IT VOIDS

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This is the heart of my present creative practice. Its spiritual home is Leake Street, the graffiti tunnel underneath Waterloo Station. I have painted there since 2014, and I was always aware that the apparent chaos of the space, with its daily reboot of the walls, had a structure inside it, something close to a geometry.

That structure introduced me to the golden key that is collaboration: the art of connection and the willingness to share resources. Out of an infinite chaos of possibility, finite pieces would appear and then disappear again. The artists, and the overenthusiastic tourists, drive the engine that produces the sheer volume of art that makes the space what it is.

Then came the fateful moment. I went down a considerable rabbit hole (a warren, really), exploring the idea across numerous AI platforms and running the gauntlet of hallucinations galore and overzealous models reaching well past what they could actually compute.

But somewhere in that chaos the humble creative concept began to take form, and almost a year later it has produced a maths paper. It is built on that first insight about the structure of Leake Street and, more interestingly, on how the painting of the walls can be represented mathematically. The paper is on itvoids.com and you can read it for yourself. Do not worry, there is also a plain English document explaining how the concept evolved, what the paper says, and what the future might hold.

Any solo work with AI carries a real risk of mistakes, and of the hallucinations I mentioned. For now the paper stands unverified.

Until that changes, I suppose it is art until proven otherwise.

Click the PDF below for an explanation, with no maths in it, of how SFVFS (Seed / Form / Void / Form / Seed) works. It also refers to MIND THE MAP, the large collaborative project I finished just before I set out on this.

itvoids.com · marccraig.co.uk · @creativethinkin

Before you go to itvoids.com, where the creative theory is set out in its current form, from a simple diagram of the origin through to the maths paper and an explanation of the journey between the two, I thought I would let you have a go yourself, without the finer detail.

It is based on the geometry of Leake Street. That still makes me smile every time I say it out loud.

Do not be put off by what each toggle means. That is explained at itvoids.com, or you can DM me directly. For now, simply enjoy it. Warning: it is addictive.

THE CONTROLS

MENU — Click on and off at the top to open and close it.

DEATH — The toggle that makes the universe interactive. Start here.

CRYSTAL — Set BUD OPEN THRESHOLD to zero, max out every toggle from FORK CHANCE to TIP END LENGTH, and leave DEATH unhighlighted. This part still has me scratching my head, but I assume it is the geometry showing through.

SAVE — Yours for free, and high resolution.

TOUCH — On a touch screen you can drag the piece around.

The RESIST AND REACT portraits are directly connected to these pieces, as are the MIND THE MAP paintings and the geometry of Leake Street that apparently lies underneath all of it.

If you are well versed in maths or science, and you have both an open mind and a healthy sceptical anchor, please visit itvoids.com. I would be grateful for your input.

THE THEORY NEEDS TO BE PULLED APART, PRODDED AND PROBED.

itvoids.com · marccraig.co.uk · @creativethinkin