Creative AI Vermont: Symposium on Artificial Intelligence + Art

HULA

Creative AI Vermont is a one-day symposium dedicated to examining how artists are engaging with the rapidly emerging field of creative and generative artificial intelligence (AI). Held in conjunction with Burlington City Art’s exhibition

Co-Created: The Artist in the Age of Intelligent Machines and co-hosted by the University of Vermont, the inaugural Creative AI Vermont symposium presents local and international perspectives, Co-Created  artists, and visiting AI thought-leaders while examining creative approaches to AI and artistic practice. The symposium features artist talks and technical workshops as well as a youth focused, hands-on workshop for Vermont high school students.

OPENING KEYNOTE

NATALIE SUMMERS , COMMUNICATION AND ARTIST RELATIONS, OPENAI, SAN FRANCISCO

With the disruptive release of both ChatGPT and DALL-E2 in the last year, OpenAI has captured our cultural imagination and established itself as a driving force in the emerging generative AI industry. A University of Vermont alumna, Summers provides an insider’s perspective on the rapidly changing generative AI landscape and explores its future possibilities.

YOUTH WORKSHOP

UVM ART + AI RESEARCH GROUP AND GIRLS WHO CODE , UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

This workshop teaches high school students how to use code to design patterns and introduce ways of automating colorful, geometric compositions with machine learning. The workshop provides instruction and time for students to work collaboratively and independently.

PRESENTATIONS

MINNE ATAIRU , ARTIST AND DOCTORAL STUDENT, ART AND ART EDUCATION, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NY

Igún

Co-Created artist Minne Atairu presents her Igún project, which uses generative AI to explore the consequences of colonial oppression in sub-Saharan Africa while focusing on repatriation of Benin Bronzes.

JANE ADAMS , ARTIST AND COMPUTER SCIENCE PHD STUDENT IN THE DATA

VISUALIZATION LAB AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, MA

Aerial View: Reflections on Processing Images, from Code to Artifact

Emergent media artist, Jane Adams, shares her creative process for Aerial View . Curating aerial photographs to train a machine-learning model to imagine new landscapes, Adams creates an illuminated sculpture that encodes time along another dimension.

SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

CHECK-IN & REGISTRATION

10a 11a 12p 1p 2p 3p 4p 5p 6p

WELCOME & OPENING KEYNOTE

NATALIE SUMMERS, OPENAI

INTRO: CHRIS THOMPSON

COFFEE BREAK

ARTIST PRESENTATIONS*

JANE ADAMS, MINNE ATAIRU, LAPO FRATI

INTRO: HEATHER FERRELL

LUNCH BREAK

WORKSHOP: JANE ADAMS

WORK FLOWS FOR AI ARTISTS

INTRO: DONNA RIZZO

BREAK

ARTIST PRESENTATIONS*

ALEX LEE, JENN KARSON, MAURO MARTINO

INTRO: CHRIS THOMPSON

COFFEE BREAK

CLOSING KEYNOTE

JOSH BONGARD, UVM

INTRO: JENN KARSON AND LISA DION

THANK YOU & CLOSING REMARKS

DOREEN KRAFT, BCA

TRAVEL TO BCA CENTER. 135 CHURCH STREET

CREATIVE AI VERMONT RECEPTION

BCA CENTER. 135 CHURCH STREET

YOUTH WORKSHOP ISTHMUS

YOUTH WORKSHOP

KEY WEST

CO-CREATED: ARTIST IN THE AGE OF INTELLIGENT MACHINES EXHIBITION ON VIEW

LAPO FRATI , ARTIST AND PHD STUDENT IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS AND DATA SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

From Cyb to Cyber: A Peek into Loops‘ Inner Life

Using a unique combination of AI, JavaScript and GPUs, Lapo Frati explains the creative code behind his CyberLoops project featured in Co-Created . Frati leads an entertaining, deep-dive tour of mathematical spirographing, machinelearning, computer vision integration, graphic shader programming – and the approachable p5.js creative coding environment that holds it all together. Follow along with or without your own laptop

ALEX M. LEE , ARTIST AND ASST. PROFESSOR, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, TEMPE AND MEDIA AND IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE CENTER, MESA CITY, AZ

Imbuing Agents with Qi ( 氣 ) Through Synthetic Digital Energy

Alex M. Lee traces the evolution of the use of neural models as a metaphysical form of synthetic energy driving simple to complex avatar performances in his multi-episodic, XR art game, The Fold .

