Creative AI: Images and Media

Overview

This course explores how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we create, interpret, and engage with images and visual media. Focusing on generative tools, datasets, and cultural impact, you’ll learn how AI systems are trained to generate images, how artists are using them creatively, and what ethical, legal, and political questions arise as a result. By the end of the course you will be able to: - Explore how AI can be used to generate and manipulate images using techniques like GANs, CLIP, and diffusion models. - Understand the impact of datasets on the aesthetics and biases of generative AI, and how dataset design influences creative output. - Evaluate the ethical and legal implications of AI image-making, including issues of consent, appropriation, and authorship. - Experiment with text-to-image tools and other generative systems, gaining insight into how artists are working with AI in practice. Through hands-on activities, creative walkthroughs, and interviews with artists and researchers, you’ll investigate how generative systems work, reflect on how they relate to earlier image-making technologies like photography, and examine the social debates surrounding AI art platforms and dataset ethics. Featuring perspectives from leading artists and technologists working at the cutting edge of AI and visual culture, this course provides both the technical understanding and critical insight to begin experimenting with AI in your own creative media practice. No technical experience is required, just curiosity and a willingness to engage with new visual tools and ideas.

Syllabus

Making images with AI

In this module, we’ll explore how AI can be used to generate images using a type of algorithm called a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). We’ll highlight artists who have created work with GANs and examine how these tools are shaping contemporary creative practices. Alongside this, we’ll draw parallels between the history of photography and the rise of generative AI, considering how both technologies have transformed image-making and influenced the course of art history.

Practices and politics of making datasets

In this module, we’ll focus on how image datasets for AI are made, and explore the political and legal issues that arise from their creation. We’ll examine how these practices impact creative practitioners, consider how artists are engaging with AI, and discuss the legal challenges facing large AI art platforms.

Understanding text-to-image

In this final module of the course, we’ll take an in-depth look at text-to-image AI systems, which have risen rapidly in popularity in recent years. We’ll hear from artists and researchers who have worked extensively with these tools, using their projects as a lens to understand the creative and artistic implications of text-to-image generation. You’ll also take part in a practical activity reimagining animation using text-to-image techniques, inspired by the work of artist Adam Cole.