2024f


Instructor



MAT255 Techniques, History & Aesthetics of the Computational Photographic Image


George Legrady | http://vislab.mat.ucsb.edu
 

Course materials are protected by US Copyright laws and by University policy. Contents of this course may not be reproduced, distributed, or displayed without my express prior written consent.

Tues-Thurs 1-2:50pm (some lectures may be online) otherwise Lab 2611, 2nd flr, ELings Hall


Course Information
An interdisciplinary course that examines, thorugh case studies, the state of the photographic image, its history, the theoretical, conceptual, and philosophical underpinnings. The course bridges studio arts, engineering, and humanities. This course may be of interest to artists, humanities researchers or programmers as there are three directions to explore:
  1. The aesthetic creative applications, opportunities and constraints,

  2. The computational processes from image processing to machine-learning, and

  3. The social considerations – to what degree can we believe in the image given the considerable software-based processing and autonomous image detail generation we are seeing through machine-learning processes.

The end goal is to investigate the photograph’s transformation through weekly presentations of projects, methods and discussion leading up to the impact of machine-learning on the creative process resulting in computational generated artworks.


Course Workload

Attendance and participation at zoom lectures
Weekly contribution to course journal at Student Forum | Legal agreement
Final presentation pdf documentation of either a research paper OR project


09/28

Course Overview, Apparatus Fundamentals


10/03


10/05



Lab
MidJourney Introduction
Discord Link

MidJourney Controls
MidJourney Variations | Will Wulken Prompt Control Studies>

MidJourney 1

10/10





10/12


Lab
The Image as Statistical Average
Nancy Burson
Jason Salavon
A Kind of Alchemy: The Work of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence | AI Post Photography

Diffusion Model
Diffusion Model| Guassian Distribution

MidJourney Project 2

10/17





10/19


Lab
Training Set DataBase
LAOIN5B
Conceptual Captions (CC3M)
YouTube 8M
HaveIbeentrained.com

The Uncanny

MidJourney Project 3

Reference Links


Lev Manovich: Artifical Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI: Media and Design
Evidence: Evidence

Student Projects


To be posted at end of the course