IN CLASS

• Open Work Session

  • Teams working on organization of exhibition

  • Individuals working on final projects

ACTIVITIES 12

• FINISH your Final Project and bring all materials to class next week to prepare for installation

Descriptions of each class meeting will be found here.

IN CLASS

"I don't give a fuck if you don't know what I'm talking about- this is art. When you go see a painting on the wall and it looks bugged out because you don't know what the fuck he thinking, because he ain't got no benches, no trees there, it's just a splash. The n**** that did it know what the fuck it is." - Ghostface Killah, from "The Wu-Tang Manual" 2005

INTROS AND DISCUSSIONS

• Syllabus and Intro:

  • Carla and Alex intros.

  • Introduction of Grad Assistant Eric He

  • Open this page and discuss its contents, as well as general course expectations

• Discussions:

  • Carla: From A to I and Everything In Between

  • Alex: Visual Literacy

  • *Buy Midjourney Subscriptions

  • Alex: Art historical prompting with Midjourney

  • Review of "Activities" due Week 02

ACTIVITIES 01

• FILL OUT "You Form"

• CREATE a folder for yourself on the class google drive here. ALL digital activities (writing, visual, sound, etc... will be uploaded here)

• JOIN the Class Discord

• READ Allegory of the Cave (Plato, trans. Grube, just try!)

• WATCH Clip of the Matrix

• CREATION 01 Messing Around

IN CLASS

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE DISCUSSION: IS ALL ART DECEPTIVE? WHAT IS A REAL OBJECT?

• Discussions

  • Alex: Plato discussion

  • Alex: Chair project with Kosuth

  • Carla: Deepfake Taylor Swift Chinese clip and AI-Generated 'Swifties for Trump' Photos Prompt Taylor Swift to Endorse Harris

• Demos

  • Carla AI Buffet: Deep Fake Edition

• Crits (Carla & Alex)

• Open Work Session (if time remains)

  • Use one of the generative tools to make something that argues about its own “realness”

ACTIVITIES 02

• WRITE a two paragraph response [post to the Discord, also share as a doc in your folder on the class google drive] two of the following (you can pick two contradictory opinions and compare, or two pieces that reinforce each other-- fine either way!) and post it on the Class Discord:

  • Ted Chiang New Yorker Article on "Why AI Isn't Going To Make Art"

  • Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst: New Yorker Article

  • Ezra Klein Interview with Holly Herndon

  • This overview of current AI case filings, where you can click through to detailed descriptions of the legal grounds for each case

  • LAION-5B, Stable Diffusion 1.5, and the Original Sin of Generative AI by Eryk Salvaggio on TechPolicy.Press (specifically addresses images of child sexual abuse (CSAM) in the dataset and their consequences)

  • The Uneven Distribution of AI’s Environmental Impacts by Shaolei Ren and Adam Wierman in the Harvard Business Review

  • Electricity grids creak as AI demands soar (short news factual article that pairs with above)

  • Data Workers’ Inquiry -- a look at the human costs of producing AI front end services

    • Specifically: read some of the testimonies, videos, and more from workers themselves, many of whom produce the datasets AI products use directly.

HOT TIP: Run out of free articles on a publication website like the New Yorker? Open a new incognito window in Chrome or spoof an IP in a VPN to get access! NYU has these publications in databases but they're often a few weeks behind.

• CREATION 02 Deep Deepfake

DM-GY 9103-VISUAL AI STUDIO FOR ART AND TECHNOLOGY

COURSE WEBSITE

The course website is the official source for all dates and assignments. This syllabus provides a general overview and guideline for the course. All dates and assignments may be subject to change at the discretion of the professor.

COURSE GRAD ASSISTANT: Eric He, xh2815@nyu.edu

COURSE DISCORD: tbp

COURSE GOOGLE DRIVE: Visual AI Studio Google Drive

Discord will be our primary communication tool. (Every week you'll post your visual assignments to Discord and to the Class Google Drive)

RESOURCES

STUDENT INSURANCE: *All students are asked to get equipment insurance. This will not only cover the kits IDM sends, but also students' personal belongings. They can get $3000 of coverage for $90 at https://www.collegestudentinsurance.com. An explainer is here: https://github.com/IDMNYU/ER_Insurance.

COURSE DESCRIPTION, OBJECTIVES & STRUCTURE

COURSE DESCRIPTION Co-taught by an artist-technologist and an art historian, this class is a practice-theory hybrid studio for visual AI. Using art historical inspiration, students will make work in a variety of practical modes—from text to image to GANs models and more. Critical writing and exploration exercises will allow students to think about the philosophical and ethical debates surrounding AI alongside their work.

There will be lectures; class visits from machine learning engineers, media theorists, artists and agency heads implementing artificial intelligence in multiple forms; along with hands-on introductions to working with and across AI platforms. There are no prerequisites for this course, students’ own interests will guide a hybrid final project. The course will culminate in an exhibition of students' work at NYU.

IDM PROGRAM LEARNING OBJECTIVES At a graduate (and advanced undergraduate) level, students will:

1. develop conceptual thinking skills to generate ideas and content in order to solve problems or create opportunities. Students will develop a research and studio practice through inquiry and iteration.

2. students will develop technical skills to realize their ideas.

   Students will understand and utilize tools and technology, while adapting to constantly changing technological paradigms by learning how to learn. Students will be able to integrate/interface different technologies within a technological ecosystem.

3. develop critical thinking skills that will allow them to analyze and position their work within cultural, historic, aesthetic, economic, and technological contexts.

4. will gain knowledge of professional practices and organizations by developing their verbal, visual, and written communication for documentation and presentation, exhibition and promotion, networking, and career preparation.

5. students will develop collaboration skills to actively and effectively work in a team or group.

COURSE OBJECTIVES At a graduate level, students will:

1. To explore a range of industry generative AI tools as both artists and technologists, and to consider the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic contexts for these tools.

2. To learn to both give and receive critiques of artistic and other work produced using generative AI tools. This will culminate in an end of term exhibition for which students will produce their own piece-- with or without AI by choice-- and write their own artists' statements.

