Descriptions of each class meeting will be found here.

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.

  • All info here

AUTHORSHIP AND OWNERSHIP

• Discussion and Crits

  • Alex: Barthes discussion

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

    • Click here to proceed: https://github.com/SuperTornadox/AI_Studio_DCGAN/tree/main

  • If time: Carla and Alex: Crits of Creation 03: Remix

• ****ERIC'S EMAIL for THIS WEEK: Eric He, xh2815@nyu.edu****

ACTIVITIES 04

• READ E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman":

  • WATCH (optional) Ballet Coppelia which is based on this short story

• READ "My AI Lover" (watch this one on the NYT website directly so you can view the documentary the text refers to-- you can view it free with a trial account)

• READ "Are We All Technosexuals Now?"

• READ "A.I. Is Making the Sexual Exploitation of Girls Even Worse"

• 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]

• CREATION 04 Do Something and Do Something Else

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

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

VISITING EXPERTS

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

• Student Discussion

• Finish Crits

• (Optional) Open Work Session: Begin Creation 03 Remix

ACTIVITIES 03

• READ Barthes– "Death of the Author"

  • If you're curious about the (very short!) story that Barthes' uses here, you can read Sarrasine in English translated by Clara Bell here. If you read French feel free to read both Barthes and Balzac in the original!

• READ Excerpts from Sasha Stiles- Technelegy

• READ Creative Commons AI policy

• 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]

• CREATION 03 Remix

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

IN CLASS

AI RELATIONSHIPS AND EXTENDING REALITY

• Discussion

  • Alex unpacks The Sandman

• Crits of Remixes and Do Something, Do Something Else

• Presentation

  • Carla:OUR AGE OLD FASCINATION WITH AUTOMATA & THE POTENTIAL OF AI RELATIONSHIPS

ACTIVITIES 05

• READ Walter Benjamin Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

• 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]

• CREATION 05 How Do I Love Thee, Let me Count the Prompts

IN CLASS

AI Bias

• Visiting Expert: Yesha Shah

  • Sharing a case study on addressing AI Bias

• Discussion

  • Carla discusses "The Artist Statement"

  • Alex and Carla on the VRLs (What Models Make Worlds, Legacy Russell...)

    • CARLA'S NOTES on the VRLS Review by Charlotte Kent of the "What Models Make Worlds" exhibitionhttps://brooklynrail.org/2023/11/art-technology/Crisis-A-Critical-Imaginary/

• Crit (maybe)

  • 07 Are You There AI God? It's Me, (Insert Name)

• 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

• WRITE a Self Reflection. This will help prepare us for discussions with you in our 2 on 1s in Week 10.

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

    • View presentation HERE

• Crits

• Open Work Session

  • Begin working on Creation 07

ACTIVITIES 07

• READ and VIEW What Models Make Worlds: Critical Imaginaries of AI

• VIEW BLACK MEME, Glitch Feminism, & AI - Legacy Russell Interviewed by Jesse Damiani

• 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

    • View presentation HERE

• CREATION 07 Are You There AI God? It's Me, (Insert Name)

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...

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

EXHIBITION, INSTALLATION

• Presentation and Conversation:

  • Alex and Carla" Putting on a Show (link TBP)
• Strategizing and planning for the exhibition

• Crits

  • Class crits with Carla and Alex of Works in Progress

ACTIVITIES 11

• Do your part of the prep

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

IN CLASS

• Setting up a show!

ACTIVITIES 13

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

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!!