Artificial Intelligence

Integrate artificial intelligences into a creative chain, while reflecting on the consequences of their use

Through a simple textual invocation (“prompt”) one can now ask a so-called intelligent machine to generate images: portraits, landscapes, objects, architecture, typography, illustrations, etc. Increasingly, these machines can also imitate styles according to given instructions with ever greater nuance, subtlety and even boldness. These new tools are very powerful and require reflection on their uses. Their risks are great: they may cause our imagination to lose many of its complexities, while helping us better anticipate the tastes of the population. Cultural normalisation is not new, but with the massive emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in the production of images and texts, we risk sinking into a world of recursion and simulated reproductions. Given that AI is a reality, we must learn to deal with it. We can then choose not to use it knowingly, but we cannot ignore it.

Target audience
This course is primarily aimed at people who are familiar with the fields of art and/or design and who wish to strengthen their professional integration in fields related to emerging technologies.

Targeted skills
This course will introduce the main tools, sites and various algorithms currently used in text and image generation. It will allow participants to understand how to go from a prompt to an image, to modify its result and to integrate it into a creative work.
- Understanding of the challenges of machine learning in the creative process.
- Understanding of the different deep learning models: Disco Diffusion, Midjourney, GPT, etc.
- Knowledge of key training platforms such as Google Colab, Copy.AI, or Discord.
- Ability to integrate image and text generators into the ideation process of a project.
- Ability to conduct curatorial work around these processes.

Prerequisites
No technical skills are required other than basic computer skills (word processing, file management, etc.).

Teaching methods:
Historical courses, technical training, creative workshops

Certification
Certificate of Continuing Education

Credits
2 ECTS credits

Practical information
From May 29, 2024 until June 1st, 2023 
Languages: French/English 
Course format: courses and workshops
Fee: CHF 1,200/ HEAD – Genève alumni CHF 900
Location: Campus HEAD, Building H, Room H – 4.01, Av. de Châtelaine 7, 1203 Geneva

Information and registration/admission 
Contact: fc.head@hesge.ch 
Follow this link to regsiter
General terms and conditions


Module Heads:

Etienne Mineur

Graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1992, Etienne Mineur began his career in the field of cultural CD-ROM, before working as Art Director for several key companies in the field, such as Index+, Nofrontiere, and Hyptique. 

He then worked as Art Director for Yves Saint Laurent (CD-ROM on the work of Yves Saint Laurent), Gallimard (CD-ROM on the work of Marcel Proust), Issey Miyake (website), Chanel (website) and also for Nokia (interface design) and the Cartier Foundation (exhibition catalogue). In 2009 he decided to return to design related to physical objects. He founded Volumique, which is not only a publishing house, but also a studio for the invention, design and development of new types of games, toys and books – based on the relationship between the tangible and the digital. 

Douglas Edric Stanley

American-born artist Douglas Edric Stanley works primarily in the field of new media and more specifically on the relationship between algorithms and aesthetics. As an artist, designer, curator, developer and theorist, he focuses on the way various disciplines are transformed by the progressive “algorithmisation” of the world. Active in the video game industry and in experimental forms of play, he is joint founder with Antonin Fourneau of the monstre-à-n-têtes also known as ENIAROF. He has led numerous creative coding and experimental game design workshops for various museums, associations, universities and art schools and has participated as an artist in several exhibitions related to computer art. 


Programme & agenda 2024 - 8 half-days 

#1– Wednesday 29 May 2024  9h00am - 12h00
Lecture: introduction to the history of machine learning and its use in creative work and art direction.
 

# 2 – Wednesday 29 May 2024 1h00pm- 5h30pm
First steps in image generation with Midjourney.

 

# 3 – Thusday 30 May 2024  9h00am - 12h00
Setting up a Google Colab and/or Discord project. Image generation with a notebook.

 

# 4 – Thursday 30 May 2024  1h00pm - 5h30pm
Beyond standardised training: how to re-train an image generator from your own images.

 

# 5 – Friday 31 May 2024  9h00am - 12h00
Text generators: GPT-2, GPT-3, Chat GPT, Copy.ai.

 

# 6 – Friday 31 mai 2024  1h00pm - 5h30pm
Exercises in co-writing scenarios with a generator.
Setting up a project.

 

# 7 – Saturday 1st June 2024  9h00am - 12h00
Project follow-up.

 

# 8 – Saturday 1st June 2024  1h00pm - 5h30pm
Preparing project rendering and documentation.
Co-writing a catalogue text with Chat GPT.