2026w


Instructor


MAT255 Techniques, History & Aesthetics of the Computational Photographic Image
George Legrady | 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 3:30-5:20pm (some lectures may be online) otherwise Lab 2611, 2nd flr, Elings Hall
Course Information
A project-based course introducing the Automata 1111 and the ComfyGUi interfaces to Stable Diffusion, and a time-based AI animation.

Tuesdays will address concepts and critical questions about the impact of generative AI image software on the image, and Thursdays will be dedicated to lab demos, and student project presentations.
Course Workload

 . Sign the Legal agreement
. Attendance and participation at both in class meetings and zoom lectures
. Contribution to the course journal at Student Forum
. Final presentation pdf documentation of either a research paper OR project
01.06

 Course Introduction
AI & Image Knowledge | Human / Machine Art
01.08


Project 1
 		Stable Diffusion Introduction
Automata 1111 [instructions] [beginner's guide] | Access

Studies in Automata1111 (due January 22, 2026)
01.13

01.15
 Prompt Artists | Prompt Engineering

Previous M255 coursework [Selected Examples]
01.20


01.22
 Fundamentals of AI Generative Synthesis
Diffusion Model | Diffusion Explainer | Diffusion Model Video | Guassian Distribution | Latent Space

Project 1 Presentations
01.27

01.29
 ComfyGUI: Summary | Tutorial-Documentation | GitHub | Demos | Shaw presentation

Lab Demo
02.03

02.05
 LORA [1] [2]|  Flux1.dev |

Project 2 Work-in-progress discussion
02.10

02.12
 Img Research | Aesthetic Primitives

Project 2 Work-in-progress discussion
02.17

02.19
 Training Sets: LAOIN-5B | HaveIbeentrained.com | Conceptual Captions (CC3M) | YouTube 8M |

Project 2 Presentations (ComfyGUI)
02.24

02.26 		DAAM (Cross Attention) | Step-wise Analysis in Stable Diffusion (Shaw research)

Project 3 Work-in-progress discussion
03.03

03.05
 Runway | Gemini Google | Stable Video Diffusion

Project 3 Work-in-progress discussion
03.10

03.12
 Lab Production

Project 3 Work-in-progress discussion
03.17

03.19
 Lab Production

Time-Based Animation Project Presentations
Misc Reference Links
Lev Manovich
Payton Croskey Suggestion
Charlie Price Suggestion
Fani Harid
Noam Elcott
Fabian Offert
Katrina Sluis
A questionnaire on Art and Machine Learning
Artificial Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI: Media and Design
Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model [research paper] |  Models All the Way Down
The Weird and the Eerie (Marc Fisher) | Unheimliche / Uncanny
TED talk | UC Berkeley | Interview (start around 13:00)
AI Imaging
The Method of Critical AI Sudies, A Propaedeutic
Image Generation in the Google Research Lab
Student Projects
Final Projects Documentations