Description:

This event will explore the role of AI in creative performance contexts. Panelists Thomas DeFrantz, Duri Long, and Ozge Samanci discuss opportunities for AI to expand creative possibilities in performance, challenges presented by live interaction with AI technology, and ethical issues surrounding the use of AI in creative performance. After short presentations and a moderated group discussion, the event will close with a live showcase of a performance project that creatively operationalizes AI. 

Dr. Thomas DeFrantz, Professor, Performance Studies and Theatre, directs SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology; the group explores emerging technology in live performance applications. He believes in our shared capacity to do better and engage creative spirit for a collective good that is anti-racist, proto-feminist, and queer affirming. He convenes the Black Performance Theory working group as well as the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a growing consortium of 325 researchers committed to exploring Black dance practices in writing. 

Dr. Duri Long, Assistant Professor, Communications Studies, is a human-centered AI researcher interested in issues surrounding AI literacy and human-AI interaction. Dr. Long’s research looks at how humans interact and learn as a way of informing the design of public AI literacy interventions as well as the development of AI that can interact naturally and improvise creatively with people in complex social environments. She employs a variety of methodologies and theoretical frameworks in her research, drawing on the learning sciences, design research, and cognitive science. She has experience working with artists and museums around the country to develop co-creative, embodied exhibits and art installations involving AI and technology.  

Dr. Ozge Samanci, Associate Professor, Radio/Television/Film, is a media and comic artist. Her areas of interest include interactive media art, installation art, virtual reality storytelling, interaction design, full-body interaction, location-based art, comics and graphic novels. Her recent interactive art installations have roots in the natural sciences and explore the tendency of human beings to perceive themselves above all ecosystems. 

Sponsored by the Provost’s Generative AI Advisory Committee