Gopal Dutta interview - www.rcommendr.com

Can you tell us a little bit about your Tree Love project?

Tree Love is about exploring nature and XR (eXtended Realities like AI, VR, AR, MR) through art.

It’s something I started doing myself during the pandemic and now I am showing the process to other people in the form of workshops. It involves a few different parts. Part one involves spending time in areas of abundant nature, like parks, woodland areas, forests, but also more accessible places like community gardens, parks, orchards. While in the place of nature, the idea is to use “forest bathing” exercises to “tune in” to what’s going on around you. Doing this should enable the “Tree Love” participant to enter a more relaxed, adrenalin-free state and I think this is a really good state of mind in which to then create art.

So the participant creates some drawings and lines of text, inspired by what they are seeing, sensing and feeling around them. Part two involves exploring how a computer might interpret and “treat” this drawings and text. So I feed the drawings and text as “initial images” and prompts to an AI, to create short animated videos (here is an example). In part three, the participant uses a VR headset to draw in 3D – so this could be a copy of their initial image, or something that the AI has produced.

To enable progression with “Tree Love”, I’ve been supported, financially and through mentoring and equipment loans, by B3 Media, an ACE funded arts organisation.

And explain the A.I. videos?

I’ve used various different AIs since 2020 to help create the videos. Initially, I was using the Google “Colab” environment, where you edit workbooks and upload your images and text prompts. I used the VQGAN+CLIP model the most. For a small subscription fee, Google allows you access to various high-powered processors which do the actual data processing side of the work. More recently, since AI has become a bit more “overground”, I’ve been using the Stable Diffusion model, downloaded to a high-powered PC. So this means I don’t need to connect to any external servers.

I like the ones where the A.I produced something more abstract.

Yes, a lot of people have said this. Early AI models were harder to use and did not “get it” quite as well, but the disjuncture between your intentions and the computer intentions are what is interesting to me. I consider it analogous to the forest – it’s not quite what you think it is. I think of trees and leaves as neural nets, they are the same as computers and act in unexpected ways, so using both together is really creative to me.

What other projects have you done in the past?

I was a professional filmmaker for about 10 years. I worked in a company in Huddersfield making films for the Council, working mainly as an editor. I also worked on some broadcast TV programmes as an assistant producer and in more junior roles like runner and camera assistant on feature films and TV dramas. I then switched careers and became a librarian – I now work at a large academic library. But I continue to make lots of art. For a few years 2014-2018, I was making lots of zines and prints (example). I have also written a short novella about the aesthetics of smog.

Tell us about Bibliographic Services Unit?

This is a band I’m in with a friend and someone I used to work with. We formed in 2014 after the gig we were going to was cancelled so we decided to make our own music.

The part of the Library we worked in was called “The Bibliographic Services Unit”. It’s the department where new books are prepared for the shelf: catalogued, processed etc. The name was changed to “The Content Delivery Team” and they got rid of the sign, so we borrowed it and called ourselves “The Bibliographic Services Unit” in tribute.

It’s mainly about having fun, getting drunk, making music together, with whatever gear is lying around. I sing/shout and my friend plays all the music.. We’ve played a few gigs in the local area and recorded an EP called “Shelf ready“. We still do meet up occasionally and record together, but it’s harder as we don’t work together and live in different areas.

If people listen to only one mix of yours who should it be?

I would recommend “Songs for Sufi” which was thrown together, as a list, off the cuff, for a friend, when he asked me to play him some tunes.

What are you currently listening to to?

Right now, LTJ Bukem – Live at Dreamscape 19 (5/27/95).

More generally, I’ve been listening to an album called “Black Ark” by the late Carl Crack. It’s a big “bath album” for me. I light a candle and burn some incense, turn off the lights and listen to it loud in the dark.

What are you reading?

I’m reading “Mythago Wood” by Robert Holdstock. It’s really good, Ballardian but centered around trees, so right up my street.

I’m also reading “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow, which is making me reminisce about when I studied anthropology at University.