3. To demonstrate how existing skills (traditional or digital) can be implemented to work with AI in both hybrid digital-physical and other contexts.

STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Students communicate their opinions during group discussions and critiques

2. Students learn to read theoretical and journalistic texts critically

3. Students produce thoughtful and finished art projects with or in conversation with generative AI technologies that are intelligent and challenging, and articulate their beliefs in an artist's statement

CONTENT WARNING Our classroom provides an open and safe space for the critical and civil exchange of ideas. Some readings and other content in this course will include topics that some students may find offensive and/or traumatizing. We will aim to forewarn students about any potentially disturbing content, and we ask all students to help to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and sensitivity.

COURSE STRUCTURE This course will include lectures, in class studio work, conversations, demos, readings, viewings, and class visitors.

Presentations and critiques will occur frequently.

Creations, VRLs (viewing, reading or listening) will be assigned on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and may be subject to change.

Critiques Presenting your work in a critique situation is exceptionally useful. You learn to structure your ideas and to articulate them to an audience. Subsequently your audience provides you with constructive criticism that can increase the impact of your project. It is important to take notes when your work is being critiqued. Be receptive to audience responses and remain unbiased. Later you will be asked to reflect upon the feedback you have received. Resist incorporating all suggestions and comments like checking off tasks on a to-do list. Analyze, prioritize, then utilize the feedback that will work for you and your project. So that you have the opportunity to make as much work as possible, we will also have student work for mutual critique on Discord.

Rules of the Critique:

• Be Present and Engaged

• Give Meaningful Feedback to your classmates

  • Avoid vague statements such as “it’s interesting” or “it’s cool” without follow up. Why or how is it interesting or cool?

• Do NOT take feedback personally.

• If possible, employ frameworks and texts from class reading.

POLICIES

GRADING & ATTENDANCE POLICY Your final grade will be based on a synthesis of quantitative & qualitative rubrics:

• Makeup assignments are only available when discussed with and approved by the professor in advance of the due date.

• Each student will be accessed on the commitment, fearlessness, and continuous improvement that their work shows. Incomplete or unsatisfactory work will receive a failing grade.

Quantitative Grading Overview

Qualitative Grading Overview

A. Excellent (90-100: Work of exceptional quality; Exceeds Expectations)

Performance, participation, and attendance of the student has been of the highest level, showing sustained excellence in meeting course responsibilities. Work clearly differentiates itself from other work, has memorable impact, pursues concepts and techniques above and beyond what is discussed in class. The student thoroughly understands the theory and practice behind virtual reality.

B. Very Good / Good (80-89: Work of high quality)

Performance, participation, and attendance of the student has been good, though not of the highest level. Work demonstrates a better than average understanding of virtual reality theory & practice.

C. Satisfactory (70-79: Average; Satisfies course requirements)

Performance and attendance of the student has been adequate, satisfactorily meeting the course requirements. Work is average and competent, showing a basic understanding of virtual reality theory & practice.

D. Poor; Below Average (60-69: Deficient, but passing)

Performance and attendance of the student has been less than adequate. Work is lacking in many or most areas that show any understanding of virtual reality. Problems may include lack of interest, procrastination, poor planning and poor craft.

F. Unacceptable (59 & Below: Failing Course Requirements)

Academic Integrity All work for this class must be your own and specific to this semester. Any work recycled from other classes or from another, non-original source will be rejected with serious implications for the student. Plagiarism, knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own work in any academic exercise, is unacceptable. Any student who commits plagiarism must re-do the assignment for a grade no higher than a D. In fact, a D is the highest possible course grade for any student who commits plagiarism. Please use the MLA style for citing and documenting source material.

The complete policy on Academic Integrity for Students at NYU can be found at https://www.nyu.edu/about/policies-guidelines-compliance/policies-and-guidelines/academic-integrity-for-students-at-nyu.html

COURSE TECHNOLOGY USE

We will utilize multiple technologies to achieve the course goals. I expect you to use these technologies in ways that enhance the learning experience for all students and are consistent with the NYU Academic Integrity Policy. For all course work, I will explain what technologies are expected to be used and how you can cite their usage. I will also communicate what technologies are not permitted for course work. If you have any questions about the use of a technology for a course assignment/project, please contact me.

AI GENERATIVE TOOLS

You are welcome/expected to use generative AI tools (e.g.ChatGPT,Dall-e,etc.) in this class as doing so aligns with the course learning goal: "Students produce thoughtful and finished art projects with or in conversation with generative AI technologies that are intelligent and challenging, and articulate their beliefs in an artist's statement"

You are responsible for the information submitted based on an AI query (for instance, that it does not violate intellectual property laws, or contain misinformation or unethical content).

You may use AI tools consciously for your final artist statements if this is critical part of the project itself and is framed within the statement and disclosed to both readers and viewers, as well as the reasoning behind using it. However, for your project proposal, individual responses to reading, content, and speakers, on the course Discord, you must write entirely in your own words. This is so we can assess that we are teaching you correctly and that you do or do not understand artistic or theoretical concepts. Part of the purpose of this class is also to hone your own voice as an artist. This is why we want to make sure you’re using these tools deliberately and only when you already have the skillset as a writer to do so with care.

NAMING CONVENTIONS

YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AI_MessingAround_JillianBenizzi.doc

ACADEMIC ACCOMMODATIONS​

If you are student with a disability who is requesting accommodations, please contact New York University’s Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212-998-4980 or [email protected] You must be registered with CSD to receive accommodations. Information about the Moses Center can be found at www.nyu.edu/csd. The Moses Center is located at 726 Broadway on the 2nd floor.