JENN KARSON , ARTIST, LECTURER, AND FOUNDER OF ART + AI RESEARCH GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

#OwnYourDataset

Jenn Karson presents on her Co-Created work, The Damaged Leaf Dataset , which uses AI to explore the local effects of climate change through maple and oak leaves damaged by spongy moth outbreaks.

MAURO MARTINO , ARTIST AND PROFESSOR, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, MA DIRECTOR, VISUAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAB, IBM RESEARCH, MA

Mauro Martino’s Exercises in Style

Mauro Martino presents on Mauro Martino’s Exercises in Style , as debuted and featured in Co-Created . He discusses the research and process behind the project that employs live, voice actors and the emerging technology of text to video.

TECHNICAL WORKSHOP

JANE ADAMS , ARTIST AND COMPUTER SCIENCE PHD STUDENT IN THE DATA

VISUALIZATION LAB AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, MA

Beyond Text-to-Image: How Can I Make My Own AI Art with Custom Data?

Designer-turned-computer scientist, Jane Adams, walks participants through sourcing their own image dataset from the web, and blending automation strategies from graphic design tools and code to develop generative, machinelearning models. Tools run the gamut from no-code approaches to advanced Python strategies, offering more flexibility and reduced material costs. Follow along with or without your own laptop.

CLOSING KEYNOTE

JOSH BONGARD , PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF UVM’S MORPHOLOGY, EVOLUTION AND COGNITION LABORATORY, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

The World’s First AI-Designed Organism

The most creative act yet achieved was the origin of life on Earth and its subsequent evolution. However, the diversity of life on earth represents a vanishingly small fraction of all life forms that *could* exist. What else is out there? To begin answering this question, Bongard’s group created an AI that, in turn, created a brand new organism never before seen on Earth – the xenobot A xenobot is a millimeter-sized “robot” made from genetically unmodified frog cells. Xenobots are but the first of an imminent menagerie of AI-designed organisms that will transform biology from the study of “life as it is” into “life as it could be.”

CO-CREATED EXHIBITION AT BCA CENTER

on view through May 6, 2023

Co-Created: The Artist in an Age of Intelligent Machines  features eight artistexplorers who use machine learning as an artistic medium. Probing the creative and technological boundaries of learning machines, these artists have been hacking systems, gathering data, and training neural networks long before the emergence of popular “push the button aesthetic” generative Ai tools such as ChatGPT, DALL·E2, Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion.

What does it mean to be an artist? What is the nature of creativity? What is the future of creative practice with these new technologies?  Co-Created  examines these essential questions and encourages us to consider the evolving relationship between artists and their increasingly capable and collaborative tools.

Exhibiting artists: Jane Adams*, Memo Akten, Minne Atairu*, Lapo Frati*, Jenn Karson*, Mauro Martino*, Casey Reas, and Jason Rohrer.

* Presenting artist at symposium

SPEAKER BIOS

JANE ADAMS is a data visualization artist, researcher, educator, and PhD student in Computer Science at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Jane‘s creative practice blends the emergent media of generative technologies with natural phenomena such as plants, fungi, weather, geology, celebrating the relationship between science and the arts. She holds a MFA Degree in Emergent Media from Champlain College, Burlington.

MINNE ATAIRU is an interdisciplinary artist and PhD candidate in the Art and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City, whose research-based practice seeks to reclaim the obscured histories of Benin Bronzes. Utilizing generative AI and additive fabrication, Minne reassembles visual, sonic, and textual fragments into conceptual works that engage with post-colonialism and issues of repatriation.

JOSH BONGARD is the Veinott Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Morphology, Evolution and Cognition Laboratory, University of Vermont. His work involves automated design and manufacture of soft-, evolved-, and crowd-sourced robots, as well as computer-designed organisms. A PECASE, TR35, and Cozzarelli Prize recipient, he has received funding from NSF, NASA, DARPA, ARO and the Sloan Foundation. Josh is the co-author of the book How The Body Shapes the Way We Think and director of the robotics outreach program Twitch Plays Robotics.

