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
To be posted at end of the course