School of Literature Media and Communication

Exploring Art and AI in Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Media, and Communication

admin — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:26:31 +0000

Exploring Art and AI in Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Media, and Communication admin Fri, 07/14/2023 - 14:26

Painting may seem old school, but it’s a profoundly technological practice. From the tech behind brushes to the mathematics of perspective, artists of all kinds have long placed themselves where science, technology, and art meet.

But it’s never been more challenging to pinpoint where a relentless ocean of technology splashes over the ever-shifting sands of artistic expression amid the rise in artificial intelligence tools such as DALL-E and ChatGPT capable of generating images, text, and even music from relatively simple text prompts.

This landscape has proven fertile ground for School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC) resident painter Mark Leibert, who for years has turned to algorithms and computational methods to help inspire and refine his work.

Leibert and collaborators from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have gone even further, recruiting a team of student researchers in the Art & AI Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) to explore the artistic implications of AI and the technological implications of art. In fact, they were well ahead of the recent public buzz over artificial intelligence tools, having launched four years ago — before DALL-E and ChatGPT became household names.

“We have a really unique situation here where we can think about how these techniques can be used for artistic means and how to use those creative neurons to approach some of these new technologies,” said Leibert, an LMC professor of the practice.

Art and Computation Central to LMC’s Mission

The Art & AI VIP is one of many arts-and-technology efforts housed entirely or partly in LMC, a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. The most recent initiative is Interactive Media Arts, a partnership between the Ivan Allen College and the Georgia Tech Library, that features many LMC faculty.

Other projects include Professor Brian Magerko’s widely acclaimed EarSketch coding-through-music platform; work examining the shared DNA behind quilting and computing spearheaded by Anne Sullivan, an LMC assistant professor whose doctorate is in computer science, and Professor Janet Murray’s continued exploration of the impact of digital technology on storytelling. The School also recently added a new artist-in- residency program, in collaboration with the GT library, to further examine the nexus of art and tech. It also has invited musicians to a residency program with similar aims, that one in conjunction with the School of Music.

“LMC has always been about looking at how technology is shaping literature, art, and storytelling in general,” said Kelly Ritter, chair of the School. “The Art and AI VIP is one way we’re doing this, but whether it be a new center dedicated to exploring the nexus between media arts and research, the extraordinary work of faculty such as Brian Magerko and his team, who are helping teach young students to code, or how technology and its impact is suffused throughout our writing and communication program, this sense of interplay between technology, textual study, and media arts is central to what we do.”

AI: ‘Solutions in Search of a Problem’

DALL-E’s AI-generated take on Leibert leading a class.

The VIP draws students from across campus, many interested in exploring the creative potential of technological degrees or in scratching a creative itch they aren’t always able to satisfy amid a heavy courseload in computing or engineering.

“Tech has great resources for technology and amazing resources for literature, media, and communication. This seemed like one of the few bastions in which the two were really intermingling,” said Jude McClaren, a second-year computational media student.

Leibert formed the VIP team in 2020, initially partnering with now-retired GTRI researcher Betty Whitaker. He’s now working with Ethan Trewhitt, another GTRI researcher, who helps students dig deeper into the sometimes mystifying ways in which AI and artistic intent interact.

“AI systems, in some cases, are solutions looking for a problem, and giving them new outlets helps you recognize where the limitations of those systems are,” said Trewhitt, a senior research engineer at GTRI. “Then the creative motivations of the people using these systems can create new ways to solve problems that can then be used toward what you would consider more practical applications that aren’t necessarily art. So it’s kind of a feedback loop.”

Exploring the Intersection of Art and AI

In its four years, students in the Art and AI VIP have explored the intersection of the two fields through various projects. In recent years, students have tried using AI to write horror, create moving portraits, animate children’s books, explore new takes on old music, creative interactive, emotion-sensing art, and tools to visualize poetry and music.

In the Spring 2023 semester, an interdisciplinary group of students with experience in coding, illustration, 3D-modeling, computer animation, website design, marketing, and AI systems worked on creating a human-like extension to the ChatGPT AI tool.

You can see a gallery of some of the recent work they have done in a database maintained by the Art & AI VIP.

Their techniques include generative adversarial networks, diffusion models, transformer models, and natural language processing models, as seen in publicly available tools such as DALL-E, EbSynth, and ChatGPT.

“I would say the bulk of the students are working in the deep-learning space, which tends to be a little more black-box kind of functionality,” Trewhitt said. “The fun thing about this is there really isn’t such a thing as failure, so it’s safe to really play with things that can surprise you.”

