What do giraffes dream of?
An exploration into Art AI with the children of Preston Street Primary School
In 2021 I set up and ran a project in conjunction with Preston street Primary School and the OMNi Centre in Edinburgh. The project aimed to introduce the children (aged 11-12) to A.I. Art and capture their imaginations as to it’s possibilities. I tasked them first with making creative writing from the prompt “What do giraffes dream of?” then introduced them to Big Sleep by Ryan Murdock to create supporting artwork for their writing. The resulting works and poems were put on display at OMNi, whose sculpture “Dreaming Spires” inspired the prompt.
Creative Writing Prompt
The children first wrote poems, short stories and creative writing pieces from the prompt “What do giraffes dream of?”. The prompt was inspired by the Sculpture “Dreaming Spires” by Helen Denerley at OMNi, Edinburgh, combined with the name of the A.I. we were using “Big Sleep”.
2. Big Sleep.
Big Sleep is an Art AI designed by Ryan Murdock, it generates artwork based on a given text prompt. It does this by using two neural networks, BigGAN and CLIP, in essence one half of the program creates an image, the second half compares the image with the prompt it has been given, then the two sides discuss and repeat the cycle refining the image over many iterations.
It handles “in the style of” prompts particularly well, so the school took the opportunity to get the children researching different artists. Georgia O’Keefe, Banksy, Osamu Tezuka and Annie Leibovitz were all selected among many others.
The image on the right, featured in the display, was generated from the prompt:
Tall green plants in the style of Andy Warhol
