Invention 2: Pattern Recognition

Along with the recently announced album from Coupler, Gifts from the Ebb Tide, comes an accompanying video for "Invention 2: Pattern Recognition" - the second composition on the record.

The video, directed by Ben Marcantel, uses the now-defunct Lara Fotogenerator Project to convert line drawings into images. Here's a bit more insight from Marcantel on the process:

The image that looks like a painting is the output of an neural net ai trained by the scientists associated with the web site. I made about 3000 images using the site then turned them into a half dozen or so video loops. I did some aesthetic adjustment to get the colors, pixelation, stereo scoping etc. The input is my line drawing via mouse and the output is the program trying to make a face from that drawing.

It's a hypnotic process to watch unfold as the program draws, refreshes and redraws itself to find the end goal. There's a bit of glitch art in there, a bit of 8-bit influence and some surprisingly interesting machine learning at work.

The album is available for pre-order here and will be released Nov 17th, 2017.