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATIONS

NYU’s Calendar Policy on Religious Holidays states that members of any religious group may, without penalty, absent themselves from classes when required in compliance with their religious obligations. You must notify me in advance of religious holidays or observances that might coincide with exams, assignments, or class times to schedule mutually acceptable alternatives. Students may also contact religiousaccommodations@nyu.edu for assistance.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

The TCS Department is dedicated to the university's goals for diversity, equity​ and inclusion. NYU is committed to building a culture that respects and embraces diversity, inclusion, and equity, believing that these values – in all their facets – are, as President Andrew Hamilton said, “…not only important to cherish for their own sake, but because they are also vital for advancing knowledge, sparking innovation, and creating sustainable communities. They should be indispensable elements of an NYU education on all of our campuses. A diverse population encounters and appreciates all perspectives of an issue with a wealth of different approaches to confront it. The result is a higher quality of debate, and a more excellent and advanced academic enterprise.”

NYU Global Inclusion and Diversity: NYU’s commitment to building and strengthening a university-wide culture of diversity, inclusion, and equity has led to the creation of the Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation. As part of the Office of the President, the Office of Global Inclusion provides expert consultation, resources, and innovative strategies to help guide the University—and its uniquely global and diverse student, faculty, staff, administration, and alumni communities—toward a more inclusive future. https://www.nyu.edu/life/global-inclusion-and-diversity.html

TITLE IX

Title IX makes it clear that violence and harassment based on sex and gender are Civil Rights offenses subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, etc. If you or someone you know has been harassed or assaulted, you can find the appropriate resources here https://www.nyu.edu/about/policies-guidelines-compliance/equal-opportunity/title9.html

OFFICE OF STUDENT LIFE & SERVICES

Office of Student Life & Services (SLS) – formerly the Office of Student Affairs Email: tandonstudentlife@nyu.edu Social Media Handle: @tandonstudentlife Office of Student Advocacy Email: advocacy.tandonstudentlife@nyu.edu Office of Student Leadership & Engagement (OSL&E) – formerly the Office of Student Activities and Resource Center (OSARC) Email: engagement.tandonstudentlife@nyu.edu Social Media Handle: @engagement.tandonstudentlife Tandon Career Hub – formerly Tandon Career Services Email: careers.tandonstudentlife@nyu.edu Social Media Handle: @tandoncareerhub

* If you are experiencing an illness or any other situation that might affect your academic performance in a class, please email Deanna Rayment, Coordinator of Student Advocacy, Compliance and Student Affairs: deanna.rayment@nyu.edu. Deanna can reach out to your instructors on your behalf when warranted.

COURSE SCHEDULE

This is a preliminary schedule. Please see Weeks Schedule for updates and modifications to this course calendar. All dates and assignments may be subject to change at the discretion of the professor.

Co-taught by an artist-technologist (Carla Gannis) and an art historian and critic (A.V. Marraccini), this class is a practice-theory hybrid studio for visual AI. Using art historical inspiration, students will make work in a variety of practical modes—from text to image to GANs models and more. Critical writing and exploration exercises will allow students to think about the philosophical and ethical debates surrounding AI alongside their work.

There will be lectures; class visits from machine learning engineers, media theorists, artists and agency heads implementing artificial intelligence in multiple forms; along with hands-on introductions to working with and across AI platforms. There are no prerequisites for this course, students’ own interests will guide a hybrid final project. The course will culminate in an exhibition of students' work at NYU.

IN CLASS

VISITING EXPERTS

• AI Ethics Panel with Charlotte Kent, Ruby Justice, Sasha Stiles and Anne Spalter

• Student Discussion

• Finish Crits

ACTIVITIES 03

• WRITE a two paragraph response to our in-class ethics panel and/or a response to your own Creation 03 below-- feel free to combine the topics! [post to the Discord, also share as a doc in your folder on the class google drive]

IN CLASS

AI RELATIONSHIPS AND EXTENDING REALITY

• Discussion

  • Alex unpacks The Sandman

• Crits of Remixes and Do Something, Do Something Else

• Presentation

ACTIVITIES 05

• WRITE an initial two paragraph response to the Benjamin reading OR your own Creation 05, below [post to the Discord, also share as a doc in your folder on the class google drive]

IN CLASS

Camp and Kitsch

• Discussions

  • Alex on the Sontag text and Queer Art

• Presentation (SKIPPED, so VIEW and READ over the week)

  • Carla on Subversion in Art, Appropriation Art, Copy & Paste, and Prompt & Copy
• Crits

• Open Work Session

  • Begin working on Creation 07

ACTIVITIES 07

• WRITE a two paragraph response to the above reading/viewing

• Presentation (SKIPPED, so VIEW and READ over the week)

  • Carla on Subversion in Art, Appropriation Art, Copy & Paste, and Prompt & Copy

IN CLASS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Going forward please turn in assignments by 3pm on Monday, so that we can review them before class!

• Your prof Carla G has a solo exhibition opening THIS Friday, with a press release written by your other prof A.V.M.

AUTHORSHIP AND OWNERSHIP

• Discussion and Crits

  • Alex: Barthes discussion

  • Eric Demo and Install: Pytorch 1hour 1/2

ACTIVITIES 04

• WRITE a two paragraph response to one or more of the above readings/viewings [post to the Discord, also share as a doc in your folder on the class google drive]

IN CLASS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

1 - Please turn in Word or PDF files for reading responses (not Pages)

2 - The final exhibition of your work will be on Friday, December 13th here at the Navy Yard and in conjunction with IDM's 20th Anniversary Party and a showcase of other student work from other IDM classes! That said, we are expecting you to attend this event. Please let us know NOW if you have travel plans or an other conflicts on this date.

3 - This week for CREATION -- you will want to do the reading BEFORE you make this work, or at the very least DURING it! You need the reading to get the concept!

4 - Check it out: OPEN CALLfor YOUR WORK if you are in the IDM/TCS community

COPIES AND COPYING/ART IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL REPRODUCTION

• Discussion

ACTIVITIES 06

• WRITE a two paragraph response to Sontag's "Notes on Camp" [share as a doc in your folder on the class google drive]

IN CLASS

AI Bias

• Visiting Expert: Yesha Shah

  • Sharing a case study on addressing AI Bias

• Discussion

  • Alex and Carla on the VRLs (What Models Make Worlds, Legacy Russell...)
• Crit (maybe)
• Open Work Session

  • Begin writing Artist Statement 250 words on Identity homework

ACTIVITIES 08

• FINISH Artist Statement (this should be about your work in Creations 07 and 08)

• CREATION 08 Iterate your Identity

IN CLASS

• Announcement

  • Sign up for a MANDATORY 2:1 meeting with us . We will be meeting in office 360 at 370 Jay Street, NOT here at the Navy Yard. These meetings will take the place of our regularly scheduled class meeting. Again, there will be NO IN CLASS meeting next week!

