We had fun playing around with a brand new AI tool on our design software, adding a slew of daft additions to our carefully composed cover image …
In her column this month, Susan Zelouf writes about being sentient. Being able to perceive or feel things is one thing artificial intelligence hasn’t yet achieved, though with its vast and terrifying capabilities, it’s coming close. We had fun playing around with a brand new AI tool on our design software, adding a slew of daft additions to our carefully composed cover image, below, with apologies to photographer Ben Watts! Fooling around with the tool, we found that images of real people, real places and real paintings, were distorted (for copyright reasons) a poor facsimile only. Even the bodies of dogs were altered and the Eiffel Tower was a short, stubby pylon!
AI has many uses but at THE GLOSS, the photographer, editor and graphic designer will remain in charge, pulling the creative strings.
Stepping once more outside the metaverse to perceive, feel, smell, touch and taste the world around us, and live our real (and raggedy) lives with renewed intention means July and August might be best spent seeing and experiencing beautiful things. Create at Brown Thomas Dublin opened last week, an exhibition of the work of 28 designers across fashion and interiors, among them designers who may well become the new Simone Rocha, Róisín Pierce or Richard Quinn. The creativity and devotion to craft is a joy to behold.
Devotion to craft is perceptible in the Vernet Drawing Room at Russborough House in Blessington, named after celebrated French artist Claude Joseph Vernet (1714- 1789), exquisitely restored and now open to the public. The drawing room is the only one of its kind in Ireland to house the original works it was designed for, and this project has allowed the Russborough team to reinstate the unique vision for the room – to display eight paintings by Vernet which redirect different times of the day. Sir Alfred Beit spent 16 years finding and acquiring missing Vernets to complete the collection. Led by Alec Cobbe and overseen by Russborough’s Head of Collections & Conservation, Pauline Swords, decorative work began in November 2022 and the results are exquisite. Ireland’s talented designers and craftspeople trump an AI bot any day. Seek out their inspiring work this summer.
THIS SUMMER WE’RE…
GLOSS-IP-ING! See more people, places and parties in our new online social diary at www.thegloss.ie/glossip/.
CHEERING ON: Irish riders at Land Rover’s Defender Puissance, one of the most exciting events in international showjumping: Saturday August 12 at the RDS, Dublin 4.
FOOLING AROUND: With an AI design tool. Photography: Ben Watts.
AI Creation: Graphic Designer Patricia Marinho.
DRESSING UP: For Ladies Day at the RDS Dublin Horse Show, on August 10; www.dublinhorsehow.com.
CULTURE CRUISING: At IMMA, where art talks and tours, interesting food, drinks and music will be served up in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin 8. July 14-15; www.imma.ie.
BOOKING TICKETS: For “In The Middle of The Fields”, a play by Mary Lavin, directed by Joan Sheehy, part of the West Cork Fit Up Festival. July 11-15; www.eventbrite.ie.
TAKING TEDDY: to Killruddery House, Co Wicklow on Sunday August 20, for a Teddy Bear’s Hospital, in aid of Barretstown’s camps for seriously ill children; www.killruddery.com
TAKING IN : “A Family of Things” by artist Eilis O’Connell, RHA, known for her large-scale sculptures in steel, stone and bronze. At the FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio, Co Down; @femcwilliam.