LAPO FRATI is a multi-disciplinary artist, computer scientist, researcher, and complex systems specialist whose work combines mathematical concepts with visual aesthetics through computational media to interrogate the simplicity of natural and artificial systems, and the complexity of human perception. He explores the ability of modern technologies to bridge the gap between creative coding and artificial intelligence. Lapo received his MS and BS in Computer Science from the University of Pisa, Italy, and is currently a PhD candidate in the Complex Systems and Data Science department, University of Vermont, Burlington.

JENN KARSON  is an interdisciplinary artist, lecturer, curator, director of the University of Vermont Fablab, and School of the Arts faculty member, whose work focuses on intermedia artist-made datasets. She is also the founder of UVM’s Art and Artificial Intelligence Research Group. Jenn received an MFA in Design and Technology, San Francisco Art Institute, CA and a BA in Political and Environmental Sciences, University of Vermont. She is locally known for her work with Vermont Makers and for playing with local bands Zola Turn and Bad Ju Ju.

ALEX M. LEE is an artist and Assistant Professor of Animation at Arizona State University‘s Herberger Institute for Design & Art, Tempe, whose work engages the evolution of the use of neural models as a metaphysical form of synthetic energy – driving simple to complex avatar performances through 3D animation, virtual/ augmented/immersive reality platforms, and multi-episodic art games. Lee’s experiential works investigate contemporary modes of representation, artifice, and technical images, blending science, science fiction, physics, philosophy and ideas of modernity.

MAURO MARTINO is an artist, designer, and Principal Research Scientist at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he founded and currently directs the Visual Artificial Intelligence Lab. He was formerly a Professor at Northeastern University, Boston, at the Center for Complex Network Research, and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He earned a PhD at City Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and the Polytechnic University of Milan.

NATALIE SUMMERS is Manager of Communication and Artist Relations at OpenAI, San Francisco, the organization behind both ChatGPT, and the DALL-E programs. With the recent release of these groundbreaking algorithmic platforms, OpenAI has captured our cultural imagination, establishing itself as a driving force in the emerging generative AI industry. A University of Vermont alumna, Summers provides a unique perspective on the rapidly changing generative AI landscape and the possibilities of its future.

GIRLS WHO CODE is an international nonprofit organization that aims to address the under representation of women in computer science, acknowledging the barriers that deter women from pursuing careers in the field, by fostering community-building and learning opportunities for female-identifying students. University of Vermont’s chapter is led by LISA DION , a computer science lecturer who collaborates with local faculty members and educators to increase the number of Vermont teachers certified to teach computer science at the junior high and high school levels.

UVM ART + AI is a research group led by artist and lecturer, JENN KARSON , which investigates and creates work that engages with the intersections of visual art, ethnographic study, and artificial intelligence through machine-learning production models and complex, data set interpretation. The group is particularly interested in the histories and futures of human-machine relationships, seeking to illuminate the aesthetic, social, material, ethical, and cultural constitutions of artificial intelligence.

CREATIVE AI VERMONT SYMPOSIUM TEAM

CHRIS THOMPSON , Co-Organizer, Co-Created Guest Curator

JENN KARSON , Co-Organizer, University of Vermont

SARAH JAYNE KENNELLY, Public Programs Assistant, BCA

HEATHER FERRELL , Curator & Director of Exhibitions, BCA

JACQUIE O’BRIEN , Gallery Coordinator/Curatorial Assistant, BCA

DONNA RIZZO , Advisor, University of Vermont

COMMUNICATIONS & DEVELOPMENT: Joyce Cellars, John Flanagan, Ted Olson, Elena Rosen

EVENTS: Abra Clawson, Haydee Miranda, Julia Moriarty, Emma Regan

GALLERY: Isabella Poutiatine, Rebecca Schwartz

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Doreen Kraft

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Sara Katz

UVM YOUTH WORKSHOP VOLUNTEERS: Jason Stillermen, Damien Socia, Ivan Shadis, Anna Dysinger

Creative AI Vermont: Symposium on Artificial Intelligence + Art is co-hosted by

Sponsors: the University of Vermont, College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, the University of Vermont, Office of the Vice President for Research, and Gravel & Shea PC.

Community Partner: The University of Vermont, School of the Arts.

Supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under award No. 2218063.

Thank you to the Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering, The Ruth and Peter Metz Foundation, and an anonymous donor for helping provide laptops for Creative AI Vermont’s youth coding workshop.