  • Your PROJECT PROPOSAL (this week's assignment) MUST be in by 3 pm on Sunday the 10th of November. This is so we can discuss it in our 2:1 meetings.

• Visiting Expert: Tess Adams

  • Tess Adams is a Technical Artist working at creative production studio to create the visual media seen throughout the museum for exhibitions and events. Her background is with 3D animation and rendering, but she has recently been leading initiatives to integrate emerging AI approaches into the creative studio’s pipeline.

  Sign Up For Groups

  • SIGN UP for an exhibition team .

  • We will go over the dates and components of your final projects plus the duties of each exhibition team.

• Discussion & Presentation

• Alex and Carla: final project steps, producing a substantive body of work and significant writing

  • Sample project proposal structure [Alex]

  • Sample slide deck proposals [Carla] *See below. You can access this slide presentation as a guide to your own.

Open Work Session

ACTIVITIES 09

• CONTACT your fellow exhibition team members after you receive a team assignment email on Tuesday to plan a meeting starting next week.

• • Remember: your proposal MUST include a slide show that indicates visual ideation - moodboards, mindmaps, etc...

There are eight Creations that you will be producing for this class. You have one week to create each one, so they should not be precious or labored over, however you should spend substantial time making them. Be prepared to explain your process and choices. You get graded for DOING THEM: P/F.

They will serve as “sketch” material for your one major projecte: Final Project and Exhibition.

2:1 MEETINGS (No Class Meeting)

• Alex and Carla Meet Individually with Students

  • Schedule To Be Posted

ACTIVITIES 10

• MEET with your team for the final exhibition organization sometime this week. You will have an email with the final team members from last week, as well as access to the sheet.

IN CLASS

Presenting your final project-- REMEMBER YOU NEED TO BE AT THE NAVY YARD YOUR EXHIBITION, BOTH FOR SET-UP AND YOUR DISPLAY, THE AFTERNOON AND NIGHT OF DECEMBER 13TH.

ACTIVITIES 14

HAVE A GREAT WINTER BREAK!!

IN CLASS

EXHIBITION, INSTALLATION

• Presentation and Conversation:

  • Alex and Carla" Putting on a Show (link TBP)

  • All the information in the presentation re: teams is here.

• Strategizing and planning for the exhibition

• 7:00 PM Class Visitor: Steven Pestana Steven Pestana is a digitally trained conceptual artist whose environments explore light, shadow, and the ephemeral as both media and subject matter. He has received numerous awards including an individual artist grant from the Rogers Foundation, NYFA’s City Artist Corps Grant, and a Puffin Grant. Pestana has participated in residencies across the United States and exhibited at venues such as the Rubin Museum, Flux Factory, Spring/Break Art Show, Satellite Art Show, and Ohio State University. Currently, he teaches in the Department of Digital Arts at Pratt Institute.

• Crits

  • Class crits with Carla and Alex of Works in Progress

ACTIVITIES 11

• Do your part of the prep

IN CLASS

• Setting up a show!

ACTIVITIES 13

• FINISH as teams or individuals any final preparation for the exhibition next week

DESCRIPTION: Based on the readings for Week 04 (*see bulleted READINGS list below) develop a relationship with an online identity (*or if this is too uncomfortable to you, produce a speculative fiction work about your relationship with an AI service, robot or agent). This relationship can be platonic or romantic in nature. DOCUMENT via screen shots, videos, text files this blossoming relationship. At the end of the week, WRITE a or to your AI friend, based on your feelings about the experience. INCLUDE the AI's response to you, and/or add any personal anecdotes about the experience.

• The documentation of this creation can be collected in a .pdf, a slide presentation, a video, or in some other form, for example a talking avatar telling the story of your relationship, or you performing the

• You should engage with your AI friend no fewer than 3 times during the week, for at least 15-30 minutes.

READINGS:

• "

SUGGESTED APPS:

INSPIRATION: HER, 2013, an unconventional love story between a human man and an AI operating system.

I'm Your Man (2021) A scientist at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin is persuaded to participate in a study to get funding for her research. For three weeks, she must live with a humanoid robot designed to be the perfect life partner for her.

EXAMPLE:

Below are excerpts from a conversation that my "AI avatar" C.A.R.L.A. G.A.N. (Crossplatform Avatar for Recursive Life Action Generative Adversarial Network) had with a virtual friend on candy.ai. In this conversation she explains to the chatbot (that is set to "human mode") that she is virtual. He debates with her over this, and expresses how much he prefers "real experiences."

DESCRIPTION: MAKE a deep (or series of) and post on discord and upload copies to your folder on the. INCLUDE a text file (caption on discord) that describes your process and the applications used. See my example below.

And what do we mean by deep deepfake? Go deep into the process. Compare and contrast results. Deepfakes are easy to make these days. Choose an aspect that you want to push. Is it content? resolution? aesthetics? humor or absurdity? or something else? The choice is yours, just dive deep into it!

BE PREPARED to discuss this creation in class or on discord next week.

COURSE NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR DIGITAL FILES: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AI_MessingAround_KaraBillingsley.doc

INSPIRATION:

EXAMPLES:

Deepfake apps used in this example:

A few other deepfake applications that I haven’t tried yet:

DESCRIPTION: Although the title of this course is Visual AI Studio, this week we encourage you to use an AI audio application to complete a remix (see definitions and inspiration below) of a beloved or despised song. You can include visuals of yourself or your friends deepfaked as the singer or the band; you can create a remixed music video; you can create a new score using musical notation. The sky is the limit in how you choose to remix, but given that the concept of Remix "often referenced in popular culture derives from the model of music remixes which first produced around the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City," audio should be a core component in this work. (quote: )

BE PREPARED to discuss this creation in class or on discord next week.

