Author: veskofigma@gmail.com

HOW AI CAN SAVE LITERATURE

One of the literary world’s most wildly imaginative geniuses compared himself to a large language model. Italo Calvino, the greatest Italian author of the twentieth century, wrote: “It is with a clear conscience and without regrets that I state that my place could perfectly well be occupied by a mechanical device.”1 A Writing Machine? Calvino’s […]

BIG SCREEN HACK – IMAX

I’m on the jury for Big Screen Hack London. It kicks off on Monday 5 October. Filmmakers and AI developers get five days to make a pilot, and the winning team gets a multi-part series commissioned by Fairground TV. The shortlist premieres at the Science Museum IMAX on 16 October. It’s free to enter and […]

The Trumpton Riots

AI is uncannily good at nostalgia. So, I thought I’d use it to pay tribute to the classic stop motion TV shows of my childhood. Like many chronologically challenged Brits, I was raised on regular doses of Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley. These puppet soap operas showcased the trials and tribulations faced by the inhabitants […]

The New Reading Revolution

The invention of the printing press spread terror. The world was clearly about to be flooded with printed “slop” rather than authentic, hand-copied manuscripts. Perhaps these dreaded machines would even steal the jobs of scribes, town criers and monks? In fact, printed books turned out to be a rather handy invention (Jeffrey Archer novels excepted). […]

AI In Atlantis

It is notoriously tricky to film in Atlantis. Visas, accomodation, and breathing are all major logistical hurdles, so I decided to use AI instead. Here is my entry for the #RunwayBigAdContest The ad is for the Eureka Waterproof Notepad, one of the impressive range of non-existent products Runway asked us to promote. Runway is a […]

Festive Success

“Letting Go” was a winner at the South Coast Film Festival; quite an achievement given that we were up against non-synthetic thespian talent like Neil Warnock. The veteran football manager’s “pitch”-perfect performance as a stroppy police superintendent was one of the event’s many highlights, which included Dean Stalham’s intense prison drama “Barred”, and deftly crafted […]

LONDON IS LETHAL

Here is “London Is Lethal”, an action-packed B-Movie from Shaggy Dog AI. London’s tourist attractions are transforming into monsters. Can two middle-aged superheroes and their levitating dog make the streets safe again? Yes, it’s deeply silly, and yes, the superheroes are me and Emma Reynolds. Some AI shorts are designed to demonstrate how realistic a […]

Avoid The Sheffield Documentary Festival

Yesterday, I had to choose between taking the 332-mile round trip to Yorkshire’s worthiest celebration of avant-garde trauma, and nipping 8 miles down the road to the Metamorph AI Film Awards in a lively corner of Hackney. I thought for just over a micro-second, and opted for the latter. Obviously, this meant missing out on […]