Anna Ridler: ‘Let Me Dream Again’ (2019-2020)

 

Project brief here

Film here

Introduction

Artist Background + Process

Anna Ridler is a London-based artist and researcher whose work has been exhibited at institutions worldwide. Having earned the distinction of being one of the nine “pioneering artists” examining the intersection of art and AI by ArtNet, her work process involves the study and employment of emerging technologies and methods of measurement and their place in the world. In Let Me Dream Again, Ridler attempts the restoration of lost films using machine learning. The application of machine learning reflects her wide exploration of the profound capabilities of AI: where she had once used machine learning as a “disintegration loop,” to “destroy what there was until no meaning was left,” in Let Me Dream Again, she uses it to create what has disappeared, to fill in blank spaces.

Visual, Technical, Material Features

Let Me Dream Again is a series of experiments resulting in the creation of one ever-evolving GAN generated film. GANs, or generative adversarial networks, is a class of machine learning frameworks composed of two models (Generator and Discriminator) that check for patterns in data. The models “compete” with each other to replicate the patterns, generating new data that plausibly could’ve been drawn from the original input. GANs is powerful in generating images indistinguishable from the original visuals it was trained on or textual descriptions it received. While Ridler worked with lost films, these films were not altogether “lost;” fragments existed online. In one experiment, she utilized film of still images from found cinema clips (the original archival footage) as the backdrop, overlaying it with a reel of GAN generated film. The result is a film that intercuts the modern and the past, fact and fantasy, and pays homage to the original work while being wholly Ridler’s own.

Conceptual Background (Ridler’s inspirations, intentions, historical context).

Ridler noticed parallels between the early cinema of Hollywood and Western Europe and machine learning-generated imagery: both early auteurs and current artists working with machine learning had to invent and are honing new visual languages in a burgeoning, but still niche, field. Both strive to document and reflect on the world. Keeping with the fact that she had to fill in the gaps of missing film, Ridler used GANs to experiment with the space between and bring together reality and dreamworld.

The phenomenon imbued throughout ‘Let Me Dream Again’ is the act of dreaming. Dreams are often bizzare in that they are quasirealistic, sometimes only having a single thing “off” from reality. GANs have come to be called an algorithm that “dreams” or “hallucinates” based on how it tweaks real imagery. 

During the period that silent films were most popular, scientists discovered a man in Russia who had a perfect memory. Although this sounds as if this would be the perfect stop against this
decay and fragility, he was miserable .
so much information was overwhelming. Perhaps missing things should remain missing. Although the intention of these experiments were to try to recreate what was lost. Ultimately I feel they all fail in this regard: what comes out is clearly not a missing film. But I am happy with this outcome – something that is taking what has
gone but reworking and reconfiguring it to make new.

The Film

“Let Me Dream Again” shares its name with an early Victorian film that is “thought to be the first known instance of a dreamscape in cinema and a transition between dreams and reality.” 

 

Discussion: Findings + Connection to Creative Coding

What’s the significance of the work? What impact does/doesn’t it have?

Ridler’s own words are interesting. She concludes: “Perhaps missing things should remain missing. Although the intention of these experiments were to try to recreate what was lost. Ultimately I feel they all fail in this regard: what comes out is clearly not a missing film. But I am happy with this outcome–something that is taking what has gone but reworking and reconfiguring it to make it new.”

I don’t really know anything about film archival, but my first impression was that GANs might provide a unique opportunity to truly bring back/add to things that are lost, which I assume is what Ridler is striving to do. Watching the film though, I realized it is bizarre and somewhat eerie. I don’t know if GANs potential lies in serious archival, but more likely what Ridler suggests, which is repurposing. I would like to know which fragments of lost film(s) she used, if they were ever named, and where she sourced them from.

What are the connections with the concepts we are learning in CCLab?

We haven’t really talked about machine learning much, but creative coders can utilize it. What Ridler has created here in her exploration of dream vs reality and past vs present, also can let us further explore the boundary between human (director, film editor, programmer) and computer. 

What does the work inspire you to do next

I’m interested in the way she used machine learning to generate a narrative.  One of the ideas I had early on was to incorporate one of Sylvia Plath’s quotes from The Bell Jar, which has very evocative language. 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

 

References

I saw my life branching out before me…… quote by “Sylvia Plath”: What should I read next? What Should I Read Next? Book recommendations from readers like you. (n.d.). https://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/quotes/sylvia-plath-i-saw-my-life-branching.

 

British Film Institute. (n.d.-a). let me dream again. BFI Player. https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-let-me-dream-again-1900-online.