The best conversations are those which veer off into an unexpected world. And my chat with Elli Kypriadis was one of those. Now I had just begun to get my head around ChatGPT, which was launched in late 2022. On another project I was working with an education communicator on the launch of an initiative. Of course the all powerful (but maybe threatened) Twitter was the first step in the mix if not ultimately the main one. We decided to put a proverbial toe in the water and open a Twitter account, with the suggestion that in subsequent weeks, to keep things moving, a ‘mysterious’ Tweet be dispatched every few hours. When I baulked at the onerous responsibility Ben the communicator said, no problem, I’ll just instruct ChatGPT to write them and we’ll programme them to go out on schedule. ‘No need to get involved after that.’ ChatGPT was given a theme and copy for the Tweets was churned out. Is being churned out. One of the instructions to ChatGPT was to make the short Tweets humorous. 

 

AI with a sense of humour? I was skeptical but am now convinced. 

 

This encounter had, I had thought, nothing to do with chatting with Elli about her beautiful screen prints. How wrong could I be? I had, to that point, only seen Elli’s ‘pop-art’ kind of images, meticulously printed in four colour process using real ink on real paper. Refreshingly traditional. But let’s step back before we get into Elli AI. 

 

Her mum and dad met at Manchester School of Art and still work in the creative industries, commuting weekly between Manchester and London. “There was always something creative going on when I was growing up,” Elli told me. Her surname is of course Greek. Her dad ‘Living between Greece and Manchester.’ Their creative influence has obviously spiralled, for Elli, into the arts; actor, painter, printer, designer. Let’s try and deal with these in turn. 

 

Actor: Elli was a founding member of Switch Theatre Company, now affiliated with 53two Theatre Company as their ‘Resident next generation artists.’ This was the bit I knew about and the original connection when I came across Elli’s screen printing. 

 

Painter: When we met Elli showed me her portfolio of painting and drawing. The techniques exemplary, the work beautiful both classically and, for example, in the style of Egon Schiele.

 

Printer: Here we get to the original intention of meeting up for a brew. I was intrigued as to how Elli had created the ‘pop-art’ images for her latest range of screen prints. The answer couldn’t have been further away from what I expected. Still reeling a little from my first ChatGPT experience, Elli showed me – on her laptop – Midjourney, again a programme launched in 2022, which does for the visual arts what ChatGPT does for the written word. For her screen prints she had instructed Midjourney to create images with the words ‘pop-art,’ ‘fish eye,’ ‘floral,’ ‘rainbow’ and, no doubt, a few other prompts. Midjourney instantly created a range of images. But Elli is experimenting with blurring the boundaries between AI and traditional artistic creations. She then took the images into Photoshop, manipulated them and then separated the images into the traditional four colour set for screen printing. As with my thoughts on ChatGPT, 50% fascinating, 50% terrifying. 

 

Designer: Elli is currently studying theatre and film set design at the University of Bristol. In fact she also currently works freelance in this creative sector. But all of this is just the start, because in August 2023 she will begin a two year production design course at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles; their own words: ‘AFI is searching for the next generation of filmmakers with individual artistic voices.’ 

 

West Coast America, San Franciso home of ChatGPT and Midjourney, Los Angeles, home of Hollywood, Elli Kypriadis is on her way. “I’m just experimenting with using digital and combining with analog,” She explained with a smile. Simple. And as for her two year sojourn in Los Angeles she told me: “50% fascinating, 50% terrifying.”