THOUGHTS on a POMEGRANATE

"Thoughts on a Pomegranate, i"


"Thoughts on a Pomegranate, iii"


"Thoughts on a Pomegranate, iv"
Troy's Work Table + deep-styling AI.


"Thoughts on a Pomegranate, v"
Troy's Work Table + deep-styling AI.

ODYSSEUS

"Athena Protects Odysseus" by Troy's Work Table. Deep dreamed by artificial intelligence.

Photo source: “Head of Odysseus,” marble, circa 1st century AD, Greek. From the "Blinding of Polyphemus" sculptural group as found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga.

Style source: "Pallas Athena," oil on canvas, circa 1920, by Frantisek Xaver Naske.

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[Odysseus] is the embodiment of a truth obscured in our infantilistic age: Learning begins when development ends, for growing into oneself absorbs all the cognitive energies which, once “identity” is achieved, are free to turn to the world. For how can we learn if it is not we who are there to learn? We either change or grow wiser, but not both. A man who has visited Hades and is thus “twice-dead when other men die once” will see things in a new light. A man who has dealt with crafty, experienced witches and virginal princesses will have shown adaptability, “flexibility” as we say, and the attendant features of wiliness, tact, ingeniousness, ready charm, and occasional formidableness.
—page 51, Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading The Odyssey and The Iliad by Eva Brann

CIRCE

"Kirke Metamórfosi" by Troy's Work Table. Deep dreamed by artificial intelligence.

Photo source: “Circe,” bronze sculpture, 1893, by Bertram Mackennal.

Style source: “The Sorceress,” oil on canvas, 1913, by John William Waterhouse.

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"Peace. I would have laughed if I were not so ill. The sour tang of cheese in the kitchen, the salt-stink of seaweed on the breeze, the wormy earth after rain, the sickly roses browning on the bush. All of them brought the bile stinging to my throat. Headaches followed, like urchin spines driven into my eyes. This is how Zeus must have felt before Athena leapt from his skull, I thought. I crawled to my room and lay in the shuttered dark, dreaming of how sweet it would be to cut through my neck and make an end."
—page 239, from Circe by Madeline Miller

CIRCE

"Kirke Athánatos" by Troy's Work Table. Deep dreamed by artificial intelligence.

Photo source: “Circe,” albumen silver print from glass negative, 1865, by Julia Margaret Cameron.

Style source: “Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus,” oil on canvas, 1891, by John William Waterhouse.

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"But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind." 
—page 135, from Circe by Madeline Miller

MANIFESTATION

"Manifestation" by Troy's Work Table.

Photo source: anatomical drawing from De humani corporis fabrica, 1543, by Andreas Vesalius. Style source 1: patterned necktie. Style source 2: "Merian," no. GA6 of the Inktopodes.

#deepdream

CIRCE

"Kirke Pharmakis" by Troy's Work Table. Deep dreamed by artificial intelligence.

Photo source: "Circe," sculpture, 1860, by Charles-Alphonse-Achille Guméry.

Style source: "Circe Invidiosa," oil on canvas, 1892, by John William Waterhouse.

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"I had a wild thought there, beneath that sky. I will eat these herbs. Then whatever is truly in me, let it be out, at last. I brought them to my mouth. But my courage failed. What was I truly? In the end, I could not bear to know."
—page 65, from Circe by Madeline Miller

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"Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung. Even after all that, it can fail, as gods do not. If my herbs are not fresh enough, if my attention falters, if my will is weak, the draughts go stale and rancid in my hands."
—page 83, from Circe by Madeline Miller

THE DEATH of HECTOR

"The Death of Hector" by Troy's Work Table. Deep dreamed by artificial intelligence.

Photo source: "Hector and Andromache," Italian marble, 1871, by Giovanni Maria Benzoni.

Style source, left: Terracotta amphora, circa 540 BC, Greek.

Style source, right: M51 "Whirlpool" Galaxy viewed by Chandra X-ray Observatory Center and Hubble Space Telescope.

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"The breeze shifts and blows towards him across this nine years' battlefield, and he imagines that somewhere behind leather and dung and horses and men long dead in the sun, he can just make out the scent of myrrh from the Scaean rampart."
—page 144, from The Rage of Achilles by Terence Hawkins

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"He falls backward and cannot believe he is still enough alive to hear bronze rattle and feel the shock of body on earth. He tries to move, more from curiosity than desire to be elsewhere. Nothing. The purple mist of which the poets speak is gathering. He did not expect it to roar in his ears. How could mist roar?"
—page 154, from The Rage of Achilles by Terence Hawkins

OGYGIA BANJO

"Ogygia Banjo"

A photograph of The Dog was given to an artificial intelligence, whereupon it "deep dreamed" it in the style of one of the Inktopodes, Ogygia.

DEEP DREAMS in the DEEP DREAM

I had an artificial intelligence deep dream my chalked deep dream of an artificial deep dream of an image offered by a human.

Does it appear more human than my chalked original?

(I see more realistic eyes, an added right ear, a shadow person.)

View the two images side by side.

FROST PARK: DEEP DREAM

"Deep Dream" by Troy's Work Table. Chalk art for Friday 10 July 2015 at Frost Park.

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Google artificial intelligence is "deep dreaming" our images in its neural network, producing new from the old.

I did the same, by "deep dreaming" one of the Google AI's images and likewise made it my own.

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And then the chalk happened.

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It appears the Mother Octopus must still be bouncing around inside me somewhere, especially since the Google AI seems to favor the canine in its "dreams" while I seem to favor the cephalopodic.

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I describe the particular Google "deep dream" I used for my dream-source as Edvard Munch meets H. P. Lovecraft on the dance floor.

Mine, for me, feels like Queequeg meets Mother Octopus in the cosmic bath.

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View more pictures of "Deep Dream" HERE.