Combining Art With AI
Using deep fakes and augmented reality to bring art to life
Augmented reality is an immersive way to use computer-related imagery in the real world. Augmented reality has various uses such as gaming, interior decoration, Google Street View, etc.
In Harry Potter, I was amazed at how the portraits came to life by magic. This is now possible with technology such as augmented reality. This was done by using a service called Unite Ar (https://www.unitear.com), which is a free service used to create an augmented reality without any coding knowledge. You need to choose an image and select a specific part of it that will be replaced by another image, video, or gif.
The tutorial below describes an example of how to use the service:
A deep fake is a video made from an image where their face has been modified to act in a certain way. Deep fakes are usually used to spread false information but they could have non-malicious uses as well.
I used code written in Python to create a deep fake which will use an image of a person (in this case I have chosen the German author Goethe) and the output of the program will create a video of that person as if he is alive. The code and tutorial that I have used to create the deep fake can be at (https://dev.to/alanjc/creating-your-own-deepfakes-without-coding-experience-5f2m).
To view the new image you then install the application on the Google Play Store and once your phone is pointed at the image, the new image will appear.
The result was as follows:
In conclusion, experimenting with augmented reality can result in creating fun and immersive projects that can be done in various settings. Since I am interested in art, the mixture of AI and Art resulted in an interesting project however the possibilities of what can be explored are endless.