COURSE NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR DIGITAL FILES: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AI_Remix_GongfuWu.jpg

Suggested Text to Audio/Sound Apps:

Image to Sound (Based on image generated for text to image) :

Open Source :

INSPIRATION: This quote by Jim Jarmusch, who additionally quotes Jean-Luc Godard: “Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.’”

...and Everything is a Remix

Everything is a Remix is a four-part documentary series on remix culture. It was produced by Kirby Ferguson, a US-based filmmaker. The series focuses on remixing as form of creativity.

Remixing, mashups and sampling have all been with us for many years now but the saturation of high-speed broadband has seen an explosion in the access to media and its inevitable resampling and subsequent sharing, where the process begins over again.

Pablos Picasso once said “good artists copy; great artists steal,” and Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, used this line again in a 1995 interview.

DEFINITION: What is a Remix?

Generally speaking, remix culture can be defined as the global activity consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies that is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste. The concept of Remix often referenced in popular culture derives from the model of music remixes which were produced around the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City, an activity with roots in Jamaica’s music.[1] Today, Remix (the activity of taking samples from pre-existing materials to combine them into new forms according to personal taste) has been extended to other areas of culture, including the visual arts; it plays a vital role in mass communication, especially on the Internet. Definitions:

Remix: A remix is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, and changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, books, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The only characteristic of a remix is that it appropriates and changes other materials to create something new.

Mash-up - something created by combining elements from two or more sources: such as

• a piece of music created by digitally overlaying an instrumental track with a vocal track from a different recording

• a movie or video having characters or situations from other sources

• a Web service or application that integrates data and functionalities from various online sources

Appropriation Art - appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. The use of appropriation has played a significant role in the history of the arts (literary, visual, musical and performing arts).

Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation, is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.

Cultural syncretism is when distinct aspects of different cultures blend together to make something new and unique. Since culture is a wide category, this blending can come in the form of religious practices, architecture, philosophy, recreation, and even food.

Plagiarism: the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

SCAMPER: Subsitute Combine Adapt Modify Put to another use Eliminate Rearrange or Reverse. You can post images of other works that seem related to what your artist does, or post an image of the artist's work and write about ways that you think they have used the SCAMPER technique in some way.

EXAMPLES:

MORE INSPIRATION

• You can't just make a single output in thirty seconds and turn it in, unless you have a sophisticated conceptual explanation for why you did that. In general, you always have to be able to explain why you made the artistic choices you did.

• Play around! Experiment! There is no right answer. Unlike a problem set, a work of art doesn't have one correct way to engage. You are trying to develop your own sensibility as a maker and technologist in this course, and part of that is taking risks to figure out your own style using these tools. Sometimes you'll fail and that's fine too. These are pass/fail assignments that give you a pass just for turning it in for this reason-- we want you to try to push yourselves.

• Art and especially art made with generative tools is as much about ideas as it is outputs. Be prepared to think about your viewers-- how do you want people to see this piece ultimately? As a print? On a screen? Each creation you make won't have to be finished to this degree, but your final project for our exhibition will and it helps you to think about this every week. The point is not to make something beautiful. It can be beautiful; it can also be ugly, abrasive, or uncomfortable. The point is to make something worthy of interest. Hold yourself to the highest standards you can: would you be interested in this piece if you saw it in a museum or gallery?

• Get your hands dirty, even if you've never made physical art or design before. We encourage students to consider hybrid physical-digital outputs every week because they often bring out strong work via a multi-step process. My sketches in creations 1, 4, and 6 are an easy example of that (check them out for details). But you can also think about photographs, videos, sculpture, and found objects as sources of inputs that are in the physical world. Similarly, you can also return your piece to the physical by printing, copying, re-making, and being inspired by it to use another form. Our class has a huge space in the Navy Yard to exhibit your final pieces, so you can think big too!

• Keep a sketchbook or commonplace notebook for your ideas. This helps when you feel burnt out and need inspiration, or if you have an idea to jot down some other time on the subway or at 4 AM. You can see I use my sketchbook in all the example pieces I have made for this syllabus. I also use a notebook for my writing, including my first book, where I jot down quotes, make doodles, and take notes in my life when something seems like an important concept. I like my notebooks to be tiny so I can keep them in my bag with me all the time, so I use pocket-sized ones, but you can use anything you want. My sketchbook

• The example creations we've posted shouldn't change what you want to make or how. They're just there for general guidance if you feel overwhelmed about the general assignment expectations, NOT as a literal how to that you should copy exactly as a process.

- AV Marraccini

DESCRIPTION

1. Use multiple platforms and practices this week.

2. Elements from previous class assignments can be incorporated

3. This can be a collaborative project.

4. If the work is time-based (performative or video) please make sure it is under 7 minutes.

5. Course Naming Conventions for Digital Files: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24SP_AI_DoSomething_CarlaGannis.doc

6. If a live performance, please make sure to arrange in class video documentation of your performance (*this will be the digital file you turn in as the assignment on the class google drive)

7. Questions? Ask us!

INSPIRATION: Iteration: “Take an object, do something to it, do something else to it”-- Jasper Johns

Example (you are required to make a hand drawing, sculpture, or other physical medium as your starting input for this creation)

If I was asked in a crit about this piece, I would talk my listeners through my process, from sketch, to digital, to physical again in the form of sculpture. Then I would explain how my choice of materials and form, as well as prompt inputs, relate to Hesse's work, her premature death from cancer in her late 30's, and my own experience with chronic illness (that's why I had a prescription bottle just lying around to make this with). The process is part of the concept of the final artwork. If I were doing this for our class, I'd be sure to bring the sculpture with me in person the next week, since it's small and portable, as well as post images from many angles on the Discord.

PS-- If I were thinking about expanding this for the final project, I'd consider scale. Should I make a really large piece to increase physical presence in the gallery? Maybe 20 or so wrapped bottles for more visual impact? What about doing this with a set of related sketches and making all the outputs into related sculptures?

Orient yourself with this and use their online guide (in the sidebar of this link) to prompting and other features if you need more help.

