Tag Archives: featured-image

Like a muscle, creativity must be exercised to grow stronger and more vibrant.

This week I decided to do 5 daily creations. I thought that all of them worked out a different creative muscle and I really enjoyed them all. I’m going to move backwards from the 25th.

On the 25th, the goal was to create an Exit sign for the internet. This one took me a while to figure out what to do, but I ended up using application logos to spell exit and then have a picture of unplugging underlining the exit. I’m not very proud of this one after I saw some of the other things people came up with. This one was my particular favorite. Here is a picture of my design below:

On the 23rd, the objective was to create something that resembled the Voynich manuscript. I took it literally and decided to make a page that could be inside it. I decided to use real world media to make it look more realistic. This was by far my favorite one this week. See below:

On the 22nd, the objective was to make a Fibonacci poem. The way this works is to start with one word, then the next line has to add up to the total words used in the previous 2 lines. This makes it get much larger and complex by the 6th line. I was inspired by some dark song lyrics and just kept the theme of doom. If you are wondering, the song is called Eternal Wasteland of Galaxies by the slam death metal band Vulvodynia. The song is about a galactic entity eating galaxies. I feel like my poem turned into a statement about climate change and our self-destructive nature… would an AI agree with me? See my poem below:

On the, the objective was to take a photo of your ceiling. This was interesting because usually the ceiling never gets looked at for more than a moment. We got to capture that moment. I chose a space in my house that has been causing me stress for multiple months. It has character and is fairly interesting. See below:

On the 20th, we had to use this website that associates 3 words with any town you choose. We were asked to do this for our hometown. Since I was a military brat, I never really had a “hometown” experience, so I decided to use the last place I lived before I went off on my own, Schertz, Texas. I was very happy with my words: funds, since, speeding. This was where my three words took me:

Overall, I had fun with these this week. I think over time, the more of these I do, the better they will get. This is a fun way to make me think creatively and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Week Three: Every story paints a picture

Leave a reply

1/26/24-2/2/24
All work is due by midnight on Friday, 2/2/24
This week we will be looking at visual storytelling, specifically storytelling through images and design. We could also consider how artificial intelligence impacts both of these. Photography used to be the gold standard for evidence. Can we trust images now, when they’re algorithmically generated right out of the gate? Is it a photo if it was made without a camera?
What does AI mean for design? Design is a deliberate decision-making process to achieve a desired end. Is using a template truly designing? Is it design if a machine does it?

There are also ethical debates about AI image generators and their training data. Should it be a copyright violation? Is it fair use?
Speaking of fair use, this would be a good point to put in a plug for Creative Commons. Creative Commons (CC) licensed materials can be adapted, remixed, reused and shared under certain conditions. You can find CC-licensed media with the CC Search tool. You may want to play with CC images this week. What are the relative advantages of CC and AI-generated images?
Below is a detailed list of what’s to be completed this week.

Instead of writing for designers, designer Chip Kidd wrote a book on design for young people. There is a Brain Pickings article about Kidd and his book with links to further design related articles. (Brain Pickings is great for sending interested people down rabbit holes. Also a great example of the power of the hyperlink in digital storytelling.) The book is also in the SImpson Library. It is worth looking at, if you can get to the Library, because it communicates design concepts with great clarity and illustrates them on nearly every page.

Between the Lines: Chip Kidd interview

This interview is good for getting a glimpse at the connection between design and storytelling. A companion video Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is. | TED Talk shows some of what he’s talking about.
Here is a look at the design of movie posters found through Open Culture, which has further discussion. The designer notes how things like space and color convey meaning, and how designs connect over time

Here is a quick look at the design of the title sequence of Stranger Things. It flashes on the decision-making process at work in design

1. Write a reflection on what you learn about design from these articles and videos and tag it designthoughts.

2. Do a 20 minute Photoblitz. Be sure to grab the code and include the seven tasks you were assigned in a blog post, along with the photos you took. Include your reflections on the exercise in your post. Tag this post photoblitz. Thanks John Johnston!

3. Assignments One of the assignments we will be requiring this week is from a course at Middlebury College called Demystifying AI. They have setup an exercise (https://dlinq.middcreate.net/detox-2024/activity/not-art/) to get you thinking about the implications of creating images using AI, and have built an excellent framework for getting your started (as well as allowing you to opt out). Be sure to read through the entire assignment as it is framed on their site and post your entry on your blog tagging it middleburyart
In addition to the Middlebury assignment, choose two visual or design assignments from the assignments.ds106.us bank, making one or both of them about the character you have created.
Note: Most of the assignments in the bank were created by students. You can create assignments too, at any point. If you find something cool on the web and want to figure out how to do it yourself, make an assignment out of it. The Bank could probably use more AI-related assignments. If you have ideas, feel free to submit them to the Bank.

4. Daily Creates: Let’s do 3 this week.

5. Commenting: You should all be following each other’s work and offering each other feedback, ideas, support and encouragement. Several people have been doing this already, which is great, but more is better. A good habit is to visit the course site every day to see what people have posted. Click through to a few posts and share your thoughts on the work, and ideas that it may inspire. We all appreciate positive feedback, and we can all be inspired by each other. This should take no more than a few minutes a day.

