Ascenti: Humans Opening to AI

“The Ascenti-AI Project” explores the question: How might professionals in the creative arts collaborate with AI programs to discover new tools and techniques for their work? The overall project encompasses a book, Ascenti: Humans Opening to AI, a dedicated website at ascenti-project.com, a two-day symposium, and "The Ascenti Exhibition of Original Human and AI Art." The Ascenti book features a lineup of creatives who specialize in visual art, writing (prose, poetry, and playwriting), animation, audiobook performance, sound design, and videogames. They experiment with AI by making original works within their respective artistic mediums, inspiring an AI program(s) to generate works based on prompts derived from their original creations, and then evaluate the AI-generated output. Then they interpret AI’s potential to enhance their original works or ways AI helps them overcome visual or other challenges. Alternatively, the creatives might express downsides of AI.

Lorene Shyba is publisher at Durvile & UpRoute Books and editor of the Artist Survival series. Her PhD in Interactive Media is from the University of Calgary. She lives in the wilds of the Southern Alberta foothills.

James R. Parker is a professor of art at the University of Calgary and an expert in multimedia and game design. Jim is author of Generative Art: Algorithms as Artistic Tool and other books on digital art, video games, and generative art. He also writes science fiction.

Steve DiPaola, is a professor, artist, and scientist at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University. He is a pioneer in AI based computational creativity exploring the marriage of cognitive science and artificial intelligence-based modelling.