MORF Gallery presents The Future of Re-Imagination at the SingularityU Greece Summit

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Now on to our next speaker. What lies at the  intersection of fine art and cutting-edge   technology? As CEO of MORF Gallery Scott Birnbaum  works with an award-winning team of artists   that bridge these two disparate worlds  to create highly collectible fine art.   He was at the forefront of many industry mega  trends, including the vidification of devices,   making the moviegoing experience  more accessible by bringing it to   homes and pockets everywhere and enabling  televisions that double as art galleries.   Let's welcome Scott who will be talking  about re-imagination onto our virtual stage.

Thank you very much everyone and welcome to  the 'Art of Re-Imagination'. Together we'll   be peering through a window exploring  the journey of five artists that ponder   the question what if. We'll explore how  technology impacts the creative process   and how these artists are  creating the next breed of art This new breed of art requires a new  kind of gallery. Hi I'm Scott Birnbaum  

and CEO and co-founder of MORF Gallery a  Silicon Valley tech startup that's infused   with the excitement of Hollywood. MORF  offers fine art by award-winning artists   that push the bounds of creativity. We customize  solutions for our meticulously curated artists   pushing their dreams even further  with technologies like the ArtStick™. We'll explore exponential technologies and how  this is extending creativity. We will look at   the areas of robotics neuroscience  and artificial intelligence.

Our journey starts here. We'll look  at how robots have become creative,   how paintings have come to life, how art that's  been lost to the ages is being resurrected,   and how artwork can be teeming with  artificial life that you can interact with,   and you'll see photos that can dream and dream  again. Welcome to the art of re-imagination. Id like to introduce you to Jerry Saltz. Jerry is   a Pulitzer prize-winning art critic for  New York magazine let's hear from Jerry. I'm looking for humanity here, dignity,   originality something, something  that's what we're looking for.

On this episode of HBO’s Vice News Tonight Jerry  was asked to give his critical feedback on AI   generated art. Jerry was getting more and  more frustrated as he looked at some the   most recognizable AI generated art saying  things like, "derivative, seen this before,   no imagination, looks like it's  been created by a machine".   That's until he saw the art of our first  artist on our journey Pindar Van Arman. As we start our journey, Pindar asked the  question what if what if a robot could paint   with the free spirit of a child. He started  on a 15-year mission to actually have robots  

that can have the ability to have some sense of  creativity themselves and his art has won him   Robot Artist of the Year in 2018. And his  vision has taken his art even further.   The video that you just saw with the artwork  that was painted by one of his robots,   utilizes a camera the camera stops at each  brushstroke, allowing the robot to decide what art   should be, what brushstroke should be chosen next.  Just like the inner struggle that an artist has   when he is or she is looking at what their next  brush stroke should be and is going through all   the emotions, the creativity process. Pindar's  robots are doing that. His journey took him from   originally just having a printer that  could allow the technology to be able to   take over mundane tasks things like background  and things like proportion and moved it into   a realm of creativity. Pindar's taken his art  even further entering the NFT market which is  

now more than 10 billion dollars in third quarter  of this year alone. Pindar asked the question what   if AI could create lovable animated collectible  characters and his are some of the most collected   characters in the NFT world. His bitGANs are  where ai meets 8-bit so you could think a   space invaders character meeting the most complex  AI algorithms to create these lovable bitGANs   and Pindar is really at the  forefront of the NFT trend today. Our next artist grew up in a family  of painters growing up in Hawaii   and he asked the question what if a painting  could move. What if a physical canvas painting  

had the ability to have movement.  I'm very proud of our next artist   Steve Matson who's also a co-founder of  MORF gallery and a good friend of mine   this journey took him 30 years and actually  brought him to Hollywood. I want to reveal some   of Steve's secrets on how he creates his art.  A painting for Steve could take eight to ten  

