Hegemony eroding: a hands-on GenAI workshop on how to excavate diversity from latent space

Zusammenfassung

Generative AI models ingest huge datasets gathered all over the web. Hence, they reflect decades of western cultural dominance. Yet, there are cracks through which diversity seeps through. I invite you to explore those cracks and to reflect on the blurred line between prejudice and representation.

Diversität

This is FUN

Zivilgesellschaft

Kunst & Kultur

Makerspace

27.05.2025 17:30

– 18:30

Workshop

Englisch

Conference

Please bring your own laptops.
The workshop will consist of three parts.

Introduction (30min)
We start with the basics of GenAI models and latent space. Then discuss how to find non-western motifs (motif meaning a - often culturally resonant - recurring visual theme, figure, or pattern) using input images and culturally neutral prompting. Then, we'll dive into our understanding of online representation of cultures, brainstorm new motifs and ways to access them.

Practical part (60min)
At this point, we'll split into groups and generate pictures and videos using the services listed below. The goal is to find the new motifs and reproduce them across different services.

Conclusion (30min)
Finally, we'll compile and review the results of our exploration. We'll assess how comprehensible and reproducible our new motifs are and enter a discussion on legitimate cultural representation vs western prejudice.

Services:
Runway ML, Krea AI, Vidu AI, Luma Dream Machine, LTX Studio, Stable Diffusion, DALL·E, Midjourney

Hegemony eroding is an ongoing art project I started in the D#AVANTGARDE GenAI Lab at the art&tech Hackathon Schmiede24.

hegemony-eroding.make-gyver.de

Karim

Hamdi