DESCRIPTION: Use Midjourney to make an art historically inspired piece and be prepared to discuss it in class or on discord next week.

COURSE NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR DIGITAL FILES: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AI_MessingAround_JillianBenizzi.doc

Inspiration/Example:

I made this work using a multi-step process. Midjourney often produces more interesting outputs starting from another image. I often encourage people to use sketches. It doesn't matter if they're bad! It's kind of like a guiderail for the software. You can even draw stick figures, but this physical step also helps you conceptualize what you want the final piece to resemble and work out why in your head. I started with this sketch of a robot in a garden, inspired by the painter Fragonard:

I just took a picture of this on my phone and uploaded it to the Midjourney website-- no sophisticated scanning, nothing, you just type the prompt next to the image you're using as a guideline.

A lot of using Midjourney for this course will just be putting the hours in and learning the contours of the model by experimentation. Because I happen to like French rococo painting, one of the things I've noticed is that Midjourney sucks at distinguishing the style of those painters from each other and later works. So you have to use workarounds if you want something in that style. I wanted to evoke Fragonard, but also a biomechanical android figure that represented the topic of this course for me, merging my own interests with the syllabus for this example. My initial prompt resulted in this in Version 5-- I set the algorithim back one version because 6 and above are very posterized, and I don't like that look. I wanted something that felt like paint. My first output looked like this:

This was fun, but way too "cute" for the style I was going for here-- and also it still looks more like a sketch on paper than paint on canvas. So, I set the algorithm back further. Versions 4 and 3 tend to look more like physical paint if you want to play with that aspect of the digital-physical illusion. I used this output as a guide with the same prompt-- "a biomechanical woman in a garden as a French rococo painting by Fragonard"-- to get these next two outputs:

These were cool! But still not exactly what I wanted as my final image. Midjourney has a lot of algorithmic bias. If you ask it to depict a woman, even a robot woman, she'll almost always be very attractive in a heteronormative way, and be surrounded by flowers in a garden that actually don't exist in French rococo painting-- but there's no way for the algo to know that, right? So I decided to merge all three images in the style of the v 3 algorithim output, once again with the prompt "as a french rococo painting by Fragonard with a biomechanical robot woman in a garden":

Okay, this was much closer to what I was going for! But it didn't feel painterly enough, I wanted to see the strokes. So I used the name of another French painter and applied this image in the prompt box, and cranked up the "chaos" setting to get something out of left field from the predictable algo:

This is how I got my final result here:

But I'm not done. I could bring this into Photoshop, or paint in actual acrylic or even oil if I wanted to. Or even just use it as an inspiration for another output-- maybe a digital video, a costume made of cardboard, or something else entirely. I'm happy with this for now though, but for a crit, I have to think about what my piece is doing intellectually. I wanted a painting that didn't look like a cliche poster or videogame art, and that looked like it had the artifacts of actual paint-- marks, strokes etc. This is because I wanted to think about the idea that we're all still looking at a digital image here, not real paint, something that will come up when we read Walter Benjamin. I chose a robot as a subject with the contradictory setting of an 18th century French garden and painting style so the viewer would know I was playing with irony.

This should make a few things clear to you about your creative pieces every week:

1. You can't just make a single output in thirty seconds and turn it in, unless you have a sophisticated conceptual explanation for why you did that. In general, you always have to be able to explain why you made the artistic choices you did.

2. Play around! Experiment! There is no right answer. Unlike a problem set, a work of art doesn't have one correct way to engage. You are trying to develop your own sensibility as a maker and tehcnologist in this course, and part of that is taking risks to figure out your own style using these tools. Sometimes you'll fail and that's fine too. These are pass/fail assignments that give you a pass just for turning it in for this reason-- we want you to try to push yourselves.

3. Art and especially art made with generative tools is as much about ideas as it is outputs. Be prepared to think about your viewers-- how do you want people to see this piece ultimately? As a print? On a screen? Each creation you make won't have to be finished to this degree, but your final project for our exhibition will and it helps you to think about this every week. The point is not to make something beautiful. It can be beautiful; it can also be ugly, abrasive, or uncomfortable. The point is to make something worthy of interest. Hold yourself to the highest standards you can: would you be interested in this piece if you saw it in a museum or gallery?

4. Get your hands dirty, even if you've never made physical art or design before. We encourage students to consider hybrid physical-digital outputs every week because they often bring out strong work via a multi-step process. My sketch here was an easy example of that. But you can also think about photographs, videos, sculpture, and found objects as sources of inputs that are in the physical world. Similarly, you can also return your piece to the physical world by printing, copying, re-making, and being inspired by it to use another form. Our class has a huge space in the Navy Yard to exhibit your final pieces, so you can think big too!

5. Keep a sketchbook or commonplace notebook for your ideas. This helps when you feel burnt out and need inspiration, or if you have an idea to jot down some other time on the subway or at 4 AM. You can see I use my sketchbook in all the example pieces I have made for this syllabus. I also use a notebook for my writing, including my first book, where I jot down quotes, make doodles, and take notes in my life when something seems like an important concept. I like my notebooks to be tiny so I can keep them in my bag with me all the time, so I use pocket-sized ones, but you can use anything you want.

INSPIRATION:

DESCRIPTION: Use Midjourney to make an art historically inspired piece and be prepared to discuss it in class or on discord next week.

COURSE NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR DIGITAL FILES: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AIStudio_MessingAround.doc

Project Proposal Guide

Total suggested wordcount: 500

Things to Include (not necessarily in this order):

1. Major themes of your work (ideas, aesthetic sensibilities, other artworks, things you want it to look or feel like)

2. Conceptual framework (what are the theoretical ideas behind your project, why you’re doing what you’re doing, what’s the bigger concept behind it)

3. Title of your proposed project—if you know it yet, just feel free to put a guess or TBA, or also go with “Untitled”

4. What software or other methods, including analog, you’re thinking about using.

5. Exhibition ideas if you have any at this point

6. Influences: other artists, texts, films, etc.

7. Bibliography: List three relevant sources, which can include texts we’ve read in our class. Reserve images and other visual material for your Project Moodboard.

