Playing with Generative AI: Remix + AI

This image is one of my experiments using Midjourney for a project with my colleague, Vicki Callahan, which was funded by the USC Center for Generative AI’s AI in Media and Storytelling. We explored the potential for remix video as well as project documentation using GenAI. This image represents my effort to reproduce a still from one of my remix videos.

This image, in particular, is notable since it includes all the hands on the clock, something that wasn’t a given in the past as these generators leave these details, like the fingers on a human hand, out.

I’m continuing this work for my sabbatical project during the fall of 2024 and I began some earlier work around ChatGPT for this In Media Res week titled, ChatGPT and the Spectre of Authorship. Normally posts are released each weekday for one themed week, but the IMR editors asked for all posts at once, which they then asked ChatGPT to recreate. and to picture us (!).

The Mona Lisa Remixed

Part of my efforts focus on project documentaion. My students (myself) often fail to create good documentation in the process of creating an exciting project. I thought perhaps using a well known ‘project’ would help and indeed, GPT plus generated a great set of instructions for documented it. Less effective was my attempt to remix the Mona Lisa with a safely pin in her nose in the style of the Sex Pistoil’s image of the Queen.

Another (failed but fun) Remix

This 4 second video was an attempt to recreate a portion of one of my remix videos, as above, but this time, with some movement. I was looking at a sequence I used that is supposed to represent the evolution of humans, via figures emerging from the swamp (at about 02:09). Once I got a few figures emerging, via RunwayML, I began shifting the look at feel of the figures, finally using cats (given their online ubiquity and because they are just fun!).