The heart of Alita
Visual Authorship and Space
For Visual Authorship and Space project I chose Alita: Battle angel and I Robot films. On the right of this page I will put all reference pictures, on the left all the progress and in the middle all supportive texts.
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So Alita is a recreated robot who was found on city damp by robotic technician whom later she called a father. All is happening in "future" city where people and robots coexist BUT even if the story line and characters are far away from nowadays reality emotions and problems shown are old as world. Alita blindly falls in love with human, and mostly touching scene in my opinion is when she offers him her heart, which in words of a robotics technician who recreated her, can power the whole city for long period of time and is a lost technology. Alita does it as an act of care to a man whom she felt in love with, she sincerely wishes to help him to achieve his dreams and offers the only valuable and absolutely unique thing she has, having no idea who actually is her chosen. After same as in tough real life reality nothing good happens and a man dies despite all Alitas tries to help him. Although film is a science fiction, nowadays thousands of women around the world sacrifice themselves for the idea to be appreciated by their chosen ones, and face very similar situations in life. So I would like to represent this particular bit of a film in my illustration.
The Big Eyes (or research material)
Apart of big eyed Alita I watched film named The Big Eyes about an artist Margaret Keane whos technics reminded me my own interest. Margaret was painting women and children with unproportionally big eyes, as she explained in the film eyes are a mirror of a soul, meaning it reflect the inner world of a person drawn. Dramatically Margaret was manipulated by her husband to sell her artworks using his name and introduse it as his work not her own.
I Robot
I, Robot (2004) Is another science fiction about humanity in 2035, when people have robots to assist them with everyday tasks, but one was made to be different. All robots are operated by artificiial intelligence VIKY but only one robot who calls himself Sonny can ignore her commands, he can learn, have emotions and see dreams but on top he can wink, and exactly that I would like to highlight in my illustration. Exactly winking separated Sonny from thousands of other robots so he showed that he can make decissions not as a robot but as a person following his logic not three rules all robots follow.
The new Picasso? Meet Ai-Da the robot artist
FALMOUTH, England: Can robots be creative? British gallery owner Aidan Meller hopes to go some way toward answering that question with Ai-Da, who her makers say will be able to draw people from sight with a pencil in her bionic hand.
Meller is overseeing the final stages of her construction by engineers at Cornwall-based Engineered Arts.
He calls Ai-Da — named after British mathematician and computer pioneer Ada Lovelace — the world’s first “AI ultra-realistic robot artist,” and his ambition is for her to perform like her human equivalents.
“She’s going to actually be drawing and we’re hoping to then build technology for her to paint,” Meller said after seeing Ai-Da’s prosthetic head being carefully brought to life by specialists individually attaching hairs to form her eyebrows.
“But also as a performance artist she’ll be able to engage with audiences and actually get messages across; asking those questions about technology today.”
Her skeletal robotic head may stand disembodied on a workbench, but her movements are very much alive.
Cameras in each of her eyeballs recognize human features — she will make eye contact and follow you around the room, opening and closing her mouth as you do. Get too close and she’ll back away, blinking, as if in shock.
Ai-Da’s makers say she will have a “RoboThespian” body with expressive movements and she will talk and answer questions.
“There’s AI (artificial intelligence) running in the computer vision that allows the robot to track faces to recognize facial features and to mimic your expression,” said Marcus Hold, Design & Production Engineer at Engineered Arts.
Ai-Da’s makers are using “Mesmer” life-like robot technology for her head, and once finished she will have a mixed race appearance with long dark hair, silicone skin and 3D printed teeth and gums.
“(Mesmer) brings together the development of software mechanics and electronics to produce a lifelike face with lifelike gestures in a small human sized package,” Hold said.
Ai-Da will present her inaugural exhibition “Unsecured Futures” in May at the University of Oxford, and her sketches will go on display in London in November.