This project proposal is intended to give us a framework for your 2 on 1 meeting, but also for you as you work toward your final project for exhibition. Think of it as a plan of action going forward, but know you can always change it at any time after too!

We will be assigning various viewings, readings and "listenings" throughout the semester, in addition to inviting guest speakers to class. You will be asked to respond to all of these.

There will also be one assigned artist statement and project statement ...

COURSE NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR DIGITAL FILES: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AIStudio_AssignmentName.doc

DESCRIPTION:

EXAMPLES:

DESCRIPTION: Make something tacky, camp, kitsch, or intentionally ugly. OR make something queer that leans into the sensibilities of queer history, like camp.

Example:

Alex:

First, I got out my sketchbook and watercolours. I wanted to play with the phrase " a little fruity" that is an old fashioned-- and now jokey way-- of talking about queer people like me. I wore a t-shirt with it on it to Pride this year, which gave me the idea. Paintings of fruit are also a total kitsch, dining room cliche, so I wanted to try making something both queer AND kitsch today. Here were my initial tools-- once again I decide to start with analog materials because they give me a feeling of richness in my work:

I painted some kitschy watercolour fruit that looks like an elementary school kid did it. These are the cropped photos from my sketchbook pages I used, thinking they would make a good dataset for PlayForm-- I made many more than this but here's a good sampler:

I uploaded my full dataset of watercolour fruits to PlayForm. Then I set it as my training dataset for a GAN for 2 hours and 30 minutes, or 15 credits worth of computing.

As you probably know by now, Playform by default for this training time offers fifty outputs. This gave me a lot of choices. And choice is an important part of artistic agency. I had these images to choose from when constructing my final piece, which I decided should be a triptych in a nod to classical painting forms.

You'll notice a lot of these resemble actual fruit. I think if I wanted to take this piece is a more deeply kitsch rather than queer direction, I would have gone with those. But my personal sensibility as an artist tends toward abstraction and biological forms. You should trust your own personal sensibility you're developing in this class too-- ask yourself what you really like aesthetically every time you're confronted with outputs to work with like this. But in the end, indeed oranges are not the only fruit, and I made this final piece using three pretty abstract outputs that look almost like cells or growths, a link to the innate weirdness of living a queer life as an experience for me.

Here's the individual final three outputs you see in the example piece above merged into the final form of the triptych:

After choosing my three parts, I made the final piece combining them in Photoshop, with a simple black ground that suggests the triple framing of a triptych in physical life. You can see the final piece under the header that starts this page. In the end, how you present your work matters too! Think about the after-process you have for your outputs-- sometimes you might want to use a raw output, but sometimes not. For me, the reason not to use all the outputs, or just one, was to hone my concept in the direction of my vision of queer art.

DESCRIPTION: This week you're going to "iterate your identity" Revisit the "Are You There AI God? It's Me, (Insert Name)"

*This is similar to the "Do Something and Do Something Else" project, BUT you will be writing an artist statement about this project.

• You can approach this iteration multiple ways:

  • You can choose a new medium or media form to translate your original work

  • You can expand on the work you've already produced, for example if you made a 20 second video, it can now be longer form or you could audio or interactive components

  • You could create a new work if you feel after class material covered together there are different ways you'd like to represent yourself

  • You can surprise us with some other approach we did not mention above ^^^

REQUIREMENTS:

• Do not use an AI platform to write your artist statement.

• For the second iteration of your identity one component of the final work should be authored by you, meaning it should not be only an AI generative project. For example, you can take a generated image and bring it into Photoshop or After Effects to edit, add, or change the work in some way.

EXAMPLE:

ARTIST STATEMENT FOR THE WORK: “The Selfie Drawing Project” began as a search, turning my gaze upon myself (and my electronic devices) to see what I might find there. In January of 2015 I felt an intense urge to begin working on a new body of work, one that in fact, incorporated my body. I felt vulnerable at first, speaking more directly through my own voice, and using myself as a character in the digital narratives that seem to be my most natural form of expression. I’ve been taking selfies for years, but before incorporating them into my art, I needed to find an element of selfie vernacular to recontextualize. Drawing, usually the first phase of any series I begin, became the vehicle for me to embark on this project. The project includes a collection of 52 digital drawings that I completed over 52 weeks – a year-long project in which I performed “the self” through digital drawings from January to December 2015.

The first culmination of this body of work was “A Subject Self-Defined”, a solo exhibition at TRANSFER Gallery in 2016 of large-format looped moving images and an augmented reality book (produced in collaboration with UNBOX and Blippar), that took its title from Joseph Kosuth’s 1966 neon sculpture that spells out and is eponymously titled “A Subject Self-Defined.” He belonged to a group of artists involved in stripping down the art object, reducing it to ideas and information that were detached from personal meaning. Forty-nine years later, when we find art in the age of networked identity and digital dematerialization, I am perplexed by subjecthood and self-definition in relationship to the “personal” when performed publicly.”

In 2017, the project was expanded for a solo exhibition at DAM Gallery entitled “Until the End of the World.” I provided new hybrid transcriptions of the Selfie project, including an augmented reality wallpaper installation “The Selfie Wallpaper“ and the 3D animated video work “Until the End of the World,” for which the exhibition is eponymously titled and which enhances a narrative component to the selfie project. Inspired by a sequence in the 1991 Wim Wenders film “Until the End of the World” where a woman is addicted to watching her dreams in a small, handheld device. I exploded the concept into an operatic mash up that addresses the digital identity politics of our age.

DESCRIPTION: Make a piece based on your identity, yourself using some form of AI, for example a self portrait or a selfie or some other form that encapsulates an aspect of your identity.

BE PREPARED to discuss this creation in class or on discord next week.

COURSE NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR DIGITAL FILES: YearSemester_CourseTitle_NameOfActivity_FirstLastName.fileformat Ex: 24FA_AI_Identity_JorgeMendoza.doc

INSPIRATION: NarGIFsus: This is an exhibition co-curated by Carla in 2016, pre-dating much use of AI in image production. Still there are some hilarious digital takes (check out the fan as selfie) in this collection of work.

