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A sound piece with captions depicting the roses at my allotment.
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sniff kiss
On Process & Algorithms
[Image Description: A photorealistic AI generated image of a French press filled with steaming coffee sitting on the counter of an English traditional style kitchen.]
Before embarking on this residency, I have been thinking a lot about the idea of ‘process.’
During lockdown, repeat processes and set routines kept me grounded. I particularly think back to buying a coffee machine. You know, the ones where you buy the fancy-looking pods, pop them in the machine, press a button and watch your espresso be poured for you at the perfect temperature. There was something so unappealing about this. I was craving a deeper connection between the process and output of my morning coffee.
Now, in 2024, the coffee machine gathers dust while I use a simple French press instead. I enjoy grounding the beans to my liking, scooping the grounds into the press, filling it up with hot water, waiting a while, pushing the plunger down and finally pouring my coffee into a mug.
Perhaps this all sounds silly, but I learned a lot from reintroducing ‘process’ into my coffee routine. It’s for this reason that I’ve previously been a bit apprehensive about using artificial intelligence in my creative practice. The idea of it felt like I was once again removing the process of making art.
Now on this residency, I feel quite differently. I’m excited to explore the ways I can use AI within my process. I predict that I’ll use AI during the research and the early visualisation stages of my projects and then take that inspiration into the 3D production work that I’ve been developing over the last few months. However, I’m also happy for any of these predictions to change.
Anyway, the initial image on this post is one of my first attempts at using Midjourney, a generative AI tool. It did a really good job, but there are a few mistakes if you look more closely. The actual plunger used to press the coffee grounds to the bottom is nowhere to be seen. Also, you can see quite a lot of liquid coffee at the top. These mistakes are really exciting because it means it is my job as an artist to figure out solutions to these errors..or even exploit the errors for creative purposes.
[Image Description: A photorealistic AI generated image of a Black woman with dreadlocks pouring coffee from the French press into her cup in front of an old kitchen table.]
The next image I have included here is me trying to recreate my mornings with my French press using Midjourney. This is the prompt I used to generate the image:
“a photorealistic image of a Black woman with dreadlocks pouring coffee from a French press into a mug in a traditional British kitchen“
What I notice in these images (and the many others I tried to create) is that the algorithms do not understand how we as humans pour coffee from French presses into mugs. In the above photo, the person is pouring from a French press into a mug from a strange angle. They also hold a random unidentified object in their other hand. I tried to fix the issue with further prompts, but I think it will take more time for me to get it right.
The last thing I’ll add is that the image descriptions used in this post were supported by AI, but I’ll go into more detail on that in another post.
This is all part of the fun and I’m excited to see what will come of these AI experiments.
Some recent roses…
Over the past two weeks the rose garden has begun erupting into bloom. Now in its second year of growth (third year in design build), things are starting to knit together. The herbaceous perennials that i’ve incorporated into the design as supporting acts for the roses are emerging into their first year of growth; alliums, geums, alchemilla mollis, red campion, cuckoo flower, geranium dusky crug. There are probably too many roses. Even in just its second year of growth, I can already see that i’ve over planted and some of them are taking up way more room than i had anticipated. Some of the central allium clumps are completely swamped by the roses, particularly with the roses that i’ve struggled to support and are now growing much more horizontally than intended. I think i perhaps could have cut the numbers by half, but what a challenge that would have been… i don’t think i could have hampered my desires for these particular plants in what has been my first large scale design project. Perhaps it’s a bit like how people describe an author’s debut novel, the writer gets a bit carried away and wants to put everything in it. The eternal struggle of the edit.
