Teaching the Arts in the Age of A.I.: A Symposium

Cost for attendance is $100. UMD faculty, students and staff can attend the symposium for FREE! Register with your UMD email address. 
 

Cambria Hotel College Park
8321 Baltimore Ave, College Park, MD 20740
(301) 615-9889

Pricing is $189.00 per night for a standard king for January 21 and January 22, 2025 for symposium attendees.

Reserve rooms for symposium attendance here or call the Cambria hotel and ask for the UMD A.I. Symposium room block.

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Other suggested accommodations:

College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center
3501 University Blvd E, Hyattsville, MD 20783
(301) 985-7300
Book online

About the Keynote Address

Join Matthew Niederhauser as he explores the transformative role of artificial intelligence in reshaping artistic practices through his recent work Parallels, Tulpamancer, and The Golden Key. This talk delves into how AI-driven tools are enabling new forms of interactivity and storytelling, redefining the boundaries of creative expression. The keynote will examine practical approaches for integrating AI into creative research, offering insights into current tools, methodologies, and future possibilities.

About the Speaker

Matthew Niederhauser is an artist and educator. His work pushes the limits of emerging AI and XR technologies within a wide range of mediums, exploring concepts that blur the digital and physical through interactive experiences and dynamic immersive storytelling. His background in anthropology and photography first led to contributions to The New Yorker, Wired, and The New York Times along with stints as a Pulitzer Center Grantee, Visiting Artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology (CAST) and Member of NEW INC. Now, when not focusing on installations that have premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Sundance, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, and IDFA DocLab, Matthew also acts as the Technical Director at Onassis ONX in New York.

Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering
8125 Paint Branch Drive, College Park MD 20742

8:00 - 9:00 a.m. | Registration and Welcome Breakfast
Lobby of Iribe Center

9:00 - 9:15 a.m. |  Kick-off Greeting
IRB 0324, Michael Antonov Auditorium, Ground Floor

9:15 - 10:30 a.m. | Expert Panel Presentation 
Transforming Artistic Education in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
IRB 0324, Michael Antonov Auditorium, Ground Floor

A wide ranging conversation on the impact of AI on the arts and arts education.  Three experts in the field will kick off the symposium, exploring how AI will impact the creative sectors in the coming years. They will also discuss how individual educators and educational institutions could and should adapt their academic programs to the increasing use of AI in artistic practice.

Moderators: 
Craig Kier
Nettrice Gaskins 
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram 
Ben Knapp

11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. | Break-out Sessions

Opportunities and Limits: Integrating AI into Design Studio Pedagogy
IRB 1207, First Floor

This session showcases a University of Maryland Architecture faculty team's grant-funded research on using generative AI in design education. They will present two week-long modules from Fall 2024 undergraduate design studios that explored text-to-image AI for iterative ideation and visualization. The team will share student work, tool testing methods, survey results, iteration metrics, and reflections on the outcomes from this approach. They will also describe their recent work that explores their 'text-to-image-to-building' process, which aims to productively interrogate text-to-image AI’s shortcomings in representing unconventional materials and credible construction methods to inform future design pedagogies. Dialog around all of these approaches and ideas is invited.

Moderators:
Britt Williams
Micheal Ezban
Lindsay May

Critically Creative/Creatively Critical: Writing Classrooms in the Age of AI
IRB 1116, First Floor

This session examines how we can design pedagogies that continue to elevate what we value in the critical processes of creative and analytical writing such that AI can be a tool, but not a requirement or necessity. Educators Evie Atkinson (Utah), Lillian-Yvonne Bertram (UMD), and Carly Schnitzler (JHU) respectively discuss creating Oulipian classrooms for creative writing, creative coding in MFA writing programs, and thoughtfully engaging language models in undergraduate writing program curricula.

Moderators:
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram 
Evie Atkinson
Carly Schnitzler

12:15 - 1:30 p.m. | Lunch - Networking & Demonstrations
Lobby of Iribe Center

Grab lunch in the Iribe lobby and stop by the Immersive Media Lab to check out demonstrations of a range of multidisciplinary projects made possible through the use of AI. 

Presentations by:
COMMIT! | Kate Ladenheim, Cornelia Fermuller, Snehesh Shrestha, and Siyuan Peng 
Arctic Sea Ice Reconstruction Applications for Neural Radiance Fields | Cy Keener and Russell Shomberg
Mindgrub | Kevin Giffhorn
vAIolin | Snehesh Shrestha, Irina Muresanu, and Cornelia Fermuller

1:30 - 3:00 p.m. | Group Sessions with Expert Panelists

Embodied AI Encounters in Performance Education and Research 
IRB 1207, First Floor

In this session, we will hear from highly interdisciplinary researchers currently embedded in performance arts units at UMD, UCLA, and the University of Florida. Their work collectively spans choreography, design, neurobiology, and AI with numerous projects happening on and off the stage. With a focus on embodied AI encounters in performance education and research, the session will not only highlight the presenters’ inspiring research, which ranges from game and media design to performance experiences, but also the practical ways they integrate their research learnings into the classroom.   

