ArtInspired :: In Search of the Essence

My search for what might be the essence of a subject or landscape bought me to  investigating google’s Deep Dream (aka Inceptionism) This is a fascinating bit of serendipity, some google researcher investigating how neural nets might learn to recognised objects in computer images were looking for ways to visual the way neural networks learn when they showed what was happening in the layers of the network starting with a base random noise image. The results are surprising, they include the embedded echos of things that are significant as the neural networks progressively classifies what is important in discovering the subject’s essence. These have variously been described as trippy and surreal dreanmimages (see the many echos of eye’s in the “Extra Trippy” version of my self-portrait on the right).The researchers have even publicly shared the code to do it, but for the less geeky of us I found a truly amazing website/service to help create this deep dream style of image called dreamscope.com. (its also available as an iPhone app)