‘Prompt engineer’ has been touted as a career of the future. But what does that mean, and what really lies at the core of those strange image-summoning incantations?
Prompt Battle comes from its tour of European art festivals to Melbourne for one night only to ask and answer these questions. Join artist Sebastian Schmieg for a live head-to-head AI-image-generation battle, where competitors are invited on stage to creatively slug it out. Come to watch or come to compete!
Need to practice before you compete in Prompt Battle? Visit the execute_photography exhibition at RMIT Gallery from 1 March and start your training with Schmieg's Prompt Battle Training Station (2023).
The original Prompt Battle was developed at HTW Dresden by Sebastian Schmieg, Florian A. Schmidt, Bernadette Geiger, Robert Hellwig, Emily Krause, Levi Stein, Lina Schwarzenberg and Ella Zickerick.
About Sebastian Schmieg
Sebastian Schmieg investigates the algorithmic circulation of images, texts, and bodies. He creates playful interventions that penetrate the shiny surfaces of our networked society and explore the realities that lie behind them. In particular Schmieg focuses on labor, algorithmic management, and artificial intelligence. He works in a wide range of media including video, website, installation, artist book, custom software, lecture performance, and delivery service.
Schmieg studied at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin. His work has been exhibited internationally at Kunsthalle Zürich, The Photographers’ Gallery London, MdbK Leipzig, HeK Basel, and Chronus Art Center Shanghai. Schmieg is a professor for interface design at HTW Dresden. He is based in Berlin.
Learn more about generative AI in this series of videos exploring connections between AI & Art
Is generative AI good or bad for art?
Much like the invention of the Jacquard Loom allowing unskilled labourers to replace artisans, AI gives unskilled people the ability to "create" artworks. Artist Memo Akten asks, is this a good thing for art and society overall, and who benefits?
Is generative AI democratising art?
Electronic music tools like synthesisers and drum machines allowed for the proliferation of new musical genres like Hip Hop and allowed those without access to orchestras to create compositions. However, musicians did lose work. Artist Memo Akten ponders if a similar thing happening with the democratisation of art through generative AI.
Do we really want to live in a world without artists?
Technological advancements have always shifted art – look at photography as a medium. Is the advent of AI any different to the development of cameras, and how they challenged creators who practised their art on canvas and through sculpture? Professor Rebecca Giblin discusses this phenomenon, and how generative AI is only possible because of artists.
The ethics of AI
Australia is one of the first countries to have a set of ethics principles in AI (Artificial Intelligence). Digital strategist Rita Arrigo explores how we translate these principles into practices.