User:Tennis12000/Kyle McDonald (artist)

By Line: Kyle McDonald, Los Angles California

Introduction:

Kyle McDonald is not your typical artist where one simply uses a paint brush and a canvas. He is a media artist, who creates visually appealing models using code and tool kits for other artists, in order to customize their own art as they see fit. McDonald has a passion for exploring the never ending space in the digital world, as he is constantly seeking insight on new technologies and understanding how communication today with others is being affected. He was recently an adjunct professor at NYU ITP, a member of F.A.T. Lab (Free Art and Technology), and a community manager for OpenFrameworks. Not only this, but many of McDonald's work and contributions are known on the international level, such as Japan, France, Greece, the UK, and many more.

Nut Graph:

Exploring the world of art through the use of software has opened up numerous ways on changing the way we perceive as well as develop future technologies. Some of the work/research Kyle McDonald has done in particular, are being able to identify whether an AI image is fake called "Generative adversarial network"(GANs). They essentially take data into a neural network, and it is "trained" to produce the best possible image. While most images generated by these types of networks have become increasingly harder to tell a difference, they are not perfect. For example, GAN's have a tough time with background images because the data is being trained too focused on the face itself and as a result produces a random one.

Another interesting aspect of how our world has changed today is through our style of communication. There are people, who enjoy more face to face interaction, while others enjoy texting. While it may seem more convenient, text message can be intercepted and changed to disrupt the communication between people, leaving them confused. As part of his work/research, Kyle McDonald and another artist named Lauren McCarthy, worked on a project on what was called MWITM(Man/Woman in the middle). Essentially, there was a server that would intercept the message, and two chat bots, one for each artist, would communicate automatically without any direct messaging. The messages created were based on the communication style of the users, which one can imagine in the beginning, the conversations were pretty off. Over time however, the conversation made more sense as the chat bots were being trained, like in a neural network, to understand and interpret human thought. It is very interesting indeed, how we have the resources to make technology as "smart" as we want, and yet it is not nearly as powerful and dynamic as the human mind.