It was the first time we had voices and images in our head. Before the theory of consciousness they were thought to have come from the Gods

The first apprehension of consciousness is what plunged us into magic.

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A sample of occult symbols.

The occult; a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism and their varied spells. It can also refer to supernatural ideas like extra-sensory perception and parapsychology which is not what I am referring to.

There is considerable evidence for occult practices having occurred in London in ancient times: beeswax effigies, thought to be five thousand years old, have been found in the Thames, representing man’s attempt at harnessing occult powers via shamanism.

The idea that the iconography that surrounds us in our landscape is deeply imbued with occult traditions questions whether magic and mysticism is still relevant today. The answer is yes. The occult offered access to the internal world. Advertising is one of the more potent forms of magic in the modern world, affecting our subconsious in ways we still don't understand.

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Laputa is a flying island described in the 1726 book Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. It is about 7 kilometres in diameter, with an adamantine base, which its inhabitants can manoeuvre in any direction using magnetic levitation. The island is the home of the king of Balnibarbi and his court, and is used by the king to enforce his rule over the lands below.

Castle in the Sky has had a strong impact on Japanese popular culture, with the "Laputa Effect" comparable to "a modern day monomyth for Japanese genre films and media." It was instrumental in the steampunk genre.

what does someone else’s ‘castle’ look like