While Trewhitt is still working through ways to dive deep into the technology behind such systems in a way that works for a team with a range of backgrounds, some more technical than others, some teams have surpassed his knowledge in some areas.

“We had students working on a music video project recently, and by the end of the semester, they definitely understood it better than I did. I had dabbled in it, but they had spent hours really getting it working the way they wanted, peeling back the layers of a complex system to get it to do what they wanted it to do.”

Michelle Lee, an Art & AI VIP member and second-year computer science student from New York, is working on a music visualization program. She said the VIP has allowed her to use her computing knowledge in a creative way that she hopes will help after graduation.

“I hope to bring creativity wherever I go,” Lee said. “I hope to work at a tech company, and I’d really like to bring this kind of creativity to make my work different and unique.”

Thinking About the Ethics of AI and Art

Tools such as DALL-E and ChatGPT have made headlines in recent months. The coverage ranges from astonishment at the tools’ ability to render true-to-form, if sometimes absurd, images or text to outright alarm at the potential the tools have to deceive or perhaps even put artists and other creatives out of work.

It’s a topic of discussion in class, of course. Leibert, Trewhitt, and the students have discussed how emergent technologies, such as the AI tools used in class, can scramble methodologies, disciplines, and careers. They’ve also discussed how working with art creates opportunities to be nimble, reframe conventional thinking, and surface novel ways to solve problems. Leibert says that can, in turn, lead to the creation of new tools or even new careers. Case in point: the rising demand for people skilled in “prompt engineering” — in other words, able to coax quality results from a tool that can sometimes be mysterious and even erratic.

That kind of work is something creative people have done for a long time, Leibert said.

“Artists and writers have worked with generative prompts and games for much of the last 100 years,” he said. “Sometimes it has been the flip of a coin, consulting I Ching, or selecting from a deck of prompt cards. Tools like Photoshop and Illustrator have been a part of my process for at least two decades, and working with this group has increased my appreciation for the work computer scientists do.”

Ethical issues also come up, of course, such as who is doing the creating — the human, the machine, or some mixture of the two — and who can claim ownership over the resulting works.

“This is a very new and fast-moving field, so we spend a lot of time talking about the technologies and the creative and conceptual potential of AI in art. But the nice thing about what we are doing is that we are able to have these conversations about ethics in an informal manner as we work, so this kind of ethical thinking becomes as much a part of what we do as the technical inputs or the artistic outputs.”

Students in the VIP are well aware of the ethical issues and committed to using AI for good. And many view the use of AI to make or remix art as natural, just another tool in an artists’ toolkit.

“AI is a legitimate way of making art,” said Marin Hyatt, a third-year computer science student from New York. “I think, like anything else, AI is just a tool, similar to Photoshop. It’s just a different way to make art.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

The Art and AI VIP explores the interplay between artistry and artificial intelligence.

Summary

Where does technology end and art begin? The question is central to the students and faculty involved in the Art and AI Vertically Integrated Project (VIP), led by faculty from the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and the Georgia Tech Research Institute. The team, which predates AI tools such as DALL-E and ChatGPT becoming mainstream, seeks to understand how such technologies can be applied for artistic ends, and how artistic creativity can inform technological advancement.

Dateline

Fri, 07/14/2023 - 12:00

michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu

Contact

Michael Pearson
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Associated importer

Keywords

artificial intelligence

AI. art

fine art

Art and AI Vertically Integrated Project

School of Literature Media and Communication

DALL-E

ChatGPT

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Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Society and Culture

An Age of Empowerment: Meet Joycelyn Wilson

admin — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 20:57:12 +0000

An Age of Empowerment: Meet Joycelyn Wilson admin Mon, 06/05/2023 - 16:57

Joycelyn Wilson didn’t just grow up around music, she grew up around the lyrics. She wanted to know what artists were singing and why.

“I remember sitting and writing the lyrics,” she said. “They spoke to me. Music has been a learning space for me for a long time. It’s just in me.”

Wilson’s research examines hip-hop and what it says about the world we live in. A pioneer of hip-hop education as a practice, she uses it to address issues of civic engagement, race, and politics and to inspire future leaders in science, technology, engineering, and math.

A graduate of Atlanta’s Mays High School, Wilson is assistant professor of black media studies and an educational anthropologist in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. One of her most popular classes uses the music of Outkast, Kendrick Lamar, and other artists as texts to explore larger issues.

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Wilson’s research examines hip-hop and what it says about the world we live in.

