Dates:

November 2nd and 3rd 2023

Place:

The in-person event will be held at the John and Anne Sofarelli Family Gallery—School of Architecture (registration warrants entry)

To Join online, please register, and you will receive a link to join online.

The conference attendance is free of charge, but requires registration.

Register for attending in-person: link

Register for attending online: link

Performing Plays: Facing the challenge of automated craftmanship

moderated by Lee-Su Huang

David Pye extolled the virtues of a "workmanship of risk", carried out by the practiced hand of the artisan, thereby conferring value to the resultant artifact. Faced with the deluge of options and possibilities presented by AI, and the seemingly endless noncommittal flirtation with potential, is AI architecture repeating the era of "paper" architecture in its intellectual rigor but practical marginalization? How can AI automation help us take risks and confront the challenge of substantiating and realizing these hallucinations? This panel will explore methods of digital craftsmanship to bring these visions to life, and how AI methods can augment and automate both the "conceptualizing" and the "building" of the built environment.

Pierluigi D’Acunto

Igor Pantic

Benjamin Ennemoser 

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Sculpting Images: Engendering a geometry in the free-form and free-structure condition

moderated by: Adil Bokhari

The panel will discuss ways of articulating projects, specifically architectural projects, in the realm of contemporary, artificially intelligent imaging technologies. Sculpted faces that can begin to converse, wihtout being exhausted by their constitutive technologies. Bodies of knowledge that can begin to travel, without being reduced into singular systems. Mechanical constellations that can begin to move, without being caged within definitions.

How can disparate images that are simultaneously simulated, generated, sensed, and documented can be brought into composure? How can the myriad analog and digital technologies that shape architectural renderings and drawings be hosted in a new scale of geometry beyond representations and illustrations? How can an instrumentality be fabricated beyond the realm of the visible and the sensible?

Laure Michelon

Riccardo Villa

Agostino Nickl

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Texting Symbols: Negentropic writing beyond the planetary common sense

moderated by: Nikola Marincic

The remarkable output fidelity of recent large-language and text-to-image models evolved into par excellence rhetoric instruments, catching even the strictest techno-skeptics off guard. However, their ability to imitate, reword, and recontextualize information relies entirely on the existing corpus of human-generated work. They cannot plan, reason, or invent but are more than willing to sway us with their persuasive abilities. In a world inundated with images, an idea expressed symbolically, with its near-infinite degrees of freedom and potential for imagining what cannot yet be formulated, remains a crucial stronghold against anti-intellectual and anti-emancipatory efforts such powerful models could potentially endorse. This panel aims to discuss modalities of human/machine emancipation by symbolic means.

Vera Bühlmann

Michael Doyle

Philippe Morel

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Staging Machines: Immunizing tactics for sustaining constructive alienations

moderated by Karla Saldana Ochoa

"Staging Machines" hints at the spectacle before us – a spectacle of technology transforming the world around us. This panel will present provoking approaches and tactics that immunize our societies against the potentially alienating effects of this technological revolution and, instead, channel/bridge these energies towards constructive and imaginative ends. In this era of artificial intelligence, automation, and digital storytelling, the boundaries between creator and creation, reality and fiction, constantly shift. The panelists, designers, artists, and storytellers will address questions about data and the power of machines to design, narrate, and reimagine our world.

Julian Besems

Heidi Boisvert 

Tina Tallon

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November 2nd, 2023

9:45 – 10:00             

Welcome Dr. Chinemelu J. Anumba

Introduction Karla Saldana Ochoa

10:00 – 1:15

Performing Plays

Moderator: Lee-Su Huang

Pierluigi D’Acunto / TU Munich / Germany

Igor Pantic / The Bartlett / England

Benjamin Ennemoser / Texas A&M / USA

13:15 – 14:30    

Lunch

14:30 – 17:45

Sculpting Images

Moderator: Adil Bokhari

Agostino Nickl / ETH Zurich /Switzerland

Laure Michelon / UCLA / USA

16:30 – 16:45             

Coffee break

16:45 - 17:45

Riccardo Villa / TU Vienna / Austria

17:45         

Poster competition exhibit at the gallery

November 3rd, 2023

9:45 – 10:00             

Welcome Dr. David Rifkind

Introduction Karla Saldana Ochoa

10:00 – 13:15

Texting Symbols

Moderator: Nikola Marincic

Vera Bühlmann / TU Vienna / Austria

Michael Doyle / Universite Laval / Canada

Philippe Morel / The Bartlett / England

13:15 – 14:30            

Lunch

14:30 – 16:15 

Staging Machines

Moderator: Karla Saldana Ochoa

Tina Tallon / University of Florida / USA

Julian Besems / The Bartlett / England

16:30 – 16:45             

Coffee break

16:45 – 17:45

Heidi Boisvert / University of Florida / USA

17:45             

Final Discussion

Playing Models Image Competition 2023

Call for Submissions:

The Playing Models Conference at the University of Florida proudly presents its 2nd Iteration and is excited to announce a special Image Competition as part of this year's proceedings.

Theme: Synthetic Vision

Submissions are invited of works crafted using AI-based imaging methods such as Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and more.

Eligibility:

• Open to any student from any university worldwide.

• Images should be generated primarily through AI methods.

• Post-processing and further post-production enhancements are encouraged.

Submission Guidelines:

• Submit a series of 5 images in A3 format, maintaining a resolution of 300 dpi.

• Each Participant can submit multiple series.

• Each Series should also have a unique title and be tagged with 5 hashtags.

• Each series must include an accompanying text of 100-200 words. This text should ideally complement and expand upon the image series rather than merely describing it. You are free to incorporate quotations, emojis, and more.

• Please note: Description of tools, prompts, and methods of composition is *not* mandatory.

• Files should be in .png format.

Exhibition Details:

Location: John and Anne Sofarelli Family Gallery—School of Architecture, UF

The exhibition will span the entirety of the conference (11/2-11/3), and will be featured on the Playing Models website.

Prizes:

• A chance to have your work exhibited at the Playing Models Conference.

• Cash prizes of $500 USD.

• A collection of books related to the conference's theme.

Submit your posters and be a part of this exciting showcase at the forefront of AI, Architecture, and Art. Join us in expanding the boundaries of what AI can create and how we interpret it.

Link to submission

Deadline for Submissions: 22nd of October, 2023 23:59 EST

For further queries contact: playingmodels@gmail.com