2024f MAT255 - Techniques, History & Aesthetics of the Computational Photographic Image


2024f Instructor		MAT255 Techniques, History & Aesthetics of the Computational Photographic Image George Legrady \| http://vislab.mat.ucsb.edu Course materials are protected by US Copyright laws and by University policy. Contents of this course may not be reproduced, distributed, or displayed without my express prior written consent. Tues-Thurs 3:30-5:200pm (some lectures may be online) otherwise Lab 2611, 2nd flr, Elings Hall

Course Information		A project-based course for creative exploration, followed by critical analysis of text-to-image and image-to image production techniques in MidJourney and Stable Diffusion software. This course does not consist of software programming (unless you are interested in doing so on your own). The goal is to explore the creative process of readily available AI software and to investigate the impact of AI on how we create and understand the photograph’s transformation through weekly presentations of projects, methods and discussion leading up to the impact of machine-learning on the creative process resulting in computational generated artworks.

Course Workload		Attendance and participation at both in class meetings and zoom lectures Weekly contribution to course journal at Student Forum \| Legal agreement Final presentation pdf documentation of either a research paper OR project

09/26		Course Overview Course Intro \| What is an Image \| Uncanny Valley \| Human / Machine Art \| Previous M255 coursework

10/01 10/03 Lab		MidJourney Introduction Discord Link \| MidJourney Introduction \| Parameters MidJourney Controls MidJourney Variations \| Will Wulken Prompt Control Studies \| Camera Optics MidJourney Project 1

10/08 10/10 Lab		Diffusion Model & Digital Image as Statistical Average GAI \| Diffusion Model \| Diffusion Model Video \| Guassian Distribution \| Latent Space \| ChatGPT Pioneer artists working with statistical modeling: Nancy Burson \| Jason Salavon \| Training Sets: LAOIN-5B \| HaveIbeentrained.com \| Conceptual Captions (CC3M) \| YouTube 8M Sowon Park [4:00-6:00]

10/15 10/17		Text & Image Intersections Presentation and discussion of the 2nd assignment \| Prompt Engineering \| Prompt Artists Project 2: Studies in Text Prompt

10.22 10.24		Cultural Perspectives October 189: Questionnaire: Art and Machine-Learning [txt] \| Algorithmic Images: AI & Visual Culture [txt] \| Ruha Benjamin [web] \| Hito Steyerl [11:30] \| Fabian Offert \| MOMA Art & AI \| Trevor Paglen Project 3: Cultural Topic Presentation

10.29 10.31		Cultural Perspectives Discussion Project 3: Visualizations

11.05 11.07		Stable Diffusion \| Automata 1111 (usage) \| Flux1.dev Stable Diffusion

11.12 11.14		Image Knowledge \| Image Primitives Project 4: Testing Stable Diffusion

11.19 11.21		Individual Meetings / Lab Individual Meetings / Lab

11.26 11.28		Research THANKSGIVING

12.03 12.05		Final Presentations Final Presentations

Reference Links Emma Brown Lev Manovich Payton Croskey Charlie Price		Evidence (Mike Mandel, Larry Sultan) Troubling AI \| H-Metaphor (NASA paper) Artificial Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI: Media and Design Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model [research paper] \| Models All the Way Down The Weird and the Eerie (Marc Fisher) \| Unheimliche / Uncanny

Student Projects Emma Brown Payton Croskey Emily d'Archiardi Frida Figueroa Yuehao Gao Vivek Karthikeyan Jazer Giles Sibley-Schwartz Charlie Squire Shaw Xiao Anna (Borou) Yu		Final Projects Environmental StoryTelling Replicating Black Artists' Works Brat Aesthetics Food as architecture: Organic Urban Design AI's Visual and Musical Understanding of Chinese and American Cultures The Tale of an Indian Naga Sadhu Clip AI Trash Culture [img] ControlNet: Customizing and Directing AI-Generated Art Borges