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 02/26/2019 - 12:00

Contact

Kristen Bailey

Institute Communications

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Keywords

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

profile

women

diversity

african-american

Music

joycelyn wilson

popular culture

School of Literature Media and Communication

faculty

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Campus and Community

Well-Being in the Classroom

bwaye3 — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 19:16:46 +0000

Well-Being in the Classroom bwaye3 Thu, 03/24/2022 - 15:16

The last few years have been layered with concerns ranging from navigating intense discussions about politics and race to managing anxiety during a global pandemic. These challenges often affect how we conduct ourselves at work, at school, and in social settings. This spring, two Georgia Tech professors — Narin Hassan and Tiffany D. Johnson — are addressing the challenges through innovative teaching around well-being, sustainability, work, race, and social justice.

Hassan, an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, is teaching a special topics course, Bodies and Borders: Cultural Histories and Narratives of Embodiment and Health. The seminar (which combines LMC advanced undergraduates with graduate students from the MS-Global Media and Cultures program) takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to analyzing the body and cultures of health and wellness in relation to gender and nation. She also teaches a course on literature and medicine and conducts research on the relationship between medicine, gender, and global culture.

“In order to have careful and nuanced conversations about health and wellness, particularly in relation to gender, race, and issues of social justice, you have to build community and create a space in the classroom where people feel safe getting into those messy areas,” Hassan said. “Until you do that, people may feel tense when talking about it.”

Hassan and Johnson both have backgrounds in yoga and meditation, which they find helpful when they’re leading discussions on potentially provocative subjects.

“Being trained in those practices helps us read the classroom more intuitively and helps us better navigate the pedagogical spaces in which we teach these difficult topics,” Hassan said.

Hassan’s course examines topics such as the intersections of gender, race, and empire within histories of science and medicine, depictions of the body within national and international discourses, representations of the body and its relationship to nation, and practices of medicine and wellness in cross-cultural contexts. It will analyze narratives of illness, contagion, and disease, conceptions of the body as a site of oppression or resistance within social/political discourses and social justice movements, cultural configurations of embodiment and mobility, and the circulation of popular wellness practices within contemporary culture.

Readings and course materials include fictional texts, memoirs, health guides, travel narratives, films, visual images, critical essays, and historical sources to analyze how bodies and notions of health and well-being are and have been represented and conceptualized technologically, visually, scientifically, narratively, and politically in a variety of global contexts.

Johnson, an assistant professor in the Organizational Behavior Area in the Scheller College of Business, is teaching an undergraduate version of a graduate level course that she taught previously called Work, Equity, and Wellness, which examines the historical intersection of the three areas. She conducts research on organizations and workplaces, and how they can become more inclusive and equitable.

“The course looks at the history of work and the historical foundation of the field of management,” Johnson said. “We have been socialized from the time we started school to just work the way we do without question. For example, take the word ‘professionalism.’ What does it mean to be professional, and where does that meaning come from? Tracing it back historically helps us begin to gently question the ways in which we may be perpetuating inequity, even in small subtle ways.”

In Johnson’s course, weekly discussions are supported by readings, podcasts, and documentaries. Students connect to the content by sharing how it resonates with their personal and organizational experiences. They meet regularly in small groups to reflect, share insights, and offer feedback for each other’s class assignments. The class ends with students presenting projects aimed at reimagining approaches to work, racial equity, and wellness in their personal lives and in a focal workplace of their choosing.

“In both levels of classes — MBA and undergraduate — students understood it right away, in part because we all have been influenced by work history," Johnson said. "We just become more mindful of its prevalence in this class."

Given the Institute’s growing focus on well-being, Hassan and Johnson have been collaborating for the past three years and creating interdisciplinary experiences for their students on topics related to well-being and social justice. This semester they will guest lecture in each other’s classes, and they plan to share guest speakers and bring their classes together on related topics.

Summary sentence

Two Georgia Tech professors are addressing workplace and social challenges through innovative teaching around health and wellness.

Dateline

Wed, 03/23/2022 - 12:00

victor.rogers@comm.gatech.edu

Contact

Victor Rogers

Institute Communications

Location

Atlanta, GA

Associated importer

Keywords

well-being

health

wellness

Narin Hassan

School of Literature Media and Communication

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Tiffany Johnson

Scheller College

LMC

News room topics

Campus and Community

Health and Medicine

Society and Culture

School of Literature Media and Communication

Exploring Art and AI in Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Media, and Communication

Art and Computation Central to LMC’s Mission

AI: ‘Solutions in Search of a Problem’

Exploring the Intersection of Art and AI

Thinking About the Ethics of AI and Art

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

An Age of Empowerment: Meet Joycelyn Wilson

Read the full story

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Well-Being in the Classroom

Keywords

News room topics

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