It’s so interesting how needed the herbaceous perennials are in design. Without them, the roses are all orgasms, just these big shouts of shape and colour that leave little room for a crescendo or a breath. They are the crashing symbol, the exploding rocket, and they need other plants to buffer how loud that can be in design. The alliums in particular have been a really important way of capturing rhythm in the scheme, using them repetitively across the design that allows them to ripple in consistency amongst the changing shapes and colours of the roses. I’m already finding myself taking some of it out. The pulmonaria i planted last year are the most intense shade of powder-paint blue, so striking in late winter and early spring. But they simply don’t fit in with the colours im working with; a bruising blush of burgundy, deep purples, reds, pinks, faun-browns, pale yellows and dusky, sunset oranges. I always imagine that those uninterested in a colour scheme or particular garden design must find the idea of something “not working” and needing to be removed so unbearably snobby. And it is a bit outrageous. That pulmonaria is objectively a beautiful plant, quite worthy of any place in the garden. But i need it to support – to sculpt – the space in ways that the blues, and then later after flowering, the plain and pointed green hairy leaves, simply don’t achieve. I want to add more of the burgundy chocolate of the geraniums dusky crug and pink spice, both of which make for fantastic foil against the brightness and focus of the roses. I’ve been trying to incorporate bronze fennel into the scheme too, although they often succumb to my limited capacity to maintain plants from seed. Seed sowing to this day remains some of my most difficult aspects of gardening whilst sick, never feeling like i’m able to meet the demands of this needy process. I’ve grown so many fennels from seed that have shriveled up in overwatered trays or rotten over winter sat in cramped pots when they should have been planted out. I try and let it go as part of crip-gardening, but it is a grief to not feel able to keep up with the intensity that is nurturing plants from seed… perhaps something i’ll write more about. All of this to say, the perennials are very much a work in progress, and hopefully this summer i can begin to adjust the balance in the design.
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Here is what the garden is looking like currently. I’m mainly sharing bigger shots of the plot here and just a couple of close ups of the roses, just to try and give a feel for the overall scheme and layout. I will share more specific roses in my next post where i want to explore the different textures and forms that each rose offers, not only in genus but in the duration of flowering.
The garden erupting into bloom at the studio-allotment….
Here you can see planted amongst the roses the alliums on long thin stems with pom-pom like flowers on top coming into flower. Other herbaceous perennials like the green alchemilla mollis are also bursting into acid green bloom.
I love this image so much, i really think you can start to get a sense of the rhythm in the design that the alliums bring to the scheme. Here, the drumstick alliums – which are only just coming into bud and are yet to bloom – are placed in clumps at intervals all along the front face of the design. Its really lovely to see things intermingle with one another more, especially after the first year of the design last year which felt very stiff and static as i gave the roses space to breathe and grow – it really did feel like a 1960’s front garden with tea roses! I love capturing my wheelchair amongst the garden in photos like this as well; small portraits of myself beyond my body.
A closeup of one of the beds from the front (the garden design is essentially two large beds split down the middle).
A close up of the Kazanlik rose. Kazanlik is a beautiful, once-flowering rose that is found growing in parts of eastern Europe where it is used to make rose oil. It has an incredible turkish delight scent, and I love that it only flowers once, one of the few roses in the design that does so with most of the others being repeats.
A close up of the Kazanlik rose.
A close up of the Kazanlik rose.
A close up of the garden showing it as a sea of colour, shape and texture. Seeing it emerge into this current phase of the design is truly thrilling to me, after it living inside my head as an imagined place for years now.
Making posts accessible with AI ?
As part of my artist residency exploring AI and inclusivity, I’ve been utilising the AI assistant Claude to make my visual content more accessible. One simple yet impactful way I’m doing this is by having Claude generate alt-text for the images I share. ?️
Alt-text is a written description of an image that gets read aloud by screen readers, enabling people with sight and vision impairments to understand the content of visual media. It’s an important part of making the web more accessible and inclusive. ✨
To create the alt-text, I simply upload an image to my conversation with Claude and ask it to provide a detailed description of what the image depicts. For example, for the photo of me in the Welcome the the Studio post, Claude created the text below (with a tiny few tweaks and edits from me first!):
“The image shows Shrouk working intently at their colourful and creative electronics lab. Shrouk has an afro hairstyle and is wearing a brightly coloured dress which is mainly deep oranges and reds with intricate patterns. She is working on a printed circuit board with an oscilloscope, seemingly deeply focused on the detailed electronics work or experiment they are engaged in.
Shrouk’s workspace has an artistic, energetic vibe, filled with various bright decorations and objects in oranges, pinks, blues and greens that match Shrouk’s expressive and unique style. The photograph captures a moment of concentration as Shrouk applies their skills to an electronics project, with the vibrant atmosphere of the lab reflecting Shrouk’s creative personality and approach. The setting suggests Shrouk is bringing an imaginative flair to their electronics work.”