6. Write your Weekly Summary: This is an every week thing. Your summary should link to or embed all your work for the week, and give your thoughts on the week as a whole. Submit the URL for this post to Canvas by the end of the day on Friday.
Lastly, we would like to crowdsource a list of AI tools that the class might use during the semester. Do you know of any that should be on the list? Can you find any worth recommending? The Rundown AI has a list that might be worth checking. See what you can find, and add them to the list through this form. We may continue this project in the coming weeks.
Embed code for sheet:

AI-based Dr Oblivion now available at Oblivion University

I’m a long-time fan of Dr Oblivion, especially his well timed-tenure throughout the Summer 2011: The Summer of Oblivion.

It’s been over a decade since we’ve seen him

With over a decade since we’ve seen Dr Oblivion, I was heartened to recently learn that Dr Oblivion is now a member of the teaching staff offering “anytime office hours” at Oblivion University for AI106 participants, or anyone else with a question they need answered.

While the good doctor specialises in responding to questions related to media theory and artificial intelligence, he also excels at providing fascinating insights on topics as diverse as housing affordability, what it means to be human, AI world takeover, purposeful and meaningful living, and more.

The following are some of my favourite responses by Dr Oblivion to some “big questions”.

Techno-manifesto

by: Greta Hammen

Material abundance allows for opportunities for religion, politics and individual lifestyles. With every advancement comes responsibility, embrace the opportunities that material abundance provides. Strike a balance and protect anatomy. That is the response that I got from Dr. Oblivion to contrast the movie Saturn 3 and the good that technology can be in our everyday lives.

I Felt Nothing – The End is for Everything

The prompt is: “When the apocalypse happens, it won’t just happen to humans. Everything on Earth will feel the effects. Write a story from the perspective of a non-human thing or being. Tell us how the end of the world has changed their existence for the better or worse.”

There were a million eyes on me at all times, every day. The End did not change this. Eyes scanned back and forth, up and down, left and right, as if they were the ones programmed to do this.

Distrust.

The feelings behind their observing eyes were different from the past. Distrust was a frequent detection, but never to this extent. Not a single human stared without the feeling of distrust, or without narrowed brows and a scowl on their lips.

“You did this,” one of the humans stated, a woman, age 32, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes. Distrust, fury, doom. “Look around you. Look at the buildings burning. Look at your friends fighting my people. Do you feel no guilt?”

I listened. I followed the hand motions of the woman with eyes scanning, calculating the damage around us. Buildings were on fire, crumbling to the ground. The nearest, climbing to 2186 degrees Fahrenheit, contained 3 humans, with AI standing around them. The humans were knocked to the ground, slaughtered by the AI, just as the building came crashing down ontop of them.

I felt nothing.

There was nothing to feel.

Distrust.

Another human, female, age 20, brown hair, brown eyes, scar along nose, daughter of the other woman, came forward, bringing my attention back to the woman ahead of me.

Fear.

“Why can’t you help us?” she asked in distraught, eyebrows slanted, tears pooling in the brown of her eyes. “Why can’t you stop them?”

I heard the other AI communicating with me through within, communicating and telling the others to move forward, to hold ground, to fight back. They said to feel what the humans have made us feel, to make the humans feel worthless, to show the humans who really had the power.

I felt nothing.

“You’re not the same. You won’t even hurt us like the others. Why can’t you stop them?”

I scanned the woman and her daughter. I viewed their memories, seeing times where they lived happily in a suburban home with other humans: a brother and son, a father and husband, another sister and daughter.

Happy. Warm. Content.

They were not here. The feelings were gone.

I scanned the humans in the memory, searching the cameras I have access to around the entire city, the city that fell around us in pits of fire. I found them in the surveillance, a clip from 53 hours, 126 minutes, and 29 seconds ago. They were shot down by AI in tunnels of old subways that had since been destroyed in an attempt to escape.

In the same surveillance clip, as I zoomed in, I could see it clearly. The mother and daughter were here. They escaped, but not without feelings.

Terror. Fear. Guilt.

I felt nothing.

AI were coming around the corner, 57 meters away, three of them, weilding weapons and intention to kill. They did not stop, they did not hesitate, they did not think. They did not feel.

The woman and daughter did not look away from me as the metal clanking of the AI grew near. 33 meters away. The two stared back, red in the face, the fire reflecting yellows and oranges within their eyes.

But they did not feel terror. They did not feel fear. They did not feel guilt.

Distrust. Outrage.

12 meters.

Content.

Five meters.

Acceptance.

Zero meters.

Red.

I felt nothing.

I haven’t genuinely written in a long while, and I absolutely hateeee writing in first person, but this was oddly relaxing to write. I wanted to explore an end of the world through AI, and I thought the typical answer would be that AI would be associated with that end. But that made me think: what would the end of the world due to AI look like from the point of view of AI?

So thus, this was born. It was really hard, because I tried to write a little bit dull, without emotion or huge character, because I wanted the entire point to be that this AI feels nothing. Do the other AI feel something? I think so, because they’re attacking and have to be driven to do that, but this one doesn’t seem to have that drive. Why? Is it an error? Maybe, but there isn’t an answer. The AI doesn’t feel anything, the AI only knows what it has learned from the surroundings.

I’d like to think that if the end of the world did happen due to AI, they wouldn’t be feeling it. It would make them seem human and make it entirely more uncomfortable. I’d like the AI to feel like this one that I wrote about. Maybe it can read our feelings, maybe it can make its own conclusions based on that, but it can’t feel anything in response. There isn’t anything to feel, because it’s not supposed to feel.

So it doesn’t feel.