1:00-4:00pm, Monday, Dec. 9
Academic Building, Room 6051
15 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
On December 26th of last year, the New York Times photography critic Gideon Jacobs published a column with the following title: “A.I. Is the Future of Photography. Does That Mean Photography Is Dead?” The query strikes not just at photography’s very identity as a medium. It also serves as a proxy for larger questions about the apparent threat that artificial intelligence poses for the human imagination and photography’s identity. In this roundtable, students will inquire into the relationship between AI-generated photography and the subjective agency of authorship, creativity, intention, and believability involved in the making and consumption of the technology-based image, which photography has always been.
The student presenters will be drawing from their own work with AI-generated image, and from research on the implications of their projects.
The event will be held in person, and is free and open to the public. To attend, please RSVP at developingroom@gmail.com
Sponsors
Center for Cultural Analysis
Art History Department, Rutgers University
Lychee-inspired spherical chair, with a bumpy white exterior and plush interior, set against tropical wallpaper. Generated with Dall-E 3
Schedule
1:00 Introduction
1:15 Reece Goodson
1:30 Short Q&A
1:40 Coleen Tyler
1:55 Short Q&A
2:05 Adil Ahmed
2:20 Short Q&A
2:30 Priya Raman-Bogan
2:45 Short Q&A
2:55 Discussion among the panelists
3:15 Larger group discussion
3:45: Coffee reception
Talks
Artificial Intelligence and Art: Creative Agency or Impermeable Mediation
Artificial Intelligence and Art: Creative Agency or Impermeable Mediation
Reece Goodson
ABSTRACT
The talk "Artificial Intelligence and Art: Creative Agency or Impermeable Mediation?" explores the types of biases and stereotypes frequently found within images produced by artificial intelligence. The project focuses on the consideration of AI imagery as photography, and questions whether or not these present barriers restrict it from existing in the same realm. Reece catalogues his attempts at overcoming these barriers, while searching to understand their origins and potentiality for overcoming them.
BIO
Reece Goodson is a senior at Rutgers University majoring in art history with the desire to embark on a career as a curator or gallerist in New York City. He currently works as a museum attendee at Rutgers University's Zimmerli Art Museum, and as an intern at Marian Goodman Gallery in Tribeca, New York.
The AI Image and Place
The AI Image and Place
Coleen Tyler
ABSTRACT
There is much discussion about whether or not artificial intelligence and the generative images it produces hold a legitimate place in the history of photography. The emergence of AI into this history will be examined and its unique way of image-making will be compared with the more familiar ways photographs are made and used. Some interesting topics arising from this discussion relate not to the identification of photographic AI images, but to how they function as quasi-photographs and their relationship to place.
BIO
Coleen Tyler is an artist and photographer who uses analog rather than digital processes in her practice. She has an interest in the history of photography and how it relates to current photographic subjects and processes.
Dissemination of Ideologies through Generative A.I.
Dissemination of Ideologies through Generative A.I.
Adil Ahmed
ABSTRACT
Photographs have long been used to influence ideas as they are the art form we are able to trust the most. It captures whatever light is reflected into the camera’s sensor and then proceeds to create an image from those reflections at that point in time. This idea of indexicality allows photographers to push narratives that they prefer through the guise of objectivity.
Now, we see an influx of A.I. generated images in a global election year being used to tarnish reputation and sway votes. Donald Trump posting of an AI-generated image of Kamala Harris as a communist is one such example.
I will try to explore the formation and confirmation of ideologies through the influx of A.I. generated images online. I intend to do this by generating an image that misrepresents ideas about climate change to push a certain narrative.
BIO
Adil Ahmed is a senior majoring in Economics and Data Science at Rutgers University.
Linguistic Convention and the Imaginary Orient in Generative AI
Linguistic Convention and the Imaginary Orient in Generative AI
Priya Raman-Bogan
ABSTRACT
Generative AI software are uniquely potent vectors for conventionality; the process of producing these images, overwhelmingly, is that of producing 'prompts' which lead the model producing images. This project surrounds the use of large-language generative AI models Midjourney and ChatGPT to analyze the Orientalist presuppositions generative AI makes about nonwestern cultures and peoples through visual representation. Primarily, the project centers a small number of key prompts and resultant images which purport to capture both Orientalism as an enduring artistic style, as well as images of an imagined Orient based on keywords with historically Orientalist roots. Orientalism is both a distinct artistic tradition and a persevering form of historical narrative, both sharing in a body of tropes which persist in maintaining colonial borders beyond its most recognized Early and Late Modern forms.
BIO
Priya Raman-Bogan is a senior undergraduate student at Rutgers, majoring in History and Art History with a concentration in Law. She is the secretary of the student-run Rutgers SAS living-learning dorm, Demarest Hall, on College Ave, where she runs their indie zine publication.