This year, we were pleased to partner with Kingston’s School of Art to run an elective for their MA Illustration, Animation, and Graphic Design students to create their own ‘better images of AI’. Following this collaboration, some of the student’s images have been published in our library for anyone to use freely. Their images focus on communicating different ideas about the current state of AI – from the connection between the technology and gender oppression to breaking down the interactions between humans and AI chatbots.
In this blog post, we speak to Jane Cheadle who is the course leader for the MA Animation course at Kingston School of Art about partnering with Better Images of AI for the elective. The MA is a new course and it is focussed on critical and research-led animation design processes.
If you’re interested in running a similar module/elective or incorporating Better Images of AI’s work into your university course, we would love to hear from you – please contact info@betterimagesofai.org.
How did the collaboration with Better Images of AI come about?
AI is having an impact on various industries and the creative domain is no exception. Jane explains how she and the staff in the department were asked to work towards developing a strategy addressing the use of AI in the design school. At the same time, Jane was also in contact with Alan Warburton – a creator that works with various technologies, including computer generated imagery, AI, virtual reality, and augmented reality to develop art. Alan introduced Jane to Better Images of AI and she became interested in the work that we are doing, and how this linked to their future strategy for the use of AI in the design school.
Therefore, instead of solely creating rules about the use of AI in the school, Jane thought that working with the students to explore the challenges, limits, and benefits of the technology would be more meaningful as it would provide better learning opportunities for the students (as well as herself!) about this topic.
Where does the elective fit within the school’s curriculum?
Kingston University’s Town House Strategy aims to prepare graduates for advances in technology which will alter our future society and workplaces. The strategy aims to equip students with enhanced entrepreneurial, digital, and creative problem-solving skills so they can better advance their careers and professional practice. As part of this strategy, Kingston University encourages collaboration and partnership with businesses and external bodies to help advance student’s knowledge and awareness of the different aspects of the working world.
As part of this, the Kingston School of Art runs a cross-disciplinary design module open to students from three different MA courses (Graphic Design, Illustration, and Animation). In this module, students are asked to think about the role of the designer now, and what it might look like in the future. The goal is to prompt students to situate their creative practice within the contemporary paradigms of precarity and uncertainty, providing space for students to understand and address issues such as climate literacy, design education, and the future of work. There are multiple electives within this module and each works with a partner external to the university.
Better Images of AI were fortunate enough to be approached by Jane to be the external partner for their elective. This elective was run by Jane as well as researcher and artist, Maybelle Peters. Jane explains that this module had a dual aim: firstly, to allow students to develop better images of AI which could be published to our library. But also, secondly, to educate students about AI and its impact on society. For Jane, it was important that when exploring AI, this was applied to the student’s own practice and positionality so they could understand how AI is influencing the creative industry as well as political, power structures more broadly.
How did the elective run?
Jane shares that there was a real divide amongst the students about their familiarity with AI and its wider context. Some students had been dabbling with AI tools and wanted to develop a position on its creative and ethical use. Meanwhile, others were not using AI at all and expressed being somewhat weary of it, alongside a real sense of amorphous fear around automated image generation and other capabilities that impact the markets for their creative works.
Better Images of AI worked with the Kingston School of Art to provide a brief for the elective, and students also used our Guide to help them understand the problems with current stock imagery that is used to illustrate AI so they could avoid these common tropes in their own work.
Following this, the students worked in special interest groups to research different aspects of AI. Each group then used this research to develop practical workshops to run with the wider class. This enabled the students to develop their own better images of AI based on what they had learnt from leading and participating in workshops and research tasks. Better Images of AI also visited Kingston School of Art to provide guidance and feedback to the students in the development stages of their images.
Some of the images that were submitted as part of the elective can be seen below. Each image shows a thoughtful approach and are so varied in nature – some are super low-fi and others are hilarious – but all the students drew upon their own design/drawing/making skills to develop their unique images.
Why did you think it was important to partner with Better Images of AI for this elective?
As designers and image makers, we agreed that there is a responsibility to accurately and responsibly represent aspects of the world, such as AI. It was important to allow students to work with real constraints and build towards a future that they want to live in. While the brief provided to the students was to create images that accurately represent what AI looks like right now, much of the student workshops focussed on what kind of AI they wanted to see, what safeguards need to be put in place, and what power relations we might need to change in order to get there.
Jane Cheadle (she/they) is an animator, researcher and educator. Jane is currently senior lecturer and MA Animation course leader in the design school at Kingston School of Art. Both of Jane’s practice and research are cross-disciplinary and experimental with a focus on drawing, collaboration and expanded animation.
We are super thankful to Jane and Maybelle as well as the Kingston School of Art for incorporating Better Images of AI into their elective. We are so appreciative to all the students who participated in the module and shared their work with us. Jane is excited to hopefully run the elective again and we are looking forward to more work together with the students and staff at Kingston School of Art.
This blog post is the first in a series of posts about Better Images of AI collaboration with the Kingston School of Art. In a series of mini interview blog posts, we speak to three students that participated in the elective and designed their own better images of AI. Some of the student’s images even feature in our library – you can view them here.