Descriptions like this capture the key details in a clear, concise manner. Using an AI assistant to quickly produce high-quality alt-text at scale can make the process of adding this important accessibility element much easier. What used to be a time-consuming manual task can now be largely automated. ?
This is just one example of how AI tools can be harnessed to make content more inclusive. I encourage other creators to explore using AI to generate alt-text and to continue to come up with innovative ways to leverage emerging technologies in service of accessibility. Together, we can make strides toward a more inclusive digital world. ? ?️ ?
greenhouse reflections 1
I find myself continually drawn to creating images found in reflective surfaces, inspired by the way they facilitate image-making and how portraits can be captured in these transient spaces. In 2022, I created a solo show of self portraits and images found in reflective surfaces found in my home which was displayed at Level Centre, Derbyshire. The series was titled Sick Gaze, and explored the views, observations and contemplations both of and from the perspective of the sick body amongst domesticity. The images were printed onto brushed dibond. I loved creating this series, and i always want to pursue these ideas of image-making further.
I took this photo at the allotment inside the greenhouse, and suddenly i found it a really interesting place to consider these reflective concepts of sickness caught in a momentary image. What i was trying to explore in Sick Gaze was some of the vastness found in the small, cramped spaces of the sick existence in domesticity. Scale is endlessly fascinating to me as a sick artist, how sickness is often a practice of taking those small, cramped experiences of sameness and sitting with them, zooming in until they become vast landscapes. I hadn’t really considered how these ideas could be applied outside of domestic interiors, and it’s really interesting to me to think about how the allotment functions for me in this way.
I’m interested in the threshold of where the disabled body leaves the private space and meets a public one, and how the liminality of sick and disabled experiences results in this threshold often becoming a permanent state of being. The allotment holds lots of this sentiment in that way; not open to the public yet not wholly private, external architecture creating pockets of interior shelter found in sheds, greenhouses, chicken pens and polytunnels. We don’t live there, but the domestic finds itself out in the open all the time; old carpets used as weed suppressant, milk bottles on canes to scare the pigeons, bathtubs become waterbutts and salvaged windowpanes make up magnificent glass houses. I love the architecture of the allotment, this strange jumble of wreckage and bounty, it has a language all of its own. I’ve been thinking a lot about the way this language disrupts, how there is never a clear line of sight at the allotment, your gaze constantly interrupted by the combination of the knackered rake and rubble weighing down the tarp on a shed roof, the slump of a muck heap half covered or the debris of community life that the allotment often hosts like the storing of youth football club nets. It makes me think of illness as disruption, how there is never any straight line found in that landscape either. I love to think about gardening in this way, utilising design by not removing the disruptions but finding breaks and gaps amongst it, finding a kinship in the constant collaboration between my body and its own disruptive, uncomfortable limits.
I’m tired now and so I’m going to leave it there for now… I haven’t shared my writing/thoughts like this publically for some years now, having once been very present online via my Instagram @bella.milroy. It all feels very alien to me now to share my thoughts in a live/contemporary way like this, to share text that isn’t very polished or fully thought out. But this residency has been the first time i’ve made work in this way for so long now and i’m trying to embrace the format. It feels a bit weird, scary and nice.
Couch grass
Digital scans of Couch Grass roots taken from the allotment.
Couch Grass is a native grass to the UK that is an important food source for butterfly and moth caterpillars, as well as being incredibly fast growing. Left unchecked, it tunnels its way throughout the ground using its piercing runners to create rhizomes, and swamps everything it encounters. An elegant and graceful species, it is also very difficult to maintain in the garden, and can easily overwhelm other plants if left unmanaged.
It’s a real bastard to weed, its roots forming interconnected pathways under shallow soil. Upon pulling at a clump, you can easily break one of the extensive runners, simply leaving behind another plant ready to break through the ground and grow on. But every now and again you can find yourself picking at loose, dry topsoil where all of a sudden you are lifting a root-runner from the ground like a hidden rope found in sand in some desert-island-fiction. Perfect lengths of tough, sinewy roots are untangled from the soil, often pulling whole clumps of grass with it. My favourite part of the plant however, is the brand new runners that form these blanched white spears just below the soil surface. They are so neat and clean, pushing their way through the earth in energetic spikes. There’s something about the contrast of the tangled mass of older roots that form the clumps of grass, and the newness of these glossy threads that makes for a very satisfying and tactile interaction when weeding this plant in the garden.
an ambulatory wheelchair user goes to the allotment
A sound piece with captions documenting my route from home to my allotment.
