A Generative Year: 2023

Subscribers to this newsletter tripled this year, and I’ve never really been able to say hello. I’ve been struggling to find my last words for 2023, because there have been so many of them already. So, this post is a year in review, as well as an introduction. It’s been a busy year.

AI Images: A Critical Introduction

The lectures for this class, which I created and taught for Bradley University in spring 2023, are all fully available online. I was honored to see that Harvard and FU Berlin’s metaLAB later referenced this course across their AI Pedagogy Project, which is an excellent resource for instructors teaching critically with or about AI.

The course uses artistic experiments with computers, data, and technology to frame our understanding of what AI is and how it works. Guests lectures covered a range of perspectives on AI and included Paul Pangaro (Carnegie Mellon), Dr. Anuradha Reddy, Caroline Sinders, Dr. Eleanor Dare (University of Cambridge), Merzmensch, Moises Sanabria, and Derrick Schultz.

The Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (ARRG!)

The Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (ARRG! — Myself, Steph Maj Swanson and Caroline Sinders) were in Las Vegas for the DEFCON 31 AI Village. ARRG! focused on works made through the creative misuse of AI image making tools, either through prompt injection or misappropriation. Basically, it was art made by hacking AI.

We presented the work to DEFCON, the largest hacker convention on the planet, at the AI Village (AIV). The AIV secured access to a variety of Large Language Models for a “red teaming” event to see if (and how) people could trick or confuse the systems into creating unwanted output.

I wrote about the experience, and my thoughts on the issues and contradictions of red teaming events, and the role of artists as cultural red teams, in August. All of the artworks, as well as a transcript of my presentation for our DEFCON 31 panel, are online (find them at the button below).

There will be more from ARRG! in 2024.

AI x Design: Story x Code

The Story & Code program was AIxDesign’s residency program, which paired six creative technologists with six animators/storytellers to make something together with AI. I also hosted three open workshops with artists including Fabian Mosele, Erick Peters, and Soyun Park (with AIxD’s founder Nadia Piet hosting the final workshop with Amritha Warrier).

The outcome: six short trailers (also presented at the Wrong Biennale) and a book-length report on what we learned along the way. It was also a pleasure to chat to the New Inc cohort at the New Museum about the experience — especially how to balance critical thinking and creativity in the AI space.

Flowers Blooming Backward Into Noise

The Forking Room in Seoul, Korea invited me to give a presentation for its Adrenalin Prompt exhibition. To smooth out the translation process, and to create a piece for the exhibition, I created a 20-minute documentary using AI to analyze and critique how AI works, drawing on writings by folks like Safiya Noble and Abeba Birhane. It traces a connection between AI images and the work of eugenicist Francis Galton, which I originally wrote about here in February. (You can watch the Korean version, too).

It’s now hosted by ArtsEverywhere. There’s some exciting news coming about this project in 2024, stay tuned!

I was also delighted to have a series of works — Spurious Content and Visual Synonyms — included in “A Kind of Alchemy: The Work of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” put together by the gallery of the Digital Arts History Journal.

Sarah Palin Forever

Sarah Palin Forever was a film made using deepfake technology to tell a story about a 16 year old girl who has spent her entire life inside of a perpetually looping Sarah Palin rally taking place at an airport hangar in Bangor, Maine.

The short film is currently being shown at the CCCB (Barcelona) exhibition, “Artificial Intelligence,” and was shown at the +RAIN film festival, SONAR festival, and the Clapham International Film Festival in London. I spoke to Dirt Magazine about the film as well.

I am very excited to share that this January, the film (alongside Flowers Blooming Backward Into Noise) will be included in the Gallerie Stadt Sindelfingen exhibition, “Decoding the Black Box,” alongside artists I’ve long admired (Seeing my name alongside James Bridle and Mimi Onuoha? Pinch me).

Creative Research in AI & Tech Policy

In my role as Emerging Tech Research Advisor for the Siegel Family Endowment, I got to spend much of my year thinking through how research into technology and policy could be informed through creative thinking and the inclusion of artists. Siegel announced its openness to Creative Research in July, in a post co-written with Madison Snider.

It’s also been a pleasure to pen a number of policy oriented pieces for Tech Policy Press. This year, I wrote about decentralized social networks, but also a number of pieces that have done the rounds about generative AI, artists, and labor:

• A New Contract for Artists in the Age of Generative AI
• What the WGA Contract Tells Us About Workers Navigating AI

And one piece about the dark patterns of AI interfaces:

• Shining a Light on Shadow Prompting

There will be another piece appearing tomorrow. :)

Other exciting pubs this year included “Seeing Like a Dataset” for ACM Interactions and “Infinite Barnacle” for LEONARDO, both exploring the relationship between archives, generative AI, and personal memory.

I also spoke in NYC at the Creative Commons Symposium for a panel on heritage collections and training data, which you can watch below.

Artist Talks

In November, I finally recorded a video walk-through of my essay, “How to Read an AI Image,” which was published in the IMAGE journal and remains one of the most-read posts this newsletter ever sent out (you can read it here). This was presented to students at Aarhus University in Denmark.

• My SXSW talk with Dr. Avijit Ghosh, from March 2023, is now online as an audio-only recording.
• I was really excited for this great piece in the BBC4’s Digital Human about generative AI.
• A video version of my Leonardo LASER Talk at the Rochester Contemporary Arts Center on post-humanist design- I was also included in a group show there, Tomorrows: Artists Address Our Uncertain Future.
• A fun Q&A with Jon Ippolito’s students @UMaine’s New Media Dept.
• I chatted with AI Art Today over on Twitter Spaces.
• A conversation about building music systems for mushrooms at NorthSpore.

The Organizing Committee

Communication in the Presence of Noise, the third album from my critical-data-studies-kraut-pop-experiment with AI-human musical collaboration came out on Notype, and I’ll have some exciting news about this in 2024, as well!

That filled an email already, but I want to encourage you to take a look at the archive of the newsletter!

I think 2024 may actually be busier, and I’m looking forward to sharing it here — alongside some other experiments, if I get the time (and bravery) to do so.

Happy new year everyone, and thanks for all of your support in 2023.