Some articles that may be helpful in your thinking about yourself

1. THE SCIENCE OF SELF: "What Is a 'Self'? Here Are All the Possibilities" by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, 2016, Live Science https://www.livescience.com/57126-what-is-a-self-all-possibilities.html

2. AI AVATAR SELFIES: “How Is Everyone Making Those A.I. Selfies?" by By Madison Malone Kircher and Callie Holtermann, 2022, NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/style/lensa-ai-selfies.html

3. FACIAL EXPRESSIONS IN SELFIES: "AI and the American Smile How AI misrepresents culture through a facial expression." by Jenka, 2023, Medium https://medium.com/@socialcreature/ai-and-the-american-smile-76d23a0fbfaf

4. SELF IDENTITY, SELFIE HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY: "THE 'Selfie' Phenomenon as a Basis for Self-Identity Search. Preamble to a Philosophy of the Selfie Photography" by Sylvia Borissova and Liliana Yakovleva, 2020, Philosophy

5. OBJECT ORIENTED PHILSOPHY & NARCISSISM: "The I in Object: Selfie Culture and Object-Oriented Philosophy"

6. ANTHROPOLOGICAL: "The Origins of Self An Anthropological Perspective" by Martin P.J. Edwardes , UCL Digital Press https://ucldigitalpress.co.uk/Book/Article/91/115/6744/

7. FACE TRACKING: "Working with Faces: A journey into the art of face analysis and classification. by Kyle McDonald, Medium https://kcimc.medium.com/working-with-faces-e63a86391a93

EXAMPLES: Carla Gannis: "self portraits as a wwwunderkammer" 2022

Description: "So I've been thinking about 'mixed media art,' about 7,810,000 Google results and the possibilities of "mixed algorithm art" 1 Google result. Over the past two days, I trained midjourney AI on 'wwwunderkammer, wunderkammer, cabinet of curiosity, cabinets of curiosity, feminism, decolonization, futuristic, hyperreal'. I trained Lensa AI on photos of me ranging from 6 years old until now. I then used the images generated from both of these platforms in playform AI (a platform I have been using since the early days of 2019. I love the abstractions an artist can achieve with playform) to generate a new set of images. So a few results (with some further tweaks by me in Photoshop) and a few of the generated images from midjourney and lensa that went into the soup."

Student Seun Elemo: An AI generated image of a "Black man," a statement on how Seun's unique self is seen as a "flat" generic identity by others

Student Benjamin Liang: He passed this poem that he wrote to GPT and asked it to render an image of how I felt in the moment he was writing it (i.e. a snapshot of him “self”).

Any action without reflection is meaningless. Real learning only occurs as part of a reflective process. Reflection is studying your own practice as seriously as you study anything. It involves thinking about why, what, and how you create something. In any learning situation you should study beforehand, make/do, reflect, adjust, and do it all over again. Learning happens in a cycle. You will synthesize what you are noticing in your notebook, readings, writings, and creating with regard to your learning. Each self assessment should have a minimum of three citations from lectures, weekly discussions, guest visitors, and/or readings (or any other aspect of the course not mentioned here).

This reflective writing will require you to critically evaluate your process and execution in the class.

The minimum length is 250 words.

All written assignments should be submitted as a .pdf in your google class folder.

1. Your project! Ready for installation on or before December 13 (maybe December 12), with the expectation you will be present for both exhibition and setup. You must also upload all files and documentation to your course folder.

2. Your presentation! Ready for you to show your classmates and our visiting critics in the classroom on December 9th to prepare you for the final show. This should be a slide deck with a 5-7 minute presentation. Primarily this slide deck should include documentation of the project itself, NOT preliminary research, ideation documentation, etc...

3. Your artist statement! Like the one you tested out on Creation 08, this should be a statement prepared to be displayed alongside your final project.

4. Your team's work! Whatever aspect of the exhibition you have signed up to work on must be ready on or before (depending on what it is) December 13. Materials and Promotion team members must make sure to have items avaiable early-- you can't promote a show the day it starts, for instance, and your classmates need materials to set up and work with much earlier.

DEC 9 - In Class Crit with Visiting Critics

DEC 13 - Showcase/Exhibition of Work at Tandon @ The Yard

TO BE UPLOADED TO YOUR CLASS GOOGLE DRIVE

• Upload ALL digital files pertaining to your Final Project (this includes working file iterations)

• Submit 5-10 documentation photos (high resolution, 1920 x 1080 pixels or above) of your work in the exhibition.

WEEK 03

Charlotte Kent

Ruby Justice

Anne Spalter

Sasha Stiles

WEEK 08

Yesha Shah

WEEK 09

Tess Adams

WEEK 11

Steven Pestana

WEEK 13

Ali Hossaini

IDM Labs:

MakerSpace:

Visual AI Studio | Prompt Research

TEXT TO VIDEO

Text to Audio/Sound :

AI TOOLS

AI TUTORIALS

AR TOOLS

(Part of Unity AR Foundation Kit):

AR TUTORIALS

Snapchat Lens Studio

Meta Spark Studio

TikTok Effect House

Adobe Aero

BlippAR

Unity AR

SDK INFO:

Vuforia: Vuforia Engine is a software development kit (SDK) for creating Augmented Reality apps. With the SDK, you add advanced computer vision functionality to your application, allowing it to recognize images, objects, and spaces with intuitive options to configure your app to interact with the real world.

Vuforia Engine supports AR app development for Android, iOS, Magic Leap, and UWP devices.

ARCore by Google: ARCore is Google’s augmented reality SDK offering cross-platform APIs to build new immersive experiences on Android, iOS, Unity, and Web. Transform the way people play, shop, learn, create, and experience the world together through contextual understanding about people, places, and things.

ARKit by Apple: Build unparalleled augmented reality experiences for hundreds of millions of users on iOS and iPadOS, the biggest AR platforms in the world. With powerful frameworks like ARKit and RealityKit, and creative tools like Reality Composer and Reality Converter, it’s never been easier to bring your ideas to life in AR.