Code&Share[54]: "Decentralised AI Imaging"
Saturday 22nd of February, 13-17
@Kunsthal Aarhus, J. M. Mørks Gade 13, 8000 Aarhus
Workshop lead: Nicolas Malevé

These recent years have been characterized by a strong movement of recentralization towards platforms (Srnicek et al., 2018) and a nearly total monopoly over the infrastructure of large scale computation. This is also true for flagship products of image generation software such as Dall-e or Adobe Firefly. However, the relentless work of communities of developers, enthusiasts and activists has helped create a nascent alternative made of disparate pieces of software, material resources, documentation, forums and counter-lobbies. If during a long period, to inspect state of the art AI models one required the permission of software giants under restrictive conditions, the situation is now changing as the alliance between a large series of smaller actors has reached a critical threshold. The Stable Diffusion ecosystem is a paradigmatic example.

During this session, we will explore the various agents, software, interfaces and datasets that sustain Stable Diffusion as well as the communities involved in the project. Through several small experiments we will test how scripts, models and interfaces can help play with the pipeline of image generation and transform it.

No programming experience is required and it's free of charge. Bring your laptop. We have snacks and drinks.