Excuse us while we catch our breath… We’re still processing all the revelations from the LA Summit on Wednesday (and recovering from a night on the dance floor!)

Speakers kept coming back to the idea that as AI handles more of the baseline work, human intentionality matters more than ever. Collaborators Grimes and Matt Zien shared how they've actually slowed their process down to build in moral philosophy.

We learned that AI is enabling creativity at the speed of culture - Jason Zada made a music video with will.i.am in three days, and it racked up 30 million views in a week.

And there's been a real shift in mindset, as creative leaders like Alexia Adana move away from asking "how do I use this tool?" and toward "what do I want to build?"

We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who attended, connected, and contributed. If you were inspired by any of the presentations or if you’d like to share a great anecdote from the Summit, we’d love to hear about it! Drop us a note at community@artistandthemachine.

For those who couldn’t make it, full recap incoming, and sessions will trickle onto our youtube soon.

DIGITAL TWINNING: NINOCENCE

Yesterday morning, attendees of the Summit were welcomed by our founder Dani Van de Sande across two planes of reality: the virtual and the physical. Dani’s avatar took the stage, shortly followed by her warm-blooded incarnation.

A lot of care went into the development of Dani’s twin, which was created by Nina Hawkins a.k.a. NINOCENCE, the founder of Lilium Labs, a digital avatar incubator that specializes in creating virtual clones using Al, 3D and photography.

Artist and the Machine caught up with Nina to ask about her creative process. Here are some highlights from the conversation.

AATM: Tell us: where does the wellspring of your creativity come from? 

Nina Hawkins: When I was around 19, I  got my first camera and started this journey into fashion photography as I was modeling. From photography, I moved into music videos and fashion films for a couple of years. One of the photographers who used to shoot me used 3D techniques, back in 2009. I was fascinated by the combination of 3D imagery and photography, which struck me as out of this world. 

During the Covid lockdown, I threw myself into all the tutorials, YouTube University all the way! I created NINOCENCE, my digital twin. That's how I got into digital avatars. People saw what I did and began commissioning me to create digital clones for them. That's how my incubator Lilium Labs started.

AATM: What was it like working on Dani’s avatar?

Nina Hawkins: It was an honor to make one for her. Our collaboration was a natural one; the idea came about one day as we were talking.   

I forced Dani to send me millions of selfies, and I went through her Instagram to scavenge for more. The workflow was similar to how I usually do avatars. I used to do a photo shoot separately for the 3D avatar because I needed high-res images. Now I can do a lot of things remotely. I can make do with quantity over quality in terms of what I need to create a viable avatar.

I ended up making several models of Dani, which I started playing around with as I tried to nail down the character of her digital alter ego. Dani is so future-forward, and I wanted to find a way to express that.

As I started working on the project, I’d hop on calls with Dani to get early feedback and decide on a direction. Early drafts featured her with blue hair or wearing very avant-garde fashion. I think Dani was excited to see avatar models that brought off looks that she didn't know she could pull off. Ultimately, we settled on a look that was very futuristic, very intricate. 

I also asked Dani to send me a bunch of voice messages so I could clone her voice [using ElevenLabs]. It all made for a pretty intense process that involved first working on the face of the avatar, then the creative direction, figuring out the style and aesthetics for the avatar, and finally working on the voice and animation.

AATM: What do you want people to walk away understanding about digital avatars?

Nina Hawkins: I think having an avatar is a kind of digital immortality. An avatar doesn’t replace you; it expands you. It can grow your career and work with you as a partner, learning and co-creating with you. Another version of you to download the day with, when you come home.

For more information on Lilium Labs: https://liliumlabs.xyz/

📰 News Roundup

• If only I could remember where I saw that scene: Vimeo is using AI to help creators better organize their video libraries and offer viewers an easier way to find the content they want.  

• What does the NYC of your dreams look like? Google and OUTFRONT recently announced  “Imagine If…” a  project that invited New Yorkers to co-create artworks using generative AI models like Nano Banana and Veo.

• We know you know: Creatives are flocking to AI: Adobe has found that more than four in five (86%) global creators use generative AI in their workflows, with nearly as many (81%) agreeing it helped them make content they couldn’t have made otherwise. Editing, upscaling and enhancing media was found to be the most common use case (55%), with generating new assets (52%) coming in second place. Rounding up the top three use cases was ideation and brainstorming (48%).

Send us your latest

We welcome news tips on exceptional projects, creative work, research, or tools. If something lights your 🔥we want to know. Write to us at community@artistandthemachine. 

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Remember to follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn as we get closer to our AI & Creativity summit in Los Angeles.

Til next time,

Dani Van de Sande (Founder) & the Artist and the Machine team.

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