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GenAI: A First Step
As part of my residency with Vital Capacities, I’m exploring the relationship between GenAI and artists, focusing on how AI can enhance our creative processes. Today, I’m excited to share my first use case: using ChatGPT to extract and describe image content for accessibility purposes. Here’s a photograph I captured during my urban exploration.
To ensure that my work is accessible to all, I used ChatGPT to generate a detailed description of the image. The AI accurately identified the silhouette of a person standing on a high vantage point, overlooking a brightly lit cityscape at night, with an overcast sky adding to the dramatic atmosphere.
This initial use of GenAI demonstrates how artists can utilize AI tools to create accessible content, ensuring that our work can be experienced by a broader audience, including those with visual impairments. By integrating AI into our practice, we can enhance the inclusivity and reach of our art.
Stay tuned as I continue to explore and share more ways in which AI can support and transform our artistic endeavors. This is just the beginning of an exciting journey with Vital Capacities.
Video demo
Text here.
Image demo
The making of Digigrave in Minecraft
the red and blue and white, the colors of the flags of the nations. The dictator’s tomb, the alien spaceship. The foreign regime.
I have been making some watercolours over the last couple of weeks. In the hope of slowing down my brain and enjoying the process of making art again. It felt like a really regenerative process and really allowed me to take in/reflect on the work i had made in the past few years while also looking forward to what im going to be making next
And recently in the last few days ive been turning some of the thoughts i had during making the watercolours into sets/ideas/thoughts for the film im making with jen.
The memorial hall
The structure was ready made by the architect team. We are now building the detail of the interior.
The eventual form will be a digital grave , we will be able to maintain the content for the rest of our life, as an artist last will. Also, the spaceship looking hall is an extension of the video work Space Warriors.
Weed out انسلاخ
2020
An installation artwork made of metal wires, gypsum, cloth, and video art.
Guts
I’ve been thinking about guts. Or rather, I’ve been thinking about thinking about guts. It’s more of a hunch that there is work or attention needed in that area, both of my life and my art. Guts have appeared in my work for at least the past 5-6 years, if not longer, and yet I feel like at some point they became a kind of stand-in for an unfinished thought. When it started I think the thought was around unseen processes happening in the background (like how wallpaper can function like an engine to the actions inside a room even though u may not consciously notice it). But it’s evolved to take on digestion, and waste, and mess, and desire, and grief. And in a funny way, guts were also always there almost as a reminder to myself to actually listen to my own guts. But there’s some other stuff there too – appropriately – beneath the surface of the image of guts. The guts of the guts. And this post is a kind of note-to-self to feel into that. To get on up inside those guts again. Sorry not sorry.
La Mort
A little painting I did vibing with the 17th Century Tarot de Marseille Death card, taking it’s iconography of harvesting the dead to the site of the bog. I enjoyed making the inks as boggy as possible.
The Bog is a Thin Place; A Sanctuary, A Portal & A Home
I love that phrase u sometimes hear about Halloween/Samhain: “the thinning of the veil”. From the idea of thin times it’s only a small leap to that of thin places. In Shetland witch (or heksi) folklore it is said that the stretch of sand that runs between high and low tide is the undisputed territory of the devil. Folk magic loves a threshold, a space between spaces (oh so liminal): a beach, a fog, the meeting point of two rivers, a keyhole, midnight, a crossroad. A bog. To get lost in a thick fog whilst traversing a bog might just about be the perfect setting to summon the dead. My sense is that these thin places and times are potent precisely because they can function as temporary sanctuaries, a home for those pushed to the margins. Not unlike Doom Patrol’s Danny The Street (DC Universe/HBO) a roving sentient genderqueer street that goes where it’s needed and provides a home to for us misfits.
I took a break last week and dissapeared to the country side, it was magical mostly because i had very limited internet access. there was a lot of cows, rhubarb and ants (so, so , so many ants)
It really made me slow down and in that process I returned to drawing and watercolours. I finished a major project in November last year and havnt stopped since, so it was nice to decelerate and return to a more normal pace of life 🙂 :), Ill post some of the watercolours soon.
Bog Gods
