KISDtalk with Ludwig Zeller: Between Images

Between Images: Visual Deep Learning in the Arts.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence research have unleashed a torrent of novel imagery in both computer science and the arts. The lecture will introduce into the basics of this new iconic culture situated “between the images” by giving an overview of the most popular approaches to visual deep learning.
Among these, especially “text to image”-based methods have improved rapidly in the recent past not the least because of a vibrant open-source scene. Such neural networks can often transform complex, fantastic and even obscure image descriptions into coherent, visual results. High-resolution, photorealistic images of imaginary things can now be created by simple text inputs. Obviously, this raises a number of questions for the arts – is this a competition to human creative labor or just a new kind of tool?

Ludwig Zeller is a lecturer and researcher at the Academy of Art and Design HGK FHNW in Basel. In his work he explores the connections between technology and society through both theoretical and practical methods, blurring supposedly clear disciplinary boundaries between media studies and artistic research. In 2019 Ludwig Zeller led an educational project that integrated deep learning into the curriculum of the HGK FHNW. Recent research projects include “OpenSoundLab”, an open-source mixed-reality sound laboratory for the arts, and “Sonic Imagination”, an aesthetic research project that queried sonic spatialization as a medium for (meta-)speculative design.