Moderators:
Lins Derry
Heidi Boisvert
Kate Ladenheim

AI and the Art of Visual Storytelling 
IRB 1116, First Floor

Explore the transformative role of AI in visual storytelling as a tool and collaborator, reshaping narrative design and dynamic storytelling. This session delves into AI-driven creative workflows, showcasing a case study from a Visual Storytelling course where students utilized AI for visual communication design, including ideation, storyboarding, key visuals, motion graphics, and sound. The discussions will cover teaching strategies, ethical implications of AI in art, its role in democratizing expression, and its impact on reshaping creative processes.

Moderator:
Alireza Vaziri

Panelists:
Eric Milikin
Jason Gottlieb
Nettrice Gaskins

*Break - Time to travel to The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center*

3:45 - 5:15  - AI Onstage: Performing Arts Showcase / DANCE2 & Orange Grove Dance
The Dance Theatre

The creative teams behind the dance pieces, A&I and DANCE2, will share excerpts from the performances and discuss how AI has informed their creative practice and productions. 

5:15 - 6:30 -  Reception
The Kogod Theatre

Meet your fellow attendees for informal networking and continued conversation about the intersection of AI and arts education at our first-day mixer. 

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
8270 Alumni Drive, College Park, MD 20742-1625

8:00 - 9:00 a.m. | Coffee & Breakfast Networking
Lobby Atrium of The Clarice

9:00 - 10:00 a.m.  |  Keynote Speaker: World Building: New Creative Potentials in AI
The Gildenhorn Recital Hall

Join Matthew Niederhauser as he explores the transformative role of artificial intelligence in reshaping artistic practices through his recent work Parallels, Tulpamancer, and The Golden Key. This talk delves into how AI-driven tools are enabling new forms of interactivity and storytelling, redefining the boundaries of creative expression. The keynote will examine practical approaches for integrating AI into creative research, offering insights into current tools, methodologies, and future possibilities.

10:15 - 11:15 a.m. | Presentation: Funding Opportunities for AI and the Arts
Gildenhorn Recital Hall

Presentations by:
Jax Deluca, Media Arts Director, Visual Arts Division, National Endowment for the Arts
Allyson Kennedy, Program Director, Computer and Network Systems, National Science Foundation

11:15 - 12:15 p.m.  | Presentation: Creativity, Empathy and AI: A Report from the a2ru Conference Working Group
Gildenhorn Recital Hall

A report from the organizers on the results from the a2ru 2024 Creativity, Empathy and AI: A National Summit on The Human-AI Creative Partnership. The Summit brought together practitioners and educators at the nexus of creativity and AI, to focus on advancing human-computer creative partnerships to transform participatory teaching, learning and creative practice.

Presentations by:
Ben Knapp 
Aaron Knochel

12:15  - 1:15  | Lunch
Atrium Lobby of The Clarice

1:15 - 2:30 | Group Sessions with Expert Panelists

Algorithmic Bias and AI Art
Leah Smith Recital Hall

A critical exploration of how artificial intelligence intersects with race and creativity, often perpetuating systemic biases that shape cultural narratives. AI systems, rooted in biased data and algorithms, can marginalize certain voices while privileging others. Research suggests that user-level interventions may encourage greater diversity in the output. We will examine the need for inclusive datasets, culturally responsive design, intentional prompt engineering, and equitable collaboration between artists and technologists.

Panelists:
Nettrice Gaskins
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Amplifying Musical Potential: AI Tools for Technique and Creativity
The Gildenhorn Recital Hall

AI tools hold immense promise and challenges for musicians and music educators. This panel will share AI tools created by researchers to help educators and musicians improve technique, collaboration, and composition. These tools aim to help musicians be more self-sufficient and to provide accessible resources to under-served populations. 

Panelists:
Sam Crawford 
Ben Guerrero
Snehesh Shrestha 
Cornelia Fermuller
Irina Muresanu

2:45 - 4:30 p.m. | Closing Session: Best Practices, Principles, and Tools Share Out
Gildenhorn Recital Hall

To close out Teaching the Arts in the Age of AI, we will come together to share the information gathered in the symposium’s breakout sessions.  These takeaways will be collected into a digital document for future use and reference. 

Moderator:
Craig Kier