Spv: Petra Jääskeläinen
Project 1: Critical or speculative design research: re-imagining the future of Creative AI tools
Description of the project
Throughout history, artists have worked with different kinds of tools; brushes and paint, sculpture, photoshop, video editing tools, etc. Many artists are currently exploring the next development: using AI-enabled tools in their artistic practice. The purpose of this project is to develop speculative prototypes; to explore what kind of AI-powered tools there could exist for artists in the future. Relevant questions are; how could artistic practice look like in the era of AI? What kind of creative possibilities could AI-powered tools open up to artists? And furthermore, how could these future tools support ethical commitments (such as accessible design for disadvantaged artists, environmental sustainability, or even finding ethical ways to work with artists data)? The designed prototype does not need to be fully functional, but rather to present a concept that critically imagines different possibilities or scenarios of how these tools might look like and how they might be used by artists - and incorporating critical perspectives that go beyond imagining technological capability.
Methods
Speculative design approach will be used to materialize the imagined prototypes/scenarios, and the prototypes will be explored in collaboration with artists to get their feedback on it throughout the process. The research approach is research through design, speculative design methods, and potentially accompanied by other qualitative research methods.
Initial references
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Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming (book) – Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
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Speculative design project examples:
blog.depositphotos.com/speculative-design.html
Supervisor: Petra Jääskeläinen
Project 2: Designing Creative AI for nonhumans
Description of the project
AI-enabled tools are becoming common for artistic and creative purposes (Creative AI). At the same time, there is an increasing amount of HCI research that explores posthuman design, and alternative ways of designing technology involving nonhuman stakeholders, such as "human-plant interaction" and "human-animal interaction". The purpose of this project is to design a novel interaction or experience design that incorporates nonhuman stakeholders (such as grass, birds, chairs, moss, trees, etc.) with Creative AI. How would a nonhuman Creative AI interaction look like? How could nonhumans make use of Creative AI? The purpose of this project is to explore (possibly through posthuman design) how nonhuman stakeholders could interact with and make use of Creative AI.
Methods
Research through-design, speculative design, posthuman design
Initial references
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Exploring More-than-Human Caring in Creative-Ai Interactions
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Data Ethics and Practices of Human-Nonhuman Sound Technologies and Ecologies
Supervisor: Petra Jääskeläinen
Project 3: Design of Creative AI interactions for environmental sustainability
Description of the project
Throughout history, artists have worked with different kinds of tools; brushes and paint, sculpture, photoshop, video editing tools, etc. Some artists are currently exploring the next development: using AI-enabled tools in their artistic practice. However, the environmental impact of AI artistic practice and the energy usage of these tools is not a factor that many artists are taking into account in their everyday practices. The purpose of this project is to explore how sustainability reflection could be approached in the design of Creative AI prototypes. What design characteristics could inform, facilitate, or orient artists towards less wasteful ways of using Creative AI technologies? How could artists understand their resource usage? The prototypes do not need to be fully functional, but rather to explore potential design characteristics and concepts for these tools – and test how they might be perceived by artists.
Methods
HCI approaches will be used to develop, explore and test the prototypes with artists to understand their perception of the design. The research approach is research through design, using prototyping, and potentially accompanied by other qualitative research methods.
Initial references
Supervisor: Petra Jääskeläinen
Project 4: Energy measurement of Creative AI technologies
Description of the project
Many artists are currently exploring AI-enabled tools in their artistic practice. However, the environmental impact of AI artistic practice and the energy usage of these tools is a factor that is not well known. The purpose of this project is to explore sustainability of Creative-AI tools or technologies. What is the energy consumption of various AI models in different stages of the project lifecycle (training and deployment)? How could we use AI in creative practice in less wasteful ways in terms of energy consumption? The project involves training, running, measuring, and comparing the electricity consumption of various AI technologies used by the artists. It is required to have experience in machine learning to engage in this project (prior experience of training and running the models).
Methods
Quantitative energy measurements and evaluation of AI technologies.
Initial references
Supervisor: Petra Jääskeläinen