months. It's actually a moving artwork that's made  up of more than ten thousand individual artworks.   He starts off with a very traditional process  where he's using paint on canvas and creates   a storyboard for what his artwork would look like  over this journey. Then he adds on cinematography,   visual effects, digital painting, animation and  sound and what you see is just simply incredible.   Steve's 30-year journey took him to Hollywood  where he was a part of the crew that put together   the Academy Award-Winning 'Life of Pie' and he's  been on such iconic films like 'Star Wars' and   this has enabled him to learn technology and  processes that can make his paintings come to life If you can think for a moment how many  works of art have been lost to the ages,   incredible masterpieces. If you tried to collect  all of those and bring them back, they would fill   all of the world's museums combined. So, this  next artist which is actually two researchers   from the university of Central London PhD  candidates asked the question what if this   lost artwork could be resurrected with artificial  intelligence. Their exploration of this activity  

has won them the CogX 2021 Best Innovation in  Creative Arts. Let's explore their technologies   and what they've been able to do to bring  back some of the world's lost masterpieces. The process is a is part of a white paper that  this team created and what they did was they   started with a known painting. In this case it's  Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna of the Carnation'.   By starting with a known painting and then  taking away all the elements from the artist   with the exception of a sketch of what that  image looked like. They wanted to see if AI   could actually reproduce this painting not knowing  what this painting looked like. When they stripped   out the color the style the texture they were left  with the image on the right. Then using machine  

learning data from all of da Vinci's other works  that were fed into a training model and then using   edge detection. Because they knew what the image  had looked like they were able to create this   using their ai models. If you look at this,  it brought back the color the style of a true   da Vinci and this paper was published. If  you notice the image to the right which was  

created not knowing what the image on the left  look like, at least the algorithms did not,   brought back da Vinci's "Madonna of the  Carnation". You will see some slight differences   like the button is a gold color versus a black on  the left and the baby has a little bit more hair   but it's an amazing recreation. So now  knowing that their theory does work,   they wanted to take this to the next level  and look for a lost artwork. This image that   you're seeing on the left-hand side is  actually a painting that's in the Tate   in London. It's Modigliani's "Portrait of a Girl",  a very famous artwork by this painter. Using the   process that I described earlier and using an  x-ray they discovered that there was a painting   underneath the painting. This is called a  pedimento, meaning an image under another image.  

Using this AI training model and other works  from Modigliani and edge detection, the area   on the right you could see the ghostly image was  recreated onto canvas as lost Beatrice Hastings. This video that we'll show next is showing the  recreation process so we start off with the actual   painting, go through x-ray then create the outline  of the image that was underneath the painting.   Then using the AI algorithms to be able to   look at Modigliani's other works, this artwork  was actually brought back. But this was taken   much farther than the white paper. This was  taking not only flat images that would be   created from these AI models but three-dimensional  height maps were created with new patent-pending   technologies to be able to produce this onto  canvas using 3d printers. And MORF gallery  

added an additional patent-pending process  that allows this painting to be protected   from fraud. So, the combination of these  technologies as well as this machine learning   process and AI is now opening the floodgate  to recreating the lost artworks of the world. Our next artist on our journey is Daniel Ambrosi.  Daniel asked the question what if. What if a   photograph could dream? Daniel takes hundreds  of photographs of iconic landscapes from around   the world and then stitches them together. In  cases like this there's more than 80 individual   photographs that are stitched together to create  this actual landscape. This high-resolution image   is combined with artificial intelligence and  using algorithms that were created specifically   for Daniel's work with an engineer from google  and one from Nvidia, a Dreamscape was created.  

So, if you look inside of the artwork and you  drill down even further when you zoom in, you'll   see incredible detail that wasn't in the original  images. This Dreamscape is contextually aware   it knows where the rocks are, where the river  is, where the trees are, where the lights are,   where people are and create this incredible  Dreamscape image. But Daniel didn't stop there.   Daniel asked what if again and he asked what if  a painting could dream. So he took those photos  

used the dreamscape process and then dreamed on  it another time and created an abstract dream.   A Chihuly glass style type of art that was  recognized and was shown as one of the new   advancements in artificial intelligence at a  recent Nvidia global technology conference. Our next artist is a pretty incredible person  Kevin Mack uses neuroscience and the 'theory of   awe' . He was inspired by his childhood visions  and he wanted to be able to share these with the   world and the technologies didn't exist. He waited  and utilized new technologies and neuroscience  

to bring his art to life and his  artificial life to visitors as they explore   and 'Anandala'. We're going to play a video and  let you listen to Kevin as he explains his 2021   Venice Biennale Finalist. Anandala is  a virtual and abstract art installation   unconstrained by the limits of reality. Visitors  explore a complex connected labyrinth through   personal flight. It is designed to inspire awe,  engage the imagination, and enhance well-being  

through shape color motion  sound and spatial presence.   Anandala is inhabited by artificial life entities  called blorts each shape-shifting blort is unique   and has complex emergent behavior. Blorts  express themselves and interact with visitors   and each other through their movement changing  color textures and their own musical language. Kevin is an academy award winner for best visual  effects for the movie "What Dreams May Come" in   1999. He was made an honorary neuroscientist  by UCLA Geffen School of Medicine in 2006.   In the film that you just saw which is an  interactive virtual reality experience where   individuals can interact with artificial life  was awarded the Biennale Finalist 2021 in Venice. Our last artist on our journey Kevin Mack   is a great example of how technology can  provide an endless palette of possibilities   that allowed Kevin to dissolve the traditional  boundaries of medium process style and genre.

But not just these five artists  are asking the question what if.   One of MORF gallery's co-founders Nic Donel asked  the same question to try to solve digital arts   biggest challenges. What if a single device  could protect store and play digital art   and add new work works at any  time so he created the ArtStick™ This is simple plug and play device that will  MORF any television set into a fine art gallery.   Your entire art collection could be put onto  a single ArtStick™ adding new pieces at any   time. And it's not just used for art within homes  MORF is working with a company called Aesthetic   and is using MORF Gallery ArtStick™  technology in Rejuvenation Stations   in some of the busiest emergency departments  in the country allowing doctors nurses and   health care workers to take a few moments out of  their day to relax, unwind, reduce their stress,   reduce their blood pressure and enable them to go  back to being the world's heroes. It's a pretty   amazing technology that's it has far-reaching  examples of where this technology can help.

So, the future is pretty incredible and we  can't leave the future without talking about   the Metaverse. Be anywhere, anytime, do anything  with anyone. The experiences that you'll have   are going to be amazing. Digital twins are  being created around the globe including a   digital twin of earth which was just announced at  Nvidia's conference by their CEO which is going to   help model and help the world look for solutions  on climate change. The metaverse is going to be  

more than just a place to explore and have fun  but it's going to solve the world's problems. I wanted to leave you with a really interesting  experiment and getting you to re-imagine the   next piece of art. If you could close your eyes  and imagine the most spectacular painting that   you've never seen. And then realize that you're  the artist that you've created this yourself,  

even if you don't have artistic talent, you  don't have fine motor skills or you may not   even have the technological background of  some of the artists that we went on our   journey with today. Tomorrow's preference  engines are going to enable you to create   and enjoy the next masterpiece just like  Netflix today is enabling you to see a movie   or a show that you may not know about  by picking one that you would enjoy,   preference engines will help you select  art in the future and maybe even create it. During our journey, we explored how  technology enabled the creative process. We talked about how Pindar Van Armen enabled  robots to become a bit more creative.   How Steve Matson was able to transform canvases  into moving paintings and how Oxia Palus opened   gateways to resurrect the world's lost art.  Daniel Ambrosi created photos that could dream   and Kevin Mack use neuroscience to create  interactive artificial life experiences so   if you're an inspiring artist, a researcher,  a technologist, or fine art collector, or   maybe even a tech startup investor, MORF Gallery  would love to work with you. So, now you have the  

opportunity to re-imagine yourself and ask what if  and together we could turn that into what's next. Scott, thank you so much for being with us  today and thank you so much for being with me   a few days ago in Cincinnati Your presentation  is mind-blowing as always. Thank you so much   don't go stay because we're going  to have a fireside